Carboy

My homebrewing misadventures

Back at it

Making beer for a cause

In recent years, I've been spending more of my time running than making beer, so it's been a while. But I finally had a good excuse to make some more beer. My wife has been raising money for our local YMCA, which is an amazing force in our community, especially in the past year. So as an incentive for her campaign, she offered her biggest donor some homebrewed beer.

For the generous, we decided to make a Helles. It had been a long time, so I forgot that to do this as an all-grain, I'd need to do a somewhat complicated series of step infusions. After a little bit of math, thanks to handy dandy calculator, I managed to sort it all out. We'll find out for certain in two months after it finishes lagering.

Bavarian Helles step infusion

Lager, All-Grain

5 gallon batch

Ingredients

Grains
9.5 lbs, Pilsner (2-Row) German
0.75 lbs, Cara-Pils/Dextrine

Hops
1 ozs Hallertauer, 60 mins
1 ozs, Hallertauer Hersbrucker, 15 mins

Yeasts
Munich Lager, Wyeast Labs 2308

Mash schedule

Add 7.18 qt (0.7 qt/lb) water @ 136.3° F
Protein Rest, 20 min @ 122.0° F
Add 4 qt boiling water
Beta Saccharification Rest, 30 min @ 149 .0° F
Add 2.2 qt boiling water
Alpha Saccharification Rest, 30 min @ 158.0° F
Add 4.4 qt boiling water
Mashout, 10 min @ 170.0° F
Sparge with 18.45 qt ( 1.80 qt/lb ) of 170.0° F water

Fermentation schedule

Primary, 14 days @ 52.0° F
Diacetyl rest, 2 days @ 63.0° F
Secondary, 28 days @ 44.0° F
Bottle/Keg, 14 days @ 74.0° F

Stats

  • IBU: 25.16
  • ABV: 3.5%
  • Boil Size: 6.5 gal
  • Boil Time: 60 minutes
  • Estimated Preboil OG: 1.045
  • Actual Postboil OG: 1.048
  • Efficiency: 70%

Stats by iBrewmaster

By Tom on 03/28/2021

Stage: Brewing


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