Amber Czech Lager

Mash in at 113°F (45°C) for a 10-minute beta-glucan rest, take pH readings and adjust as needed. Raise temp to protein rest at 133°F (56°C) and hold for 10 minutes. Pull your first decoction (roughly a third of the total volume of thick mash, just enough wort to cover the grain) and raise the main mash to the first sacchrification rest at 149°F (65°C). Hold main mash at 149°F for 40 minutes; during this rest, bring your first decoction to a boil and hold for 20 to 30 minutes. Stir this decoction back into your main mash and bring it up to your second sacchrification rest at 155°F (68°C); hold while you complete your second decoction.

Pull your second decoction and boil for another 20 to 30 minutes. Stir it back into the main mash and bring the temperature up to mashout at 169°F (76°C); hold at mashout for 10 minutes. Sparge/drain/transfer as normal, and bring the wort to a boil, adding hops as needed. In the last 15 minutes of the boil, adjust the pH down to 5.1–5.0 and add Whirlfloc.

Chill to 48°F (8°C), transfer, and oxygenate before pitching. Open fermentation is optional at these initial stages. Allow wort to free-rise to 50°F (10°C) and hold until approximately 45 percent attenuation, then raise temperature by 1°F per day until you reach 60 percent attenuation. At this point you can either spund in your fermenting vessel, or if you don’t have a capable vessel, transfer to a keg with a spunding valve to finish up fermentation. The beer is ready to drink at this point, but will be better after at least a month of lager time.

Bootleg’s Czech Unpasteurized Lager strain is ideal, but any relatively malt-centric lager strain will do. Mecca’s Gateway malt is a moderately under-modified Pilsner malt, so step mashing (or a decoction protocol) is needed. If you want to skip these steps, then you can substitute a more modified base such as Weyermann’s floor-malted pilsner malt and include a slightly higher percentage of melanoidin malt. The Munich and Vienna malts can be substituted out for an equal volume of floor-malted dark malt. The CaraBohemian can be swapped for CaraMunich II.