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Are Dopple Bock's easy to make?

Anyone have a recipe to start with?

Thor, I'm sorry that this question has gone un-answered. I've personally not brewed a DoppleBock so I can't give insight into a good recipe. However I can vouch for other recipies from Jamil Zainasheff's book "Brewing Classic Styles".

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Brewin ... 0937381922

It's really an exceptional recipe book for first time brewers of a style. You can always tweak your recipe on subsequent brews.

As far as difficulty in brewing, I'd say no more or less than any other lager or big ale. Just remember to keep your fermentation temps in check and use the appropriate yeast and lots of it. I'd be dang hard to overpitch a big lager like a Dopplebock.

To answer your questions simply, yes, they can be a little tough to make.

The reason they are a challenge is that you are dealing with a very high gravity wort which can cause a couple of problems. First, since you want low fermentation by-products in a lager, you need to pitch a massive (and I mean massive) amount of yeast to make sure that the little buggers aren't overly stressed. Of course, you also want to rigidly control fermentation temperature, oxigenate etc to ensure good yeast health and viability. You do not want any hot fusels or solventy tastes which is what you end up with when the yeast is overworked. Secondly, you need to make sure that you get decent attenuation otherwise the beer will be overly sweet and difficult to drink. Since you are probably going to have an O.G. in the neighorhood of around 1.082 or so, the beer will not be dry but you don't want it to taste like pancake syrup either. Oh yeah, depending on your equipment, you may start running into capacity issues with a beer this big unless you cut down the size from your normal batches.

As far as a recipe, I endorse Mr. Jamil's book also. In fact, I have a double bock that I made from that book (except I did a couple of things process wise differently) and I think it came out pretty well. I did a triple decoction to try and get the maximum melonodin reactions going, it was a very long brew day. The fermentation came out clean and the beer attenuated even better than expected so I am happy. It hides it's alcholol well however I notice that I take alot of naps if I have more than one glass in a sitting. Of course the Bluebonnet judges will have the last word so I will better be able to tell you better by the end of March but I'm pretty happy with it.

I usually do two or three lagers in a row and work from weak to strong, light to dark and I like to pitch yeast off a previous fermentation, especially with a beer like this. I would recommend doing maybe a Pilsner then maybe a Munch Dunkel or Octoberfest then do the Double Bock, you will then have enough yeast for the job. Enjoy.

Thanks guys!