BeerSmith™ Recipe Cloud

Taste Notes

May 30, 2014. Tastes very good and has lots of carbonation. No surprises but this beer needs a lot of aging. Getting close to secondary with Oak Chips. I am paying MUCH closer attention to the oak. I think it really doesn't matter if the chips are on the beer for an extended time, but I think if they go beyond 6 months, you could have a very different beer profile.

Notes

No mash with LME. The added grains were steeped (partial mash) in mash tun 157F/69.C Nominal. Held the steeped for 60 mins, which is probably overkill but shouldn't affect taste. No sparge out as I used pleanty of water for the partial mash Cold condition for at least a week, with 2 weeks being a better CC. The body is very malty and has a strong hop taste that just gets better with age. Carbonate 2.2 volumes to lessen hot alcohol notes. Using LME Maris Otter for the first time. Staring Gravity was at 1.087 or so. Very close to target gravity predicted by Beersmith. It was NOT, however, over the 1.090. Close enough. Gravity is now 1.030 after 6 days. Should drop a bit more as time goes on. Dumped excess trub at 6 days and still fermenting at 69F/20C. Gravity reading on 10 Dec holding at 1.030. Within error margin of error that Beersmith predicted (1.025) but could maybe squeeze another .05, with a small heat bump. I am going to heat it to 72F for a day, back off again to 67F and add the Oak Chips. I'm using French Oak Medium toast soaked in a small amount of vodka (SKYE) and a bit of water. Just enough to cover the oak. I am confident there won't be bugs left on the oak chips. Oak Chips added were 2.5oz/ 70g dry weight. Oak chips will sit on 67F/19C for one week, then tasted for effect. I am going to split 2 gallons into a small keg and add 1 more oz of Oak and let that sit in condition with the oak in it. I will pull taste tests from both batches. (The other batch will have oak only in secondary and not in cold conditioning.) Cold condition should be near the 20th of December. No, it WILL be 20 December.