So here's my first blog. I hope you enjoy...
I brewed A Bourbon Barrel Brown ale 6/22/08. New experiments on this brew were brewing in the garage. It was awesome because it thunderstormed most of the time and I would have lost my batch if I would have brewed in the yard. I also added DME at different stages during the boil, 4lbs at 60 min and 3 lbs at 30 min. This will be the first time I use oak chips in the secondary and plan to have them in for 7 days.
Here's the recipe I went with:
Steeped for 30 minutes:
4 oz crystal 60L
5 oz crystal 80L
4 oz roasted barley
8 oz choclate malt
Extract:
7 lbs light DME
Hops:
1 oz Galena pellets 60 min
1 oz Sterling pellets 10 min
Yeast:
wyeast 1272 am ale II
Secondary:
1 oz Oak chips steamed and soaking in Maker's Mark for 4 weeks
A picture of brew day:
I brewed A Bourbon Barrel Brown ale 6/22/08. New experiments on this brew were brewing in the garage. It was awesome because it thunderstormed most of the time and I would have lost my batch if I would have brewed in the yard. I also added DME at different stages during the boil, 4lbs at 60 min and 3 lbs at 30 min. This will be the first time I use oak chips in the secondary and plan to have them in for 7 days.
Here's the recipe I went with:
Steeped for 30 minutes:
4 oz crystal 60L
5 oz crystal 80L
4 oz roasted barley
8 oz choclate malt
Extract:
7 lbs light DME
Hops:
1 oz Galena pellets 60 min
1 oz Sterling pellets 10 min
Yeast:
wyeast 1272 am ale II
Secondary:
1 oz Oak chips steamed and soaking in Maker's Mark for 4 weeks
A picture of brew day:
So I pitched the yeast at 5:00 Sun, by Monday morning it was fermenting well and looked like this:
When I got home after work, I had to scramble to put a blow tube on. That's two batches in a row doing this. I think I'm going to start with blow off tubes from now on.
Transfered from primary to secondary tonight, 07/02/08. The Fermenting was very quick and brutal, it only lasted 3 days, visually. The white moldy looking crap was in there for two days. When I see that I usually transfer. Does anyone know what that's called? It looks undesirable to me, so I usually transfer at 14 days, or when that white crap shows up. So I added the ounce of oak chips that had soaked in Maker's Mark since 06/02/08 along with the Maker's Mark. 
4 comments:
Lookin good! I had to upgrade to a blow off as last night (monday) I went downstairs around 9:30 and my krausen was saying hello to my airlock. So I mixed up a little sanitizer and got out the tube and threw in the blowoff. I think I would have been fine without it, it was going down, but it's good insurance. Since I had some sanitizer mixed up, I might as well keg 5 gallons of my Rye IPA, so I threw her in the keg. It tasted ok, nothing fancy, but nothing gross. Next time I would have thrown some dry yeast in there to drop some of the points down. Maybe I will do that with the 5 gallons left in secondary....What could it hurt?
So do you plan on putting some of the maker's into the beer or only just the oak chips? I've had a few bourben beers that have been too much bourben and almost undrinkable. I think a little goes a long way, but I've never done a bourben beer either, so I'm just assuming. Either way, I can't wait to try this beer!
How are the hops doing? I'm need to post a hop update sometime soon. My one cascade is up to my eyeballs and the other two are to my kneecaps! They grow fast!!!
I'll have a hop post soon. My lone cascade is doing well.
As far as the Bourbon and chips, I'll probably drink it on ice as I'm inserting the chips into secondary. I don't think I want to add that to the beer.
Well if your hops are growing anything like mine, you are seeing some mad growth! My one bine if now taller than me!! The others reached the top of the bamboo stick, so I got the twine up today for the rest. I fought the skeeters and put up the twine, I lost the skeeter battle though....
When I made my bourbon barrel brown, I soaked the chips in 5 oz of Makers Mark and then added the chips and booze into the secondary. I think it tastes pretty damn good, it still tastes like a hoppy brown ale with oak and bourbon. I probably wouldn't add much more than 6 ounces though unless you want to let it sit forever. That might be overwhelming.
Kristen is going to check on the hops for me today. I'm hoping for insane growth.
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