Rye does great things in beer, and roggenbier shows off most of them! This one can be brewed as a more dunkelweizen-inspired beer (with banana and clove and all), or it can be made as a rye-forward lager, and both can be defended as “traditionally” appropriate. “JDS Roggenbier” is named after famed recluse and author Jerome D. Salinger, and I think that as someone who retired from the spotlight in favor of a quiet, rustic country life, he’d be a fan of this beer style! Enjoy!
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.062
FG: 1.016
IBUs: 25
SRM: 20
ABV: 6.8%
MALT/GRAIN BILL
7 lb (3.2 kg) Maris Otter
7 lb (3.2 kg) Rye malt
6 oz (170 g) Caramunich
6 oz (170 g) Crystal 120
6 oz (170 g) Carafa I
1 lb (454 g) Rice hulls
HOPS SCHEDULE
1 oz (28 g) Styrian Goldings [5% AA] at 60 minutes
1 oz (28 g) Styrian Goldings [5% AA] at 10 minutes
YEAST
White Labs WLP300 (Hefeweizen) OR Wyeast WY2206 (Bavarian Lager) yeast
DIRECTIONS
Mill the grains, add the rice hulls, and mix with 4.8 gallons (18.3 l) of 163°F (73°C) strike water to reach a mash temperature of 152°F (67°C). Hold this temperature for 60 minutes. Vorlauf until your runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge the grains with 3.1 gallons (11.8 l) and top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 l) of wort. Boil for 60 minutes, following the hops schedule.
After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 60°F (16°C). Aerate the wort with pure oxygen or filtered air and pitch the yeast.
With the Hefeweizen yeast, ferment at 63°F (17°C) for 72 hours and then increase the temperature by about one degree per day until you reach 71°F (22°C). If you choose to use the Bavarian Lager yeast, ferment at 51°F (11°C) and increase on the same schedule until you reach 63°F (17°C). On the completion of primary fermentation, crash the beer to 35°F (2°C), then bottle or keg the beer and carbonate to about 2 volumes.
TIPS FOR SUCCESS
Don’t forget the rice hulls! They may well be completely unnecessary and redundant in your system, and you may find people who have never used them and still never have a stuck sparge or lauter. But that one time it happens, you’ll be wishing you’d spent the extra dollar.
Try this beer with both yeasts, by all means, but I highly recommend the lagered version. To my palate, it tastes like a cross between an altbier and an Oktoberfest, but with rye spice. Delicious!