El Cedro Jester King Clone?

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thisisbeer

thisisbeer

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I really want to try and clone this beer and I can't find anything on it. It's pretty good and I would like to try brewing something different. So far this is the info I have.

Hoppy Cedar-Aged Ale with Brettanomyces

El Cedro Farmhouse ale hopped with piney, citrusy American hops, aged on Spanish Cedar spirals, and bottle conditioned with Brettanomyces yeast. Unfiltered, unpasteurized and naturally conditioned.

Packages: 750ml bottles
Availability: Limited
OG: 1.062 FG: 1.002 ABV: 8.0%
Water: Hill Country Well Water
Malt: Organic Two-Row, Organic Carapils, Organic Wheat
Hops: Millennium, Cascade, Columbus, Citra, and/or other varieties depending on availability
Yeast: Farmhouse Yeast, Brettanomyces

I was thinking 10% on the carapils but had no idea on the wheat and two-row. Maybe 30% wheat?

I also have no idea on the hop schedule or amounts. I'm really not sure how the hops shine threw with the FG of 1.002.

I have never used Brettanomyces, much less bottle conditioned with it. I don't have the experience to clone this myself so I was hoping someone here may be willing to help me out.
 
Probably going to be a tough clone.

I would recommend trying to culture yeast from a bottle for an El Cedro clone. Jester King's wild yeast blend is a big part of their flavor profile. Never personally tried culturing from their bottles before though so dunno what the result would be. Might just get lots of Brett with the El Cedro bottle.

If not, I believe they use/used a pure Saison yeast in the initial fermentation. Probably a combo of that and their wild stuff now.

I believe they tend to use rather large hop additions to get the flavor profile past the low FG and wild yeast flavors.

I think you are pretty close with your grain bill. They don't use a lot of wheat in their beers typically.

Maybe try a few 1 gallon test batches to see if you can get one to be spot on?

Good luck and let me know what your results are!:mug:
 
I just bought a few 1 gallon jugs to start doing smaller batches like this!

I thought about culturing but figured the Brett wouldn't let me. I was thinking about using a white labs farmhouse yeast and also try capturing some local wild yeast for this. But I noticed the white labs has brett in it. Still working on the yeast. Any Ideas?

The hop schedule and amounts is the thing confusing me the most. I really have no idea.

Has any one Bottle conditioned with brett? What FG would be safe to add the brett and let bottle carb?
 
Ok with some help I came up with this

78% two-row
18% wheat
4% carapils
45 IBU

.5 ounce Magnum 60 min
1 ounce Cascade 20 min
1 ounce columbus 10 min
2 ounce citra 0 min
 
FYI, this is the answer I got when I asked them about their wild yeasts:
If you're looking to work with some of our native culture, you could harvest the dregs from Boxer's Revenge, Das Uberkind, RU55 or Funk Metal.
Click to expand...
Of course those bottles are hard as HELL to find, and I am not sure if El Cedro had come out yet back in July.

They also told me that the "farmhouse yeast" strain is WY3711.

Interestingly enough, if you pulled that from their website on 11/7, it now does not mention any caramel malts but does mention wild yeast and souring bacteria.

Personally I think you should go ahead and come up with an idea and email them. I got a response within a day or two and they were very courteous. If I can find another bottle of El Cedro I was thinking of harvesting the dregs for a sour I am planning, if I can't find anymore, I may have to use Mad Meg or Wytchmaker dregs (seems like Wytchmaker is the least sour).

EDIT: and hey, I'm in Pearland too!
 
FYI, this is the answer I got when I asked them about their wild yeasts:
If you're looking to work with some of our native culture, you could harvest the dregs from Boxer's Revenge, Das Uberkind, RU55 or Funk Metal.
Click to expand...
Of course those bottles are hard as HELL to find, and I am not sure if El Cedro had come out yet back in July.

They also told me that the "farmhouse yeast" strain is WY3711.

Interestingly enough, if you pulled that from their website on 11/7, it now does not mention any caramel malts but does mention wild yeast and souring bacteria.

Personally I think you should go ahead and come up with an idea and email them. I got a response within a day or two and they were very courteous. If I can find another bottle of El Cedro I was thinking of harvesting the dregs for a sour I am planning, if I can't find anymore, I may have to use Mad Meg or Wytchmaker dregs (seems like Wytchmaker is the least sour).
 
EDIT: and hey, I'm in Pearland too!
Click to expand...

Awesome! I have been finding a ton of Pearland brewers on here lately. There are way more than I thought.

I am actually getting ready to bottle this beer this weekend I am pretty stoked about it. I did use the 3711 as the Wild Yeast. Just need to get some brett to bottle condition this thing. I have never bottle conditioned with brett so I'm pretty curious about it. Anybody have any experience with it?
 
My thinking is that you would ferment until dry with brett and then prime as usual before bottling? That way the brett is what will condition it.

I have a sneaking suspicion that a neighbor is a homebrewer as well. I live in an apartment complex and he has a big attached garage and sometimes it's open. I think i can see keggles in there.
 
That's what I was thinking. The biggest issue is trying to find the cedar spirals.

Somebody needs to open a home brew store in this town and a place that sales more craft beer on tap.
 
No need for spirals, just get some aged cedar chips and toast them yourself. I was thinking of getting some from my dad who has cleared 2 acres in the hill country and has a ton of cedar.
 
Wow! I sent an email to JK and literally got a response in less than a minute! The recipe he said looks really close and the 3711 yeast is what they use. He said in there experience the 3711 will get the FG down to 1.004-02 then they bottle with the brett to finish it off.
 
Ah really? Crap.

Interwebs then. Toasting wood chips is really easy I'm an oven, but I've read aged chips are required.
 
They said the use the barrel mill for the cedar spirals. I don't see them on there website but I sent them an email. The way I understood it is Spanish cedar is pretty different from regular cedar.
 
gometz said:
FYI, this is the answer I got when I asked them about their wild yeasts:

Of course those bottles are hard as HELL to find, and I am not sure if El Cedro had come out yet back in July.

They also told me that the "farmhouse yeast" strain is WY3711.

Interestingly enough, if you pulled that from their website on 11/7, it now does not mention any caramel malts but does mention wild yeast and souring bacteria.

Personally I think you should go ahead and come up with an idea and email them. I got a response within a day or two and they were very courteous. If I can find another bottle of El Cedro I was thinking of harvesting the dregs for a sour I am planning, if I can't find anymore, I may have to use Mad Meg or Wytchmaker dregs (seems like Wytchmaker is the least sour).

EDIT: and hey, I'm in Pearland too!
Click to expand...

You know now that I think about it the last El Cedro I drank did taste different the the first one I had. I wonder if they changed it up?
 
Looks like Spanish cedar is often used for cigar boxes, so a cigar store should have it.

It could be that they changed their recipe, some of the hop listings even say "when available" or something like that.

And I just saw the thread I was reading was started by you. So... try that?
 
I probably will I just really wanted to sources the spirals. I forgot I started a thread on that.
 
thisisbeer said:
You know now that I think about it the last El Cedro I drank did taste different the the first one I had. I wonder if they changed it up?
Click to expand...

I love El Cedro. Probably my favorite shelf beer of theirs that I've had.

And yes, they have changed up their yeast usage over the last couple of years - according to their last blog post:
"While we’ve embraced naturally occurring, wild microorganisms in our oak barrel fermentations since we opened in 2010, up until this past summer, our primary fermentations in staineless steel tanks were conducted with pure culture brewer’s yeast, specifically the French Saison strain. This is no longer the case. All of our fermentations now incorporate a diverse blend of microorganisms consisting of dozens of different types of yeast and bacteria. We’ve harvested naturally occurring wild yeast from the flora at our brewery and blended it with various types of Saccharomyces yeast, Brettanomyces yeast, and lactic acid producing bacteria to ferment all of our beer."

Really tough to reproduce that, obviously. If I was going to try to recreate their new method, I might do a primary with 3711, then hit it with some dregs after a couple days. That would give the bugs more than just the final couple of grav points to work with. All speculation though, haven't actually tried it.

Good luck with yours, excited to hear how it turns out.
 
Ya no way I can clone that. But my original reason for cloning this beer is to get it down and build another (my own) recipe off of it. I want to have a house beer that's a little different than everything else I brew.
 
BREAKTHROUGH! I wanted to try a couple other beers on it is why I wanted them so bad. But I finally sourced the Cedar Spirals. 2 8" Spirals are $14.75 at The Barrel Mill. That is the same place Jester King gets them.
 
Arrived just in time! Now to dry hop and add some spirals. These things have a very strong smell to them. It smells like a cigar box through the plastic!

Cedar Spirals.jpg
 
Nice! For a 5 gallon batch you probably don't need much more than 1-2 though right?
 
I think two. If I remember right it came with a paper that said "1 Per 3 Gallons" But I will have to check. But these things have a terrific strong smell so that may be to much.
 
Got a glass of El Cedro at the brewery on Saturday. Really miss it already.

BTW: what was the price for the spirals if you don't mind me asking?
 
thisisbeer said:
Wow! I sent an email to JK and literally got a response in less than a minute! The recipe he said looks really close and the 3711 yeast is what they use. He said in there experience the 3711 will get the FG down to 1.004-02 then they bottle with the brett to finish it off.
Click to expand...

Any chance if being sent this recipe? Would HUGELY appreciate it! :)
 
@Thisisbeer how did you go about adding Brett for bottle conditioning? Did you add to secondary to help ferment out or did you just add it to the bottles?
 
Add it to the bottles. I would recommend using rhe champagne bottles for this. The 3711 it's supposed to get it down to 1.004 or so. Do there shouldn't be to much to worry about.
 
I added 18 drops per 22 ounce bottle. But after talking to some friends I would just pour a vial of it in the bottling bucket and make sure its mixed well.
 
How long did you condition it in the bottle for? Was there a noticeable brett flavor?
 
Not at first. After the normal 3 weeks its carbed up and taste like a great ipa. Which is as far as I have gotten with this recipe. I'm still waiting for some bottles to age out longer. But I have had some El Cedro that was conditioned for a few months. You eventually start getting some flavors to come through. Just takes a while.
 
tholland said:
Attached is a recipe I got from another poster that I think he got directly from Jester King.

Enjoy!
Click to expand...

I forgot to say something about this. The guy sent me this recipe on my initial search to. They may have made this when they couldn't source Citra hops. I'm not sure, but the recipe I posted taste spot on to the original El Cedro i'm used to. I was assured that they use big doses of Citra in this recipe.
 
I dry hopped with Citra and big flameout addition as well. It goes great with the Spanish Cedar. I may try the combo again for a standard IPA. But pretty cool to see that recipe sheet.
 

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