When I went home for a summer vacation, I asked my dad if we could brew together.  He pulled one of his favorite recipes from the Homebrewer’s Companion, and away we went!

Brewer’s Notes

It was a great opportunity to brew with my dad, as I remember him brewing back when I was in high school.  This is the first recipe I’ve done from this book, and that I’ve done on his system.  This is a pretty complex brew, with a 3-step mash, and home-toasting 0.5lbs of 2-row pale malt, which we didn’t do.  Also, as a Marzen, this beer should be lagered, which we can’t do either.  We were able to use the oven to hold temperatures during the mash, so that should have been reasonably consistent.  As the strainer wasn’t large enough to hold all of the grain, we batch sparged 2x, ending up with 2.25gal of wort.  Added .75gal water to bring up to a 3.0gal boiling volume, and finished with about 2.5gal.  Added another 2.75gal water to a gravity reading of 1.068, but with heavy dissolved solids since the hops were placed freely in the wort.  I would expect that as those settled out, the gravity reading should go down closer to the target.

Allowing the solids to settle resulted in a dark amber brew with molasses and malt taste.  The chocolate malt doesn’t come through.  There is no hop aroma, and a light bitterness at the finish.  Since this beer is fermenting back east, I won’t have the same data as a brew on my own system, but we should be able to update when it’s done.

Mashing In

Sparging

Testing the Wort

OG: 1.068 @ ~70F, target 1.054
FG:  @ F, target 1.017

Fermenting Notes

Primary

Target Temperature range: 55F

Secondary

Target Temperature:45F

Tasting Notes

Recipe