Le Maibock

[mashani]

2.5 gallons of Maibock like substance with French hops because I have lot of them and I like them.

EDIT recipe, as I didn't have the darker Munich I thought I had, so I went with the Shill which although a bit lighter is tasty stuff anyways.

PM at 154:

1.50# Shill German Dark Munich (around 10L)
0.25# 2-row
0.25# Carafoam
3oz Honey Malt

Added 3# MoreBeer Pils extract

1/4oz French Armais @60
1/4oz French Armais @20
1/2oz French Armais @flameout

Cool, pitch pack of S-189 Swiss Lager yeast. I pitched at 57, it will ferment between 57-59.

OG 1.066.

[mashani]

Well this fermented mostly at 58-59.

And this is in the bottle at 1.017. It stopped there after 10 days, and that's where it stayed. It didn't need a D-Rest, and it has no sulfur taste. It also floc'd out nicely, and bottled pretty clear. The yeast cake was kind of huge - higher then my spigot - so I had to use my auto siphon. So apparently it was very happy and grew a lot of cells.

I saw no reason to leave it in the fermenter for another week, so into bottles it went. It tasted like a Maibock. So I'm pretty happy, and will actually probably be able to sample some of it in May.

If your looking for an alternative dry lager strain, well this one is pretty cool.

[mashani]

I popped my tester bottle of this, and yep, it tastes like a Maibock and it's very smooth already. Too smooth, it's too easy to drink. And it's not Mai yet.

I like the Swiss lager yeast a lot and will use it again for sure. It flocs out, it is clean, it doesn't seem to need a d-rest (at least at the upper 50s temps I used) and it doesn't even seem to need serious laagering to smooth out rough edges of any sort. Both beers I made with it I could have drank out of the fermenter, they were that clean.

[FrozenInTime]

Had some good Maibock in Germany, but it sure packed one hell of a whallop! Kinda snuck up on ya.... hard.

[mashani]

This *$&*'s good.