Bourbon Oaked Old Ale - need some advice

[denimglen]

Thinking of brewing a couple small batches of big(gish) beers over the xmas break for winter. I'd like to brew and Old Ale and age it on some of the bourbon barrel chips available from the HB stores.

This is what I'm thinking (base recipe from Brewing Classic Styles) -


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 10.00 L
Boil Size: 13.50 L
Estimated OG: 1.092 SG
Estimated Color: 22.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 66.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
1.50 kg .Pale Liquid Extract (3.5 SRM) Extract 40.98 %
0.12 kg .Lyle's Black Treacle (100.0 SRM) Extract 3.28 %
1.80 kg ..Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) (2.0 SRM) Grain 49.18 %
0.18 kg .Crystal Malt (Bairds) (75.0 SRM) Grain 4.92 %
0.06 kg .Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.64 %
23.00 gm .Southern Cross [14.80 %] (70 min) Hops 66.0 IBU
0.25 oz Oak Chips (Secondary 57.0 days) Misc
0.50 tsp .Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
0.50 tsp .Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Burton Ale (White Labs #WLP023) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 2.04 kg
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 4.08 L of water at 75.5 C 67.0 C
10 min Mash Out Add 2.98 L of water at 89.5 C 75.6 C


Any advice? Never aged on oak, and never brewed anything over 1.070.

Cheers.

[JoKing]

Use a whole litre starter even for a 10Liter brew is my advise. When it has finished fermenting and has clarified for the greatest part is when I'd chuck the chips in (unless you plan to secondary... same thing). A whole packet of chips will do the job - what are they 250grams or something? Look at those essencia barrel chunks - they're good. Two weeks on the chips - and leave to taste or keg afterwards. You need to use more chips than in your recipe: the virgin oak shavings are way oakier than ex bourbon barrels.

Save me some bro - I wanna taste!

[denimglen]

Gonna age this one for a while, it's for winter, so might be one around for ya, if I don't drink it all first that is :-P

Gonna transfer to two of those 5L demijohns for secondary.

Gonna repitch slurry from another batch.

Really 250g? I've read that less (like 30 - 60g for 20L) is the place to start? Unless they were referring to lighter flavoured beers.

So you reckon plain oak over the bourbon stuff? I was thinking a little (like a hint, nothing extreme) of bourbon flavour would be nice, maybe a soak of the plain oak in bourbon for a week before I chuck the chips in?

[JoKing]

The bourbon ones are pretty nice - but they have less surface area than the plain oak shavings - so you need more. I've used a whole packet in 5 litres and it imparted its flavour in less than a week. It's up to you, but you cant go wrong. Just sample it each day or so until you get the desired flavour. Less is definately less in this case - you can wait so long and the beer eventually sours from all the sampling you do.

In my besy opinion, you want to impart the flavour from the chips - they dont help with aging or conditioning in the same way that storing the beer in a barrel does. You can add them to crystal clear beer to add to the complexity, it doesn't matter whether you do it early in the brew or later in it - it is strictly to flavour. With that in mind, I add them after I have acheived good clarity and flavour. What this aids in is the fact you get a really good idea of what the beer tastes like (as it is mostly conditioned) and when you have the chips in there for a while, you get to note the difference they make to the beer: and pull it off when they have met their desired result.

[denimglen]

Fair enough. I might start out with a smaller amount then and leave it for a month or so, if that doesn't work out I'll ramp up the amount. Best of both worlds hopefully haha.

Did you just chuck the oak in or bag it or anything like that?

[JoKing]

Nah - they eventually sink to the bottom.

[Kempicus]

Ok just my opinion but i think the ibu's are a little high for a traditional old, mine were 50 and it took 2 years for them to mellow
my opinion again but I probably wouldn't use treacle either if you want to age, i'd replace with malt just so it doesn't attenuate to much leaving you without enough fermentable sugars in the bottle to sustain aging
those are my humble opinions only but sounds pretty tasty :0)

[denimglen]

Awesome, cheers mate.

[JoKing]

Just a quick one about Treacle - it is only 50% fermentable: the other half are invert sugars. Do some research on "molasses" it is the same stuff. If you still want some after your research, I can arrange some for you at no cost. I have 7000 tonnes of the stuff.

[Reviled]

I recently did an Imperial Stout and put some Port and Oak in the 2ndary for a month... Ive only tasted it out of the 2ndary so far so cant offer too much help, but I used about 20g "oak shavings" and it was like sawdust! I steamed it in a muslin bag for about 15 mins, then put into the 2ndary with 400mls of Port for 31 days, then bulk primed and bottled, im gonna wait till its been 3 months in the bottle before I have a taste, but out of the fermenter it was pretty full on oaky in the aftertaste, but I think it will smooth out nicely, it was a nice match to the extra Porty sweetness the beer had...

Also re Bourbon, not a bad idea to sterilise the chips in bourbon for a day or so, then when you put the chips in, throw the bourbon in as well, it will be very very subtle as there wont be much of it.. I recently did a bourbon Porter, I initially used 300mls in 22 litres, but when I was bottling the bourbon was still quite subtle, so I put another 100mls in :o) I didnt regret it at all...

[denimglen]

Well mainly because I'm a know-it-all-dick at times, well most of the time, I made this to the above recipe kinda ignoring everyone's advice but still keeping it in mind so thanks everyone :-). So in six months when I'm not enjoying it you can say 'I told you so.'

The IBU's will be less though because somehow I got 101% efficiency into the fermenter but my preboil gravity (with all fermentables added) was spot on (fuck knows how that happened but it did), so with the increased boil gravity and subsequent watering-down I'm expecting something like 45 - 50 IBU.

I couldn't find Lyle's Black Treacle but did find Blackstrap molasses in the pantry so used that instead.

Decided on using 5.2 buffer and didn't use the gypsum.

Pitched about 150mLs of of 023 slurry from my summer ale ferment. Jamil's calc said 100mL but mine was pretty green with hop-shit so I upped the amount.

Broke my nice graduated cylinder in the process, that was the sux.

I threw a handful of black malt into the grist and the scales turned off, so I had to wing that measurement.

Bought a 100g pack of Essencia American Bourbon Barrell chunks. Think I'll start off with about 30g of those and up the amount as needed. Don't think I'll bother soaking in bourbon - oak flavour is my main priority, and bourbon-ness I get with that is fine by me though, will just steam to sanitise....or maybe I should let it get a little brett...hmmmmm.

Overall small batches rock. I think I may keep doing them every few months.

Thanks guys.

Oh, and Reviled, re. using a bag in a cooler to mash my suspicions were right, the bag wants to suck into the outlet hole of the cooler and stops flow. I jammed the spoon infront of it to stop it. With the outlets being quite high anyway a 90-elbow pointing downwards would eliminate a little deadspace and should stop the bag sucking in.