Notes

I've been doing some research in order to do some new things in my brewing, and wanted to document a good bit of the notes I'd been keeping, sharing them in hopes of getting input, insight, feedback, etc.

Oak
I brewed a brown ale a bit ago that turned out rather well, and I've been considering making another move in my brewing adventures.  I'm going to extend the recipe a bit with some changes to the grains, but I also wanted to see about adding something of an "aged in oak barrels" flavor to the beer.  I started looking around online for a bit and decided to talk to the folks at the local home brew supply store, and that really ended up being the way to go!  I got some great input into how to go about the whole process, as well as a recommendation for using French oak chips, based on the flavor they'd impart on the beer.

In addition, during my research, I'd run across a great site that discussed using oak chips, which turned out to be very helpful.

The idea I had for the brown ale was to recreate my first brown ale recipe (again, with a few mods to the ingredients), and make use of oak chips soaked in American Honey.

I'm also working up a recipe similar to the Hex Dark Sour Ale, using French oak chips soaked in Maker's Mark, rather than the red wine recommended for the Hex Sour.  That would be one way to go; another would be to replicate the Hex Sour recipe, soaking the oak chips in a nice cab.

As a bit of a side note, a bit more than 2 years ago, I brewed an IPA that I ended up naming "LCpl's Tears".  It's a name I like for a beer (given my military background; just thinking about the name makes me laugh), and I'm thinking that a dark sour ale, aged on French oak chips (the use of French oak chips paying homage to Belleau Wood) soaked in bourbon, and fermented with a Belgian-style yeast.

Fruit
I've brewed a couple of beers where I've added fruit, or more accurately, the juice of some fruit.  The first was the Everlong (yes, a Foo Fighter's reference) IPS, a collaboration brew I made with Mr. Rufus.  The raspberry juice was pasteurized (heat to 160 deg F and hold it there for about 10 min...do NOT boil), and that turned out really well.  Then there was the sour saison I made where I had a combination of pineapple and watermelon juice, and I sanitized it by freezing it, and then warming it back to room temp before adding it to the beer.  In each case, I've learned just a little bit more, and the next step for me is to add fruit juice or zest during bottling, in order to preserve/impart some flavors that may not hold out as well through the fermentation process.

I recently ran across this blog post at GreatFermentations that describes the process that a brewer uses to create a dreamsicle cream ale.  The article goes into some great detail regarding the ratio of fruit used, when it was added during the brewing process.  There is also mention of the use of the zest, and the specific use of zest that was frozen prior to use in order to "burst the cell walls".  There are also some really good notes in the article that describe how to prepare vanilla beans (not extract) for use in making beer.

Additions
Something I've been looking at recently is changing when I make certain additions to the beer, and seeing what effect that has on the results.  For example, in my last ginger saison, I made a "tea" by boiling the fresh ginger, and I added the priming sugar to that as part of the bottling process, rather than adding the ginger to the last 10 min of the boil.  I'm taking a similar approach with the juniper berries and black tea in my next sah'tea.  The plan is to boil the crushed berries and tea bags for a few minutes, and then add the priming sugar to that as part of the bottling process.

My thinking/hope is that more of the flavors I'm looking for will be preserved, as they're not subject to the fermentation process.  We did a side-by-side taste test with the ginger saisons, and my wife's comments centered around the fact that the older beer had a good deal more maturity in the carbonation; in particular, the head was much more pillowy.  There was not a great deal of difference in the flavor, particularly what stood out as the ginger.  I'll see how things fare with the sah'tea, even though I don't have anything available to do a comparison.

Speaking of additions, Medusa IPA is one of my favorites, and for my most recent brew of the recipe, I'm doing a two-stage dry hop.