Is My Cedar Brew Screwed?

[Hoppopotomus]

I made a nice partial mash pale ale with the more earthy, piney hop profiles (Simcoe & Fuggles). I have been wanting to experiment with adding cedar spirals to a brew, so now was my chance to make an earthy, danky pale ale to compliment the cedar. I just couldn't decide if I wanted to steep the cedar spirals or soak in rum and add to a secondary. I went to my basement, grabbed a red cedar log that I already had stripped the bark off of for another project, and used my draw knife to obtain 2 oz. of cedar spirals. I made sure to knife the sap wood and heartwood for equal representation.

I decided to steep them and my plan was to put the cedar spirals in a steeping bag, throw it in a gallon of water and steep from cold to 170 degrees, hold for 30 min., remove the bag of spirals, and add to the BK for the boil. I started the cedar steep on my stovetop inside. While preparing the equipment, the mash, etc., I lost track of time and my wife indicated that my cedar steep had just started boiling, so she turned it off immediately, so it only boiled for less than a minute. The cedar tea was an amazing color....a deep amber color (think Tahquamenon River) and since it had boiled I figured what the hell, it's sterile...just add it to the fermenter to top off to five gallons when I was done. I left the cedar spirals in the water for the next 1 1/2 hours while finishing up the mash sparging and the boil, until it fell back to room temp.

So I finished the boil, used my IC to cool it down to pitching temp., topped off with the cedar tea (minus the bag of cedar spirals) and water up to 5 gallons, aerated the hell out of it and took a sample for my OG. My OG was spot on and the wort had a noticeable, yet subtle smell of cedar. I sampled the wort and holy sh*t.......BITTER! Not so much bitterness from the Simcoe, but just a resin bitterness that was strange and dominated the hops. I may throw an ounce of Simcoe and an ounce of Fuggles into a secondary and rack onto that to cover it up to some degree, but I haven't a clue what it's going to turn out like. It's chugging away right now fermenting and the aeroma is of hops and subtle cedar. I assume the bitterness is from tannins released from the cedar.....I hope to hell it tames down with age!

Advice or suggestions????

 

[Pappers_]

Not speaking from experience, haven't used cedar at all, let alone in the way you did. Three thoughts:

1) interesting and amazing things happen during fermentation - I would let it progress and see how it turns out;

2) you may already know this, but when using wood to replicate the aroma and flavor of using oak barrels, the tried-and-true process is to sanitize the wood cubes or spirals and add them to the secondary, after fermentation;

3) when experimenting with herbs or ingredients that I've not used before, making a tincture or tea and adding it at bottling or kegging lets me taste what I'm adding to my beer, add a little a time until its where I like

Good luck with your experiment!

 

[Brewpastor]

Hard to say without tasting, but it will mellow. I have not used cedar, but have used juniper which is very similar. I just used heartwood and have used both tea and direct wood in beers. I have not used it in an already bitter beer, but count on it adding tannin bitterness. Even then it does mellow over time. I don't think adding hops to mask will get any improvement. I say let it go and age an see what you come up with. Let us know what the experiment yields. But the damage, if any, is done, so let it be, let it age and move on.

 

[malkore]

I had a cedar aged Pale ale recently. It was over-aged on the cedar chips due to life's little interruptions. It was drinkable, but too cedary.
The cedar chips were used like oak chips...in secondary aging...just for too long. No tea was made, and the beer did not have any usual bitterness/resinous flavors.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

I guess I'm just going to let it role and see what happens. I appreciate the feedback from some very experienced brewers. Thanks guys....I'll let you know how it turns out. If anyone else has any thoughts.....please share.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Just a quick update. It has been just over a week and I pulled a sample from the primary to check the gravity and taste. I'm happy to say that the intense resin bitterness from the cedar tea has subsided as fermentation has progressed. There doesn't seem to be much cedar aroma at all at this point, which is a bit disappointing. There is a very noticeable woody flavor in the beer, a bit like chewing on a stick......not offensive, just different. Thankfully, the simcoe and fuggles are coming through more. Since the cedar aroma is nowhere to be found, I decided to drop an ounce of simcoe pellets into the fermenter for a week of dry hopping. It's certainly not a dumper, but not exactly what I was looking for. For now, I think that the cedar tea is out of the mix, but I may still try a batch where I soak some cedar spirals in rum and then add to the secondary. Maybe that would provide the aromatic properties that I'm looking for?????

 

[unionrdr]

I'd have to say no,not in the way you think. When I brewed up my dark ale for my Whiskely ale,I soaked 4oz of medium toast French oak chips in 5 jiggers of Beam's Black in a tight plastic container in the fridge for the whole time the ale fermented. With the ale in secondary,& the wood having soaked up 2/3 of the bourbon,I socked it it up,pouring the liquid through the sock into the ale. tied it off,dumped it in. It took only 8 days for it to dominate the flavor. It took 9 weeks & 6 days with 2 weeks fridge time to get it mellowed out.
The flavor of the wood was more like a spicy black oak,which faded after 2 a month/month & a half. I'd say,toast the wood lightly,then boil it in a small amount of water. Then store the whole thing in a plastic container in the fridge till ready to secondary. Then do as I did till it reaches the desired amount of flavor. Plus a little,accounting for aging & carbonation.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Sounds like a much better plan. I have several other styles that are in line for brewing, but when my cedar experiment comes back around, I'll give it a shot! Thanks for the great advice.

 

[unionrdr]

I hope I helped a little. I'm going to get back to oaking myself. Maybe with the Burton ale recipe I'm working on. Cold steeping the boiled oak chips will get more flavor out of the wood. Just soak them in a tight lidded container in the fridge like I did. It seems to keep it from spoiling during the ferment stage of the beer. And pour all through a muslin bag into the secondary,then add the bag of chips to get even more.
And just as an interesting aside,I think it kinda adds a little bit of that cask conditioned aroma. Mixed with the other aroma adders in the beer kinda smell.

 

[COLObrewer]

We use pinon in our beers, just a thought but you may want to simply add the cedar at 10 minutes left in the boil, that's how we do pinon and it has MAD pinon aroma. We do also steep it with the mash like you've done but i've never noticed a bitter taste from it. I'm thinking maybe the long duration you had it in the steep drew out the bitterness?

 

[bovineblitz]

I'm guessing it will be fine, my wort often tastes outrageously bitter after the boil.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

Kegged this batch on Tuesday and put it under 30 psi for 48 hrs., purged, and set to 11 psi. Tried a few ounces tonight, just to see what I have. Up front his has a nice aroma from the late fuggles additions and the simcoe dry hop. As it carbs up, it seems to have a bit more of the "woody" after taste. It's a very dank, almost tree bark type flavor....again, not offensive, but prevalent. Not at all what I was going for, but very drinkable non the less. I'm sure it will chance as it ages and carbs up, so I'm gonna let this one sit for a while and periodically pull a pint to see what happens.

 

[Hoppopotomus]

2 weeks in the keg and fully carbed......getting better and better. Still not what I was going for, as there is zero cedar aroma, but for the most part the weird woody, tree bark flavors are less and less.