questions on Helles Bock mini mash

[Swamp Yankee]

I'm going to brew a Helles bock this weekend and have a couple questions.
1, the recipe calls for a 3 inch piece of black licorice into the boil (the end), is this for flavor or aroma? I really don't care for the taste of licorice, will it make a difference?

2, all my hops, 2 oz of tradition and 1 oz of sazz are going right into the boil, can I add a hop for aroma in the whirpool, or even dry hop, if dry hop, in the primary or in the keg?

3, also, what would adding my DME late in the boil accomplish, I've always done it in the begining, but I heard adding it late is better?

any other tips would be helpful, thanks!

[Sent From My iPhone]

1. I would skip the licorice.

2. If you're trying to brew to style, Helles Bock should have low hop aroma and flavor, it's a very malt-forward beer, so I would skip dry-hopping and any real late hop additions.

3. Adding DME late in the boil is supposed to reduce carmelization and "extract twang". It will also increase hop utilization.

I love this style, gonna have to brew one soon.

[Brew Engineer]

3. Adding DME late in the boil is supposed to reduce carmelization and "extract twang". It will also increase hop utilization.

If you do the late DME addition, be sure to split your DME about in half or so, adding half at the beginning of the boil. You need to have the maltose and other goodies in the wort. Also, this will make your boil gravity much lower, increasing hop utilization, meaning you need less hops. This is a malty beer, you don't want to end up too bitter.

Are you following a known recipe, or are you formulating the recipe yourself? If you're formulating yourself, do yourself a favor and download promash, or one of the other softwares. This way you can use it to calculate your hop utilization based on your gravity, and be sure not to over hop the beer.

Before I went to full boil, I had some real good luck with late extract additions, but you do need to watch your hops.

Go to full boil as soon as you can, and then you don't need to worry about it!

good luck!

[Swamp Yankee]

Thanks! I'm glad for this info. The recipe is coming out of the brew masters bible, page 311. I was actually thinking about dry hopping this with Amarillo in the secondary, now I will not. I have had several Helles but never made one and didn't realize that low to no hop aroma was appropriate to style. Go figure, my copy of JZ's Brewing Classic Styles came in the mail today. I might skip the current recipe and use his instead. I wanna try to keep it to style.
Thanks alot from a greatful

[Field]

I'm going to brew a Helles bock this weekend and have a couple questions.
1, the recipe calls for a 3 inch piece of black licorice into the boil (the end), is this for flavor or aroma? I really don't care for the taste of licorice, will it make a difference?

Just a guess, the licorice is an attempt to add melanoidins and "bock flavor" to the recipe. To some people (and likely whoever first wrote the recipe) bocks can have a licorice taste. "Some" being the important word there, they don't taste the same to me, I'd be afraid of making a licorice flavored bock. And you obviously like Bocks and don't like licorice, so I doubt bocks taste like licorice to you either.

Skip the licorice and use 2 ounces of melanoidin malt since you were planning on a mini-mash anyways. You could use more melanoidin malt than that, and the flavor would be great, but it's a pretty high color malt for a Helles Bock, thats why I'd start at 2 ounces.

[BDawg]

+1 on the Melanoidan malt and skipping the licorice.

The melanoidan (or aromatic if you can't get melanoidan) will get you close to the traditional decocted flavors of old school German bocks.