I recently ran across an article that gave me some new insights into using oak chips in brewing a beer. I really like DuClaw's Midnight Due, and I thought, why subject myself to a "limited release", when I can brew my own? My first attempt at using oak chips didn't turn out so well, and think that it was because I hadn't properly sanitized the chips, nor did I let the beer age long enough.
Brew Day #1: 9 July
Partial Mash:
6 oz Special B
6 oz Munich
2 oz flaked wheat
Bring 3 qt of water to ~ 160 deg F, pour into a 1 gal thermos container. Add grain bag with grains, making sure all of the grain gets saturated. Seal the thermos for at least an hour.
Boil #1 (20 min):
1 lb Pilsen DME
4 oz table sugar
Raise 3+ qt water in the brew kettle to at least 170 deg F. Remove grain bag from thermos, transfer to brew kettle, steep for ~ 10 min. Remove grain bag, add wort, DME, sugar, and boil.
Cool the wort in an ice bath until it reaches ~ 80 deg F. Rack on to (2) GoodBelly StraightShots that have been brought up to room temp. You can fill the fermenter all the way up; place a sanitized air lock in the fermenter cap, wrap the fermenter in a towel, and place on the warming plate for 48 - 72 hrs.
There will likely be some wort left in the kettle, so save it off in a bottle, placing it in the fridge until the second boil.
Begin preparing the oak chips. Add 1 oz of oak chips to boiling water for 5 min; drain, and place in a sanitized glass bottle, and just cover with whisky (Johnny Walker Black Label, 86.8 proof). Let set for 7 days, the contribute the whisky to the sink, and just cover the chips with bourbon. Let sit for at least 5 days, and then rack the beer on to the chips and bourbon for several days.
Boil #2 12 July (20 min):
Pour the contents of the fermenter into the brew kettle, and then add the contents of the bottle, and about half a bottle again of tap water. Boil for 20 min to kill the "bugs" (i.e., souring bacteria). Cool hopped wort to ~ 80 deg F in an ice bath, then transfer to a sanitized fermenter, aerate, and pitch the yeast.
Hops: 14 g German Hersbrucker (AA: 2.3%, @ 20 min)
Yeast: BE-134
Okay, so this one turned out to be a real mish-mash of styles...it's going to be more red than brown, it's sour, uses a Belgian yeast, and I'm still going forward with the oak chips. This one is going to be real interesting!
Addendum, 16 July: "Contributed" the Johnny Walker whisky that the oak chips had been soaking in to the sink this morning, and added a couple of ounces of Maker's Mark bourbon whisky (90 proof); not enough to cover the chips but over the next couple of days, I will be rotating the container. The beer itself is still bubbling away quite nicely.
Addendum, 21 July: Racked the beer on to the oak chips; I did not include the bourbon (saving that for baked beans this weekend).
Addendum, 26 July: Racked the beer off of the oak chips and into a clean fermenter; now, to wait.
Addendum, 16 Sept: Bottled today, on 1 oz of table sugar dissolved in 1/2 cup boiling water. Got 8 good bottles and 1 22 oz flip top bottle. Also, I tried something a bit different...I added a very small amount of BE-134 yeast to the fermenter while racking the beer on to the bottling sugar. I did this because historically, the sour beers have always been lightly carbonated, and this beer has been sitting for longer than any other beer I've made thus far. As a precaution, I moved all of the other bottles out of the tub where I keep the carbonating beers; that way, if there is a bottle burst, I won't loose, or have to clean, so many bottles. We'll see how this turns out; it may have been completely unnecessary.
Addendum, 30 Sept: Finally tried one of these last night...WOW! I'd thought to try one on Friday, but when I went to uncap the bottle, the neck just below the cap split apart. I did pour the beer into a glass through a strainer (in case there were small shards of glass) but the beer was clearly not carbonated. I chilled another beer, and poured it last night. The carbonation was subtle and the color was a reddish-brown. There was nothing distinctive in the aroma, but the flavor was tart up front, with a woody vanilla on the back end. Had it had a hint of acetic acid, I might have thought that it was a Flanders ale. I really enjoyed this beer, and it's definitely one that I would enjoy by itself...just the beer, nothing else, and that would be it. I'm definitely going to try the oak chips again, but this time, I think I'll put them in a hop bag so that they're a little easier to manage/handle.
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