Bigarcherynut
Well-Known Member
Been brewing Bourbon Stout beers the last couple of years. Founders Backwoods Bastard is one of my favorites so I'm interested in trying this recipe. There's a few things with this recipe I have questions on and hope you fellows brewers can shed some light on.
Here's the link to the recipe. I thought this was also posted on this forum but cannot locate it.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/110077/backwoods-bastard-clone
He's doing things here I'm not sure of and hope you can help me. I brew E-Kettle BIAB and so I wont be doing any sparges.
1. I feel the grain bill is fine and have entered it into BeerSmith2 and converted it to a 5.5 gallon recipe. Happy with this but open to ideas.
2. He has a small second mash he does but not sure exactly what he's doing. It's a 1-1/2 gallon mash but he says two different things. He says its a lot of work but you end up with a quart of caramelized wort. Then he talks about adding this small wort to the main wort and boil them both. It then sounds as if it's the full 1-1/2 gallon of wort with the main wort. The entire 2 worts are boiled down adding the small 1-1/2 gallon wort in slowly for a 2 hour boil. Confusing for sure. What are your thoughts on this. Maybe you'll read this differently.
3. I've done oak and bourbon additions to some stouts one is a Dragons Milk clone and never use that much oak and bourbon. I normally use 2 oz. of oak chips and just enough bourbon to cover the chips entirely. If I need more bourbon flavor I add some at kegging time. How's your feelings on this??
4. The water profile is close to mine but with my extremely hard water, I'm using 60% RO water with my well water for a water profile of: 76 Calcium, 18 Mag, 33 Sodium, 47 Sulfate, 49 Chloride and 260 Bicarb for a pH of 5.44. My well water is extremely hard.
5. He listed two different mash temps. One is 156 and the other in his notes is 152. Thinking of something around 153-154 for 90 minutes. Lately my 60 minute mashes have fallen short of my numbers so after posting on this forum I'm going to go 90 minutes as suggested. Thoughts???
6. I'm going to do a 2.75 liter starter with a stir plate. Should get me a good starter for this brew. I'm not sure about all the extra bursts of O2 at the first few hours of fermentation. What are your feelings? I do about a 60 second burst of O2 before pitching my yeast.
I'm going to be fermenting this in a new FermZilla conical fermenter I'm getting for Christmas so it will be fermented under pressure so I'm not concerned about the low temps he fermented at. Currently my basement is at about 61 degrees so either way I think I'm low enough. I'm looking at about 3 weeks with a trub removal at about a week and a half. I'll take gravity reading at 3 weeks and then add the oak chips, vanilla extract and taste test after a week and see how things are coming.
Sorry for the long post but really want to hit this out of the park.
Thanks for your help and input.
Bill
Here's the link to the recipe. I thought this was also posted on this forum but cannot locate it.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/110077/backwoods-bastard-clone
He's doing things here I'm not sure of and hope you can help me. I brew E-Kettle BIAB and so I wont be doing any sparges.
1. I feel the grain bill is fine and have entered it into BeerSmith2 and converted it to a 5.5 gallon recipe. Happy with this but open to ideas.
2. He has a small second mash he does but not sure exactly what he's doing. It's a 1-1/2 gallon mash but he says two different things. He says its a lot of work but you end up with a quart of caramelized wort. Then he talks about adding this small wort to the main wort and boil them both. It then sounds as if it's the full 1-1/2 gallon of wort with the main wort. The entire 2 worts are boiled down adding the small 1-1/2 gallon wort in slowly for a 2 hour boil. Confusing for sure. What are your thoughts on this. Maybe you'll read this differently.
3. I've done oak and bourbon additions to some stouts one is a Dragons Milk clone and never use that much oak and bourbon. I normally use 2 oz. of oak chips and just enough bourbon to cover the chips entirely. If I need more bourbon flavor I add some at kegging time. How's your feelings on this??
4. The water profile is close to mine but with my extremely hard water, I'm using 60% RO water with my well water for a water profile of: 76 Calcium, 18 Mag, 33 Sodium, 47 Sulfate, 49 Chloride and 260 Bicarb for a pH of 5.44. My well water is extremely hard.
5. He listed two different mash temps. One is 156 and the other in his notes is 152. Thinking of something around 153-154 for 90 minutes. Lately my 60 minute mashes have fallen short of my numbers so after posting on this forum I'm going to go 90 minutes as suggested. Thoughts???
6. I'm going to do a 2.75 liter starter with a stir plate. Should get me a good starter for this brew. I'm not sure about all the extra bursts of O2 at the first few hours of fermentation. What are your feelings? I do about a 60 second burst of O2 before pitching my yeast.
I'm going to be fermenting this in a new FermZilla conical fermenter I'm getting for Christmas so it will be fermented under pressure so I'm not concerned about the low temps he fermented at. Currently my basement is at about 61 degrees so either way I think I'm low enough. I'm looking at about 3 weeks with a trub removal at about a week and a half. I'll take gravity reading at 3 weeks and then add the oak chips, vanilla extract and taste test after a week and see how things are coming.
Sorry for the long post but really want to hit this out of the park.
Thanks for your help and input.
Bill