Without access to or space for bourbon barrels we decided to try our hand at a bourbon "barrel-aged" porter by soaking oak chips from the Homebrew store (My LHBS) in bourbon and steeping the chips in the beer during secondary fermentation. This worked surprisingly well, with an asterisk. *It seems the oaky flavor in this beer gets a little more intense with age. This was our first homebrew of 2018, brewed on New Year's Day. Several of the bottles we've opened recently (May) have a very intense oaky flavor. You get used to it, but I think we should try using less oak chips next time. We used the standard 4 oz bag of French Medium Toast Oak Chips from My LHBS and soaked all 4 oz in 16 oz of bourbon for about a week prior to adding to the fermenter. The quality of bourbon could also have affected the flavor. We used Bulleit Bourbon.
This beer was truly experimental. We wanted some subtle complimentary flavors to the oak and bourbon. That's why we added honey right at flame-out (end of the boil, 0 minutes). We also added 4 tsp vanilla extract to the oak chips soaking in bourbon. That was plenty to get the subtle taste of boozy vanilla in the final product, and man was it delicious.
Recipe (5 gallon batch)
3 gallon boil
2 lbs specialty grains: split roughly 1/3-1/3-1/3 between chocolate malt, dark malt, and black malt
2 lbs dry wheat malt
6.6 lbs of dry malt extract
1 oz Chinook hop pellets
1 oz Cascade hop pellets
1 - 1.5 cups honey (we used a nice floral honey)
Wyeast 1028 London Ale - 2 packs (200 billion cells)
4 tsp vanilla extract
One 4 oz bag of oak chips
We started this beer with 3 gallons of water to boil. We'd lose about half a gallon during the boil, so we added about 2.5 gallons after cool-down in the primary fermenter.
The specialty grains were steeped for about 20 minutes before the start of the boil. The dark color the malts turned the wort made me really excited. This was our first porter together (Dan brewed one by himself a year or so ago) and I wanted it DARK and ROASTY.
We did a 60 minute boil for this one. Right at 60 mins we added 2 lbs of dry wheat malt extract and 1 oz of Chinook hop pellets. At 15 minutes we added the bulk of the malt: 6.6 lbs of dry malt extract and 0.5 oz of the Cascade hops. At flame-out we added the rest of the Cascade hops (0.5 oz). This is also the point at which we added the honey. While stirring to initiate the cool-down, we poured in about 1.5 cups of honey.
We quickly cooled the wort to around 100 F and then transferred to the primary fermenter, adding 2.5 gallons of water or so to make it an even 5 gallon batch. Dan is excellent at aerating the wort. He sits on the floor and cradles the plastic fermenter and shakes it back and forth for several minutes. The nifty plastic fermenters we got online are way better than the glass carboys because they are easier to handle and much easier to clean. They are also easier for adding things during the fermentation (like dry hopping). The only drawback is for most beers the pressure during fermentation is too much to keep the normal lid on firmly, so you have to duct tape it down. Would be nice if we didn't have to, but it's only a minor inconvenience.
Once the wort cooled and aerated, we pitched the yeast. The reason we went with 200 billion cells this time was because we had quite a bit of fermentables (malts and honey). I think that worked out well. We left it in primary for 2 weeks.
After 2 weeks, we transferred to a secondary fermentation carboy. This one has a "depth charge" mesh tube to hold things you want to steep during secondary. Fruits and other flavors are good for this. We started the oak chips soaking in bourbon and vanilla about a week after we initiated the primary. Once we transferred to secondary, the oak chips were added to the depth charge strainer. I taste tested the beer with a beer thief every two days or so. We let it sit for about 6-7 days. I think our main error here was using too many oak chips. There were little pieces of the oak chips that may have made it through the mesh strainer and stayed in the beer. This wasn't dangerous to drink - it was probably just chip dust that settled out in the end , but this probably contributed to the overly oaky flavor, especially after the beer had sit for weeks and weeks after bottling.
We decided to start another beer while the porter was sitting there steeping. We tried our hand at our first New England style IPA. See this post for the full recipe. We have enough equipment to comfortably do two beers at a time, so this was fun. The room where they stayed during fermentation smelled great!
Once secondary was done for the porter, we bottled! I had to come up with a clever name for this beer and a nifty label (we do hand some beers out to our friends!). I think Vulcan was doing one of his normal freak-outs during the brewing of this beer, so I figured naming it for him was reasonable. We do make a lot of noise and make quite the mess when we brew. He's a good kitty for putting up with it.
Of course, we had to bring some over to Kasey and Ashley's place to taste test. They've become our unofficial testers! Overall, this beer was delicious. I really want to know how to get a beer to have that dark head and more viscous mouthfeel, but we're still experimenting. Porters and stouts are better in the autumn and winter, so we have time to think about this.
