We've had the grain bill for a doppelbock sitting for a while because we've been meaning to use the chest freezer in the basement as a lagering fridge, but it's been full of, well, food. So I finally repurposed the grain bill for this braggot by adding a bunch of honey and using an ale yeast instead. I'm calling this batch Oranginator: it's not a bock, but it's close enough in taste and grain bill that I'm willing to give it a bock-like name.

BeerXML for this recipe, generated by BrewTarget.

Ingredients

  • 4 lb. continental Pilsner malt.
  • 14 lb. Munich malt.
  • 2 lb. Caramunich malt.
  • 9 lb. orange blossom honey from Bennett's Honey Farm.
  • 12 oz. miscellanous hops at 90 min.
  • 5.3 oz. miscellanous hops at 25 min.
  • 1 pouch Lalvin D-47 wine yeast, rehydrated in ⅔ c. tap water at 100℉.
  • Priming sugar at bottling, 8 February 2026:
    • ¾ cup white table sugar

Procedure

Ran ten gallons of tap water through a Brita pitcher, but forgot to treat it with a Campden tablet afterwards. Whoops.

Heated ~7.5 gallons of filtered water in the electric boil kettle, then poured it over the mash bag and grains, bringing the mash temperature to 150℉. Moved the pot out of the way, covered it with a lid, and wrapped the pot in a sleeping bag. Mashed for 120:00, during which time the mash temperature fell to 146℉! Moved the wort to the electric boil kettle. Pre-boil gravity was 1.043. Post-boil gravity was 1.052.

Started heating the wort. Boiled for 90 minutes, adding the first twelve ounces of hops at the beginning of the boil, not starting the count until a full boil had been reached and the hot break had occurred. Added new hops at 25 minutes, sanitizing the immersion chiller by inserting it during the last fifteen minutes of the boil. Added honey at flameout, then chilled, then moved the wort from the large brew pot into a bucket, filtering it through the large sieve to catch hop trub. Agitated by stirring with the large brewing spoon.

Pitched rehydrated Lalvin D-47, then covered and popped in an airlock.

Brew day: 1 September 2025
Predicted original gravity: 1.102
Measured original gravity: 1.101
Estimated IBUs: 214
Predicted final gravity 1.015
Predicted ABV: 12.6
Bottling day : 8 February 2026
Final gravity: 1.028
Estimated ABV: 9.6%

Yield:

  • 23 x 22 oz. beer bottles
  • 7 x 12 oz. ber bottles

Total yield: approx. 590 fl. oz., or 4.6 gal.

Observations

  • 2026-02-08: Bottled, using blue bottle caps, yielding approx. 4.6 gal. of braggot.