American Lager: Brewing Dougweiser

Dougwieser is as close as a homebrewer can get to the original Budweiser in my opinion. [Ed Note: when I asked Rick why a homebrewer would want to duplicate Bud, he responded, "Well for one it's a very hard style to duplicate. It's kind of like a challenge to me. All the flavors in this style are so subtle, you need a lot of discipline when you brew this beer. Big beers are so easy, all you do is throw in a ton of malt, a pound of hops, and a gallon of yeast slurry, "badda bing badda boom" you got a great beer. All the flavors are so pronounced any flaws in the beer are hard to pick up. And believe it or not Jonny, some people like Budweiser. It's definitely not my favorite but I like a beer you can drink 4 or 5 pints of on a hot day and still maintain kinda sorta." Love you, Ricky]

This beer recipe was formulated by Doug King whom I will never forget because at my first Maltose Falcons meeting Doug was the one who came up to me and introduced himself and made me feel welcome, that meant a lot when you’re the new guy. Anyway that friendship carried on until his death a few years back and he will be missed by all that knew him.

DOUGWIESER:
20 gallons
15 lbs    American two-row
5 lbs    American six-row
10 lbs    Long grain rice
1 lbs    Cara-pils(optional)
.75 oz.    Nugget 14.8aa.(60 min)
Wyeast (2007) Pilsen    1/2 gal. Slurry

Mash grain at 122° F (50° C) for about a half hour. Or until the rice is ready. Rice is added to 3 ½ Gallons boiling water and stirred until it starts to get thick, then the fire is turned off. Then cold water is added to bring the temp down to 158 or so, at that time we added 3# of our American Two-Row to the rice, rest at 150 with fire off for 15 to 20 minutes, When rice starts to feel thinner, start fire back up and heat slowly back to boil, adding water as you go, stirring constantly. Do not leave unattended, do not stop stirring, especially on the bottom of the kettle, the rice will scorch if these steps are not taken. This is the most crucial part of the whole process, if you scorch the rice, you might as well pack it up and call it a day. OK, now that we got that out of the way, once the rice is boiling again continue for 10 minutes adding water and stirring. At this point the rice should look like one big pot of watery oat meal. Shut off fire on rice, add rice to main mash, it helps if there's a competent brew crew around to help with this step, always where protective gloves when dealing with hot materials. When the rice is added to the malt the temp should be close to 150, rest for 1 hour or until iodine test shows negative. We mashed for 80 minutes and still had a little starch present in our mash.

Everything from this point on is just like an all malt brew, be sure to recirculate about 3 gallons before running into the kettle.

We had 12 gallons in the kettle at end of boil at 1.075 and diluted with 2 gallons water per carboy for a started gravity of 1.045.

The hop variety can vary as only 10 to 15 IBUs are present. Hop flavor and aroma are not to style.

Rice should be chopped up very fine until it looks like Malt-o-meal. A blender works great.

ENJOY