No. 25: Spanish Cedar IPA

I've never been a huge fan of wood aged IPAs.  I suppose more specifically oak aged IPAs.  But when I came across this thread on Homebrew Talk, I was intrigued. Somebody had pieced together a recipe for Cigar City's Humidor Series IPA based on interviews with Wayne and possibly other people at Cigar City.

I have heard a lot of good things about Cigar City, but I've never been able to get my hands on any of their beers.  It seemed like a perfect opportunity to try to make something similar to the Humidor Series IPA, and at the same time try and interesting twist on an IPA.

The one problem people in the thread seemed to have was getting a hold of some Spanish Cedar.  I did a quick google search and found a specialty wood store down the street from my work.  A few days later I stopped into the store and picked up a 2 foot long piece of Spanish Cedar for $5.  When I got it home I weighed it and it was approximately one pound.

For the recipe I kept the grain bill very similar to the one in the thread. I adjusted the hops based on what I had in the freezer, but I tried to keep it somewhat similar to the original recipe in the thread on Homebrew Talk.

Spanish Cedar Tea Bag                                     

Adding the Spanish Cedar was a bit trickier.  I wanted the finished beer to have a noticeable Spanish Cedar flavour, but not overpower everything else. The piece of wood I bought was not very aromatic.  I had only a very slight smell if your nose was right up against it, so I knew I had to use a fair bit of it.  My plan was to cut up about 4oz into cubes and let it soak in the beer along with the dry hops for up to 2 weeks.

I made sort of a tea bag out of a paint strainer bag and some dental floss and suspended the Spanish Cedar in my conical. This allowed me to taste the beer over the two week dry hop period and remove the wood when the flavour got to where I wanted it.



The recipe I used is as follows:

No. 25 Spanish Cedar IPA:

Batch Size: 5.75 gal     
Boil Size: 7.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.072 SG
Estimated Color: 10.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 38.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain

13.50 lb     Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)    
0.75 lb       Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
0.75 lb       Caramunich Malt (34.0 SRM)
0.25 lb       Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)

Hops

0.50 oz       Chinook [12.50 %]  (30 min)   
1.00 oz       Simcoe [12.50 %]  (10 min)    
1.00 oz       Cascade [5.40 %]  (10 min)    
1.00 oz       Amarillo Gold [6.90 %]  (10 min)     
1.00 oz       Cascade [5.40 %]  (0 min)   
1.00 oz       Simcoe [12.40 %]  (0 min)         
1.00 oz       Amarillo Gold [6.90 %]  (0 min) 

2.00 oz       Simcoe [12.40 %]  (Dry Hop 14 days)           
2.00 oz       Citra [12.30 %]  (Dry Hop 14 days)  

Yeast
     
San Diego Super Yeast (White Labs #WLP090)       
       

Mash Schedule 

Mashed @ 151F for 60 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

62F ambient temperature for 2 weeks

Dry hopped for 2 week at 62F

 

Spanish Cedar

 

12 cubes (3.4oz weight) for 2 weeks

Actual Numbers

Measured OG:  1.074

Measured FG:  1.012

ABV:  8.1%

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It turned out the Spanish Cedar needed the full two week soak in the beer to impart a noticeable flavour.  At the time of bottling my brothers girlfriend described the beer as smelling like a lumber store.

Tasting

After about 3 weeks in the bottle the beer was fully carbonated but the nice "lumber store" aroma it had before had already faded away.  The only aroma remaining was a big citrus hop smell.

Citrus flavour upfront, and as the beer warmed a woody tannin flavour from the Spanish Cedar became much more pronounced.  The flavour from the wood was fairly harsh and took away from the overall enjoyment of the beer.  There was a little bit of alcohol heat in the finish, and in addition the beer had a slight phenolic flavour, which further detracted from my drinking pleasure. 


Lynn's Take

"Hop water.  Seriously, its like a hop tea.  Is that all you know how to make?  I feel like your beers are losing complexity, and all you know how to make is hop tea."

Thoughts for Next Time

This beer missed the mark for me.  I think it really came down to the wood.  The aroma was very subtle and it took quite a lot of contact time with the beer to really get anything out of it.  By having it in contact with the beer for so long, I ended up extracting tannins from the wood, which made the beer kind of... I don't want to say suck, but the beer kind of sucked.  

I think the key here is to try to get a fresher piece of wood, and have less contact time with the beer.  I would try this again at some point, but I would need to try to find a much more aromatic piece of Spanish Cedar.  

No. 23: Kate The Great Inspired Imperial Stout

My plan was to brew a really big (~11%) imperial stout, and to add some sort of flavouring such as chocolate, oak, chillis, etc.  My only previous experience brewing a big stout was my Founders Breakfast Stout clone. While that beer turned out really well, I wasn't ready to rebrew it just yet.  I wanted to try a different recipe but I didn't feel like I knew enough yet to create my own.

I spent several days scouring the internet looking for either winning homebrew recipes, or recipes for well regarded commercial Imperial Stouts.  I eventually came across this thread on Homebrew Talk with a recipe for Kate the Great (KtG), directly from the brewer at Portsmouth.

KtG is one of those legendary beers that is so limited that I may never get a chance to try it, so I instantly knew that was what I was going to brew.

The recipe from the head brewer at Portsmouth is as follows:

When we brew a batch of Kate we use 77% Pale malt, 2% Crystal 45, 1% Caramel 120, 1% Chocolate malt,1% Black malt, 3% Carafa DH# 3 (Weyerman),3.5% Wheat malt 3.5% Flaked Barley, 2% Roasted malt,3.5% Special B, 2.5% Aromatic. We dough in at 166 to stabilize the mash at 149 degrees F. Saccrification rest for 45 min. or until conversion occurs. Vorlauff (recirculate) 'til clarified and run off. Collect about 1/3rd of your wort and sparge to collect 6.5 gals (for a 5 gal. yield) at 26 degrees Plato or 1.104 degrees Specific Gravity. Yea it's big.... but we like it like that!! (So you are going to need to use your mash tun efficiency to figure out how many pounds of malt you are going to need in total. But to tell you the truth when you get to this thick of a mash your efficiency is going to drop 3-4%).

Boil the wort for 5 mins. for the hot break and then add your bittering hops for 75 mins. We bitter at 38 IBUs with Magnum, 10 IBUs with Styrian Golding and 15 IBUs with Perle. This is the bittering addition. We add a flavor addition for 15 mins with Centennial for 2 IBUS. Our final addition of Palisade, Styrian Golding and Willamette account for about 3 more IBUs at whirlpool. Cool wort and pitch a good amount of White labs WLP 001 or Wyeast 1056 and ferment til it is done. Put into conditioning for about 5 or 6 months and you'll have an amazing imperial stout.

A little more digging and I came across this thread on The Brewing Network in regards to the oaking process Portsmouth uses.

Their process is:

As far as the Kate's oaking goes. All of Kate is lightly oaked. We make our own Portwood simply by infusing oak spirals ( The Barrel Mill, Avon, MN- 800.201.7125) with local Port. Of course if I told you the amounts and proportions I have to kill you!! Actually, we take 6 spirals and break them up, place them into a 10 gal. corny keg and pour 3 bottles of Tawney Port over the spirals. We add about 10 PSI to the keg and let the concoction sit for 18-25 days. Then we fill the remainder of the 10 gal. keg with Kate. Let it sit at ambient temp for 45-60 days then inject the 10 gals back into the 440 gals of KtG. Once the keg is empty we then back fill the 10 gals and let the Kate sit on the oak for another 6 months. This become the double oaked Kate. Very rare, only about 56 bottles produced. Hope this helps. Kate can age for 6 years once in bottles, if truth be known!! Cheers! Tod Mott

My Recipe

With 11 different malts, this is by far the most complicated recipe I have ever come across, but with KtG being so highly regarded they must be on to something. I always thought that I had simplified the grain bill a little bit, but looking at my recipe just now I realized that I have 11 malts also. I tweaked the original grain bill slightly based on my intuition, and closing my eyes and pointing to random bags of malted barley. 

My mash tun maxes out at a little over 20 lbs of grain, so in this case I knew I would have to add some extra fermentables to hit the required starting gravity.  These included a pound each of pale DME, and Muscavodo sugar.

The hops were simplified slightly to just Warrior for bittering, and Palisade plus Willamette for the late addition.

No. 23: Kate the Great Inspired Imperial Stout

Ready to be bottled                                                              

Batch Size: 5.50 gal     
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.105 SG
Estimated Color: 55.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 63.4 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain 

10.00 lb     Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)   
6.50 lb       Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)    
1.00 lb       Midnight Wheat (550.0 SRM) 
0.75 lb       Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)
0.75 lb       Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)     
0.50 lb       Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM)    
0.50 lb       Brown Malt (65.0 SRM)    
0.50 lb       Crystal Malt - 45L (45.0 SRM) 
0.25 lb       Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)    
0.25 lb       Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)       
0.25 lb       Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)

1.00 lb       Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)      
1.00 lb       Muscovado Sugar (25.0 SRM)

Hops
    
1.50 oz       Warrior [17.00 %]  (60 min)
0.50 oz       Palisade [6.70 %]  (10 min)   
0.50 oz       Williamette [5.50 %]  (10 min) 
0.50 oz       Palisade [6.70 %]  (0 min)   
0.50 oz       Williamette [5.50 %]  (0 min)

Yeast

Safale US-05

Mash Schedule

Mashed @ 149F for 75 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

62F ambient

Actual Numbers

Measured OG: 1.104
Measured FG: 1.030
ABV: 9.7% (9.8% after Port addition)

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Port & French Oak Addition

French Oak Soaking in Port              

I used French oak chips and Vintage port raided from my parents wine cellar.  Somehow I managed to miss Portsmouth's batch size in the post on The Brewing Network, so I had to take a guess on how much Port to add. 

Thinking back to my Bourbon Vanilla Porter recipe, where I used 350ml of Bourbon, I decided to start with 250ml of port. 1oz of french oak chips were soaked in the port for 2 weeks while the beer was fermenting.  I added the mixture after the beer had spent about 6 weeks in the fermenter.

Pretty much immediately after adding the port and oak mixture I realized that Portsmouth did state their total batch size for KtG.  Based on that batch size, they add 25ml of Port per 5 gallons of beer.  So I ended up with about ten times more Port than the real thing.

Tasting

At this initial tasting the beer has been bottled for 7 weeks, after spending 2 months in the primary fermenter.

Port is definitely the most prominent aspect of this beer.  The aroma all port, maybe with a hint of malt sweetness. The port is at the forefront of the flavour, but it doesn't completely overpower everything. Immediately following the taste of port is a subtle roastiness, finishing with a slight lingering bitterness and some acidity from the port. It has a slight bit of heat from the alcohol, and the French oak is nowhere to be found.

Overall it turned out quite well.  The excessive amount of port hurt the final product a little bit, but its still quite pleasant to drink. It will be interesting to see what a couple more months in the bottle will do to the flavour.

Lynn's Take

"Chocolate?  Is this a chocolate stout?"

What do you think?

"No thoughts really, my mind just kind of went blank."

Thoughts for Next Time


I wouldn't hesitate to brew this beer again, in fact I'm sure i will at some point.  I would leave the recipe exactly the same with the exception of reducing the port and trying to get a little more of the oak flavour.

The oak chips were pretty much junk, with almost half the bag being slivers or pure dust.  Next time I'll try to track down some cubes or a spiral.  I would probably use just enough port to cover the oak, and possibly discard some of it depending on the amount, when it came time to add it to the beer.   

No. 24: Sorachi/Amarillo Pale Ale

I am going to skip over batch 23 for the time being and come back to it once I have had the fist bottle.

Batch number 24 was a bit of a clean out the freezer/grain bin, and build up a nice yeast cake batch.  I wanted to make some sort of beer to use up the Sorachi Ace hops that had been in my freezer for over a year.  I also had a vile of San Diego Super Yeast (WLP 090) that had been sitting in my fridge for nearly 6 months.

The plan was I would brew a ~5.5% ABV pale ale using up the Sorachi Ace hops and wash the WLP090 for use in future batches. I would augment the Sorachi Ace hops with a little bit of Amarillo and a touch of Simcoe hops. The grain bill would be mainly based on Marris Otter, but with a tiny bit of Carafoam and Crystal 60 I had left over from previous batches.

No. 24: Sorachi/Amarillo Pale Ale


Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.058 SG
Estimated Color: 6.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 34.2 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain

10.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter
0.25 lb Carafoam (2.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Crystal 60L (60.0 SRM)

Hops

0.50 oz Warrior [17.00 %] (30 min)
1.00 oz Sorachi Ace [10.90 %] (10 min)
2.00 oz Sorachi Ace [10.90 %] (0 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo [6.90 %] (0 min)

1.00 oz Simcoe [12.40 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [6.90 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)
1.00 oz Sorachi Ace [10.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)

Yeast

1 Pkgs San Diego Super Yeast (White Labs #WLP090)


Mash Schedule

Mashed @ 151F for 60 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

63F ambient for 3 weeks

Actual Numbers

Measured OG: 1.058
Measured FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.7%


Tasting

Overall not bad.  Big citrusy aroma, with a touch of spiciness from the Sorachi Ace hops.  The spiciness carries over to the taste, and after the initial hoppy taste, the spiciness lingers in your mouth along with a slight hop bitterness.  I don't want to say the spiciness ruins it for me, but it reduces my overall enjoyment.

Everyone who has tried this beer has said they like it, but for me it misses the mark a little bit.

Lynn's Take

"Not bad.  I don't know what else to say really."

Thoughts for Next Time


This was more of a clean out old ingredients/propagate yeast type of beer, rather than a recipe I am trying to develop.  I probably won't brew this beer again.  The Sorachi Ace hops just don't work for me in a beer like this. Maybe I used too much Sorachi Ace, maybe I just don't like them.  I haven't had many other beers that prominently feature them, so I don't know for sure.  I think I might stay away from Sorachi Ace for a while.
 

The Nightman Cometh Part 2.

Huge-ass bag of whole leaf Citra hops, they smelled amazing.

On November 5th 2011, myself and Amsterdam Head Brewer Iain Mcoustra brewed the Nighman on Amsterdam's production system.  We kept the recipe as close as possible to the homebrew version, the only changes were dropping the small amount of Victory malt, and using Amsterdams's house yeast, WLP 007.  They even had 2011 whole leaf Citra express shipped in from Washington, as they didn't have any in stock.

When we checked the gravity of the first runnings we discovered that there had been an error in calculating the amount of malt we needed.  We made a decision on the fly to reduce the batch size to ensure we hit our target starting gravity.

Our starting gravity was 1.083, and the beer finished at 1.017 for an ABV of 8.6%.

On December 2nd we bottled the Nighman in 500ml bottles, ending up with 26 cases of 24 bottles.  It was sold exclusively at Amsterdam's on premises retail store for $4.00 per bottle.

Tasting

The end result was quite similar to the homebrew version.  The Citra and Chinook combine to create a candy-like aroma, with a hint of roastiness. The main difference was Amsterdam's version was a fair bit roastier than the homebrewed Nightman. This lead me to believe that perhaps Carafa III was used instead of the de-husked Carafa Special III.

Below are the reviews from RateBeer, and Beer Advocate;

The Nightman Cometh - RateBeer
The Nightman Cometh - Beer Advocate

Lynn's Take


"Its like wasabi.  It has some spice, it goes right to my nose."

The Nightman Cometh Part 1.

First sample of the Nightman, right out of the fermenter

This is the reason I began homebrewing.  No commercial black IPAs available in Ontario?  No problem, I'll just make one myself.

The Nightman was born on August 21, 2010.  It was my third ever batch of homebrew.  At the time I was living in a world of darkness (and watching a lot of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia).  I wanted to drink a big black IPA, and try brewing with Citra hops for the first time.

I put together a fairly simple recipe consisting of 2-row, C45, and Carafa Special III.  Bittered with Warrior, and with Simcoe and Amarillo late in the boil.  My initial plan was to dry hop with 3oz of Citra, but after some research I got scared about using that much Citra for dry hopping. I had read several places that it was easy to overdo it with Citra.  The only other hop I had a the time was 1oz of Chinook, so i decided to dry hop with 1oz of Chinook and 1oz of Citra.

The beer was amazing!  My first two beers were decent, but this one was really something special.  It was the first moment in homebrewing that I felt like I was able to make a brewery quality beer.

Looking back, I'm sure a 3oz Citra dry hop wouldn't have been too much, but I'm glad I came across the beautiful combination of Chinook and Citra.

Return of the Nightman


June 12, 2011 was the second coming of the Nightman.  As it turned out so well the first time, I only made minor changes to the recipe.  I swapped the C45 for C77, Upped the Carafa Special III to 1 lb, and added some Victory I had lying around from a previous batch.  As for the hops, I really wanted to focus on the Citra and Chinook combination, so I changed the late boil hops from Amarillo and Simcoe, to Citra and Chinook. Finally I upped the dry hops to 2oz of each.  The first batch of the Nightman was fermented with Pacman, this time around I had lots of Wyeast 1450, so I just used that.  


Recipe is as follows:

No. 16: The Nightman Cometh

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.084 SG
Estimated Color: 38.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 90.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain

15.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Carafa III (525.0 SRM)
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (77.0 SRM)
0.38 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)

Hops

1.00 oz Chinook [12.40 %] (60 min) (First Wort)
1.00 oz Chinook [12.40 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (10 min)
1.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (10 min)
2.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (0 min)
2.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (0 min)

2.00 oz Citra [12.30 %] (Dry Hop 14 days)
2.00 oz Chinook [12.50 %] (Dry Hop 14 days)

Yeast

1 Pkgs Denny's Favorite 50 (Wyeast Labs #1450)


Mash Schedule

Mashed @ 152F for 60 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

63F ambient for 4 weeks

Actual Numbers

Measured OG: 1.084
Measured FG: 1.022
ABV: 8.1%

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2011 Toronto Homebrew Competition


After not having anything ready to send to the 2010 Toronto Homebrew competition, I wanted to hit the 2011 competition hard.  I had and imperial stout that had been in the bottle for 8 months, a several month old American style barleywine, and a super fresh hoppy wheat beer, all of which I would be sending to the competition.  I almost didn't even submit the Nightman.  It had been in the bottle for 9 weeks by the final entry date of the competition, and the hops had started to fade away into the darkness.  I had a couple extra bottles, so I included them with the rest of my submissions.  It was entered under category 23, and on the entry form I specifically didn't call it a black IPA, as I felt it would get dinged for not being hoppy enough.   I called it, "The Nightman Cometh, Black Ale".


Competition Results


The results for the categories I entered were as follows:


Milds, Stouts and Porters

Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – Coffee Stout
Silver: Kyle Teichert – The Imp – Imperial Milk Porter
Bronze Spencer McCormack – Stormy Night Stout

Strong Ale

Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – Barleywine
Silver: Eric Ecclestone and Russ Burdick – Old Toby
Bronze: Kyle Teichert – Honey Nugget Barleywine

Light Hybrid Beer

Gold: Dan Poulin – 11-005 Creme Ale
Silver: Jeremy Skorochid – Wheat Beer
Bronze: Jordan Rainhard – Homecoming Ale

Black IPA

Gold: Jeremy Skorochid – The Nightman Cometh
Silver: Duncan Rodger – Hop Will Eat Itself
Bronze: Jeremy Coghill – Black Hearted Ale

Needless to say I was pretty happy about how successful I was, but I was especially shocked that they had created and Black IPA category, and I had won.

1st Round Judge Feedback on The Nightman


Dark creamy pour with a nice lingering head. Some hops and sweet fruitiness in the nose. Very balanced flavor with a well-integrated roastiness. Nice body with a balanced sweetness and good hop bite. A fine effort. Gold medal.


Best of Show Round 


The winners from each category advanced to the best of show round where they would battle against each other, the winner getting at trip to the 2012 Craft Beer Conference in San Diego.

The 24 beers were judged by a panel that consisted mostly of brewers from Toronto area breweries.  They narrowed the beers down to their top 6, of which my coffee stout and the Nightman were part of.

When the dust settled, The Nightman had been very narrowly edged out for the best in show.  My reward for taking second place overall was Amsterdam Brewery in Toronto would brew a a one-off, production size batch of the Nightman.



 

Batch No. 22: Bourbon Vanilla Porter

This beer was based on Denny's famous Bourbon Vanilla Porter Recipe.   It is a recipe that I have seen kicking around for quite a while, and it always seems to get rave reviews.   Denny's Most recent recipe for this beer is as follows:

#383 Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (Gal): 5.50 Wort Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 19.38
Anticipated OG: 1.084 Plato: 20.30
Anticipated SRM: 45.2
Anticipated IBU: 32.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 73 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

Amount Name Origin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America
2.75 lbs. Munich Malt(2-row) America
1.63 lbs. Brown Malt Great Britain
1.38 lbs. Chocolate Malt America
1.06 lbs. Crystal 120L America
0.56 lbs. Crystal 60L America

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.75 oz. Magnum Whole 14.60 30.1 60 min.
0.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Whole 4.75 2.4 10 min.

Yeast
-----
WY1450 Denny's Favorite 50


For my own recipe I made a few minor tweaks, but as the recipe is so highly regarded I didn't want to deviate too much.  I didn't have any Munich at the time, so I substituted the 2-row, and Munich with Marris Otter in order to get a bit more flavour from my base malt.   I also thew in some flaked barley that I had left over from another recipe, figuring you can't go wrong with a bit of flaked barley in this type of beer.

I also decided to add a little bit of American oak, as I have heard of other people oaking this recipe with success.

My version of the recipe is as follows:

No. 22:  Bourbon Vanilla Porter

Batch Size: 5.75 gal
Boil Size: 7.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.083 SG
Estimated Color: 45.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 48.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain

14.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
1.50 lb Brown Malt (65.0 SRM)
1.25 lb Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 45L (45.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)

Hops

1.00 oz Warrior [17.00 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min)

Yeast

2 Packages Safale US-05

Misc.

2 Vanilla Beans
350ml of Bulleit Bourbon
0.75oz medium toast American oak cubes

Mash Schedule

Mashed @ 150F for 75 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

58F ambient temperature for 1 week
65F ambient for 2 weeks
58F ambient temperature for 1 week

Actual Numbers

Measured OG: 1.083
Measured FG: 1.022
ABV: 7.9% (8.5% after bourbon addition)

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Bourbon

I don't really know a whole lot about bourbon, so I just picked up a bottle of Knob Creek to use in this recipe.  On my brothers suggestion I also picked up a bottle of Bulleit, and I had a bourbon showdown to determine which one would be given the honour of flavouring my beer.

The Knob Creek was quite sweet tasting with big vanilla and oak flavours.  The Bulleit had the same vanilla and oak flavours, but was much less sweet.  It also had a little bit of spiciness, probably from the high percentage of rye that it is made with.  If I was just going to drink the bourbon by itself, my preference would be the Knob Creek. However, for adding to the beer I liked the spiciness and reduced sweetness of the Bulleit, so that is what I chose.

Adding the Bourbon, Vanilla, & Oak

During the second week of fermentation I soaked two chopped and scraped vanilla beans in 50ml of bourbon.

Vanilla beans and bourbon were added to the fermenter at the beginning of week 3 of fermentation.

0.75 oz of medium toast American oak cubes were boiled for 10 minutes and added to the fermenter at the beginning of week 4 of fermentation.

300ml of bourbon was added at bottling, after 4 weeks in the fermenter.

Tasting

The vanilla and oak got kind of lost in this beer.  I really have a hard time picking out any discernible vanilla or oak flavours. Thats not to say that they aren't contributing anything, its just not obvious to me.  The bourbon is the real star of the show here.  It is quite subtle when the beer is cold, but the bourbon flavour really opens up as the beer warms.  Overall, I love it.  The beer has been a big hit with everyone who has tried it, and it is on my short list of beers to brew again.

Lynn's Take

"Smells like soy sauce.  This is the soy sauce beer isn't it?" (referring to Dark Lord)

"Its very thin.  Doesn't have any mouth feel"

Me, “take an other sip”

"OK, it has pretty good mouth feel.  I still don't like it though."

Thoughts for Next Time


The vanilla beans were from Costco, and fairly cheap compared to anywhere else you see vanilla beans for sale. They smelled beautiful and were nice and moist when I chopped them up, but they were a bit on the skinny side.  If I were to use these beans again, I would use three or maybe even four of them for a full two weeks in the beer.

I am a little paranoid when adding oak to a beer.  This was only the second time I have ever oaked a beer, and the first was not what you would call a success.  The first time I ever added oak to a beer was 1oz of medium toast American oak cubes to an Arrogant Bastard clone.  They were in the fermenter for a week, and the beer came out tasting like liquid oak.  This time I wanted to err on the side of caution and only used 0.75oz for a week.  With all the strong flavours going on in the beer, it was simply not enough oak.  I'd increase to at least 1oz for my next attempt.

The final thing I would change is to possibly add a little more bourbon.  350ml is almost spot on for my taste but I think I would try 375 to 400ml next time, just to make it a little more up-front at cooler temperatures.