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%

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.