1 year aged brew for friend/soldier, suggestions

[DuckiesRevenge]

I wasn't completely sure where this thread should go so I thought that I would place it here, hopefully that is alright.

So a good friend and best man was deployed yesterday to Afghanistan. He will be gone for a year and I want to make up something nice and tasty that will be able to age for a year (well just under) until he comes back. I don't have loads of experience (currently 5 brews in) but I am catching on fast (my biochem degree is finally being useful). I have only done extract with specialty grains, but am not opposed to partial mash, especially since I am contemplating only doing a 3 gal batch for cost and space saving.

So here's the deal, I am not completely sure what type of brew I should do. I was thinking either a RIS, barleywine or whiskey aged beer. My friend is a big fan of Johnny Walker, and likes medium dark beers so I was leaning towards the whiskey aged beer, maybe aged with oak chips? Otherwise I think I could be swayed if there would be a reason to do otherwise.

Not completely sure on which style to do and unfortunately I have a lot of trouble deciding on what to brew even for myself, so I wanted to see what you guys might think or have suggestions to do.

 

[duboman]

Just because he will be deployed for a year doesn't mean you have to brew a beer and age it for a year, unless of course you really want to jump in feet first

Since you are just getting going, work on your process, increase your experience level, improve your product and brew something that will be ready when he returns, just plan ahead a month or two prior to the return.

 

[Zamial]

5 gallon batch:

10 lbs of Simpson's Golden Promise
10 lbs clove honey (Or use better honey if you can afford it.)

1/2 oz nugget @ 90
1 oz simcoe @ 30

4oz light toast oak chips (American)

Use honey as you would extract and add at flame out. Mash at 152F.

Soak the oak in JW until it has just enough to be covered and floats. Freeze/thaw the oak+JW until none of the oak floats. Separate off the liquid. Add oak chips into braggot secondary. Taste after 24 hours and every 12 there after until it is "perfect" then age it 24 more hours. Bottle w/ O2 barrier caps and dip in wax for longevity.

BTW Golden Promise is the base malt for scotch...

This is a version of my cherry braggot which IMO is divine.

 

[sweed]

I say RIS, just because I love RIS's and am fermenting one right now. This is my 2nd brew, and its pretty easy. Add some oak and bourbon in the 2ndary, and then bottle it. It will taste great after 10 months of aging. That's what I am doing, but also adding bourbon soaked vanilla beans.

 

[DuckiesRevenge]

I thing that someday I want to get into long aged beers, so I figure no better time than the present. If it goes bad, no huge loss (live and learn), and I can brew something else later on to make up for it.

Zamial, that sounds very intriguing, is 10 lbs of honey alright/ having 50% of the fermentables as that? I was under the impression that 20% would be the right amount generally (suppliment with LME or DME maybe?), then again that may have been for sugar additions, I forget...

 

[DuckiesRevenge]

Okay I've been working on this and this is what I am thinking.

3 gal batch:
OG: 1.112
FG: 1.028
11%ABV
60 IBU

4.5# Golden Promise
4.5# 2-Row
0.5# Crystal 20L
3# Honey

.5 Nugget @ 90
.5 Nugget @ 30

Mash at 152,
boil and add honey at flameout.
Combination of London Ale III 1318 (I already have washed stores of this) and champagne yeast to get to the FG
Secondary on Oak until desired flavor (soaking in JW like mentioned above), then bottle and forget about it for a long time.

Any major problems with this or potential changes?

 

[Zamial]

I would NOT use nugget for anything other than bittering. It has a "pungent" aroma and flavor in an unpleasant way...

Unless you are going to boil for a VERY long time, you will not get the kind of conversion/sugars you think you will. I will stand by my suggestion of 50/50 for the honey/grains (That is what makes it a braggot) AND it will be easier/less work to have to get a decent conversion from less grains. YMMV.

Also I would NOT use champagne yeast. I would use your London Ale and let that bottom out. If need be, top it off with a nice starter of WLP high grav ale yeast but don't start with that high grav yeast it doesn't taste that great.

Other than that it looks/sounds great! :rockin:

 

[DuckiesRevenge]

I can understand the concern about the grain, so I changed the grain bill to:

3# golden promise
3# row-2
.5# crystal 20L
6# honey

In regards to the hops what about this?
.5 Simcoe @90
.5 simcoe @30
Still brings up the IBU to 59 (previous post was wrong, I didn't account for the late addition of the honey, so that would have been higher).

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Zamial]

That looks good to me but please remember that this is YOUR brew NOT mine and I am only offering suggestions.

Let us know how it goes and ends up.

 

[DuckiesRevenge]

Will do

 

[DuckiesRevenge]

Alright, so it is coming up on almost a year since I started thinking about this beer and A LOT has happened and is still happening. Here we go...

Brew day I put together the following:
3.5# Golden Promise
.5# Crystal 20L
.5# Carapils
3.3# Gold LME
4# Honey (late addition)

Partial mash at 152F for 60min mash out at 170F, ended up getting 75% efficiency which I was happy about

I used .5oz simcoe at 60, and at 30 (ended up with a 60 min boil due to final volume issues which I was wrong about anyways... whoops!).

Ended up at 1.107SG and well... I wasnt completely happy with that (not quite sure why anymore), so I added abuot 0.75lbs DME 2 days after fermentation began. Brought it up to about 1.115ish I think...

So things went along, fermented away 4 days it was at 1.030! So I was excited about that. 1 month in primary it was at 1.028SG about 71 IBUs and 11.5%ABV, and I added 1/2 cup of Johnny Walker Black that had ~1 oz of oak into the last week of primary then transferred to secondary and forgot about it for 6 months. Then came tasting day..

SOY SAUCE BOMB!! I even had my wife try and she said the same thing. I was busy so I said screw it and left it alone for another month. Then I decided that maybe I should bottle it anyways and hope it gets better, so first I re-hydrated some Premier Cuvee yeast to let it clean-up/finish whatever sugars it could before I bottled (hoping to get away from bottle bombs). Once again life got away from me and I forgot about it for another month. Tried it and it was MUCH BETTER! Tasted faintly of JW, couldn't taste the oak which I was sad about, but all in all it wasn't too bad and NO soy sauce taste what so ever!!!

As an added surprise my friend who I made this for, came back from active duty, and he got to taste it un-carbed and not quite ready yet. So I have since placed it into a keg to carb it up that way, then I plan to fill bottles and probably let them sit for another month or 5... Maybe even add some JW or something for the kicks of it... we'll see!

So anyways, it's been an interesting year, and since then I've gotten 8 other brews either on tap or completely gone so all in all I think it's been a good one.