Salmon fly honey wheat rye

[traetox]

I have done about 7 batches that have restored my faith in beer. But now I am ready to try and tackle my white whale. The beer I miss more than anything since the diagnosis.

Salmon fly honey wheat rye by Madison river brewing company.

Here is the plan. Please throw pointers.

1.5lbs light millet malt steeped for 60 at 160
2lbs buckwheat malt. Steeped for 60 min with enzymes at 155
2 lbs sorghum for a full 60min boil
1.75 lbs rice syrup for full 60
1lbs wild flower honey at 30 min
1oz strisslesplat at 60min
1oz hersbrucker at 30
Whirlfloc and nutrient at 15min

Yeast is danstar muntun ale

Anyone from Pacific Northwest that has had this amazing beer or tried to clone it?

 

[traetox]

Here is the recipe I settled on:
1.0 lbs of malted buckwheat steeped at 161 for 60 min
2.0 lbs of roasted millet steeped at 161 for 60 min
5.0 lbs of Sorghum syrup for full 60 min boil
2.5 lbs of wild flower honey at 3 whirlpool/cooldown

1oz Mount Hood at 60 min
1oz Fuggle at 30 min
yeast nutrient and whirlfloc at 15 min

yeast: Munton English

Primary: 1.5 weeks @ 68F
Secondary: 4 weeks @ 68F
O.G. 1.051
F.G. 1.008
ABV: 5.50%

Results:
This one sat in secondary for almost 4 weeks and then I keg conditioned it at 32F for almost 3 weeks. I had to taste it right after I carbed it and it was really sweet with a bit of a "medicine" after taste. I assume this is due to the huge amount of honey. I was able to actually talk to the head brewer responsible for the "legit" version of this beer and he pushed me to the much later and much larger honey additions (I can't speak highly enough of this guy. He took time from his business to help me and seem genuinely excited to help. Much props to Madison River Brewing). The initial taste was a bit disappointing, but I have had a few beers that were almost undrinkable going into the keg that turned into fantastic beers after 3-4 weeks of conditioning.

At week 3 the beer developed what I can only call a "cream" consistency. With a very smooth head that sticks and a tremendous amount of body. The honey aftertaste has faded a lot and the aggressive sweetness has faded to a really nice flavor. All-in-all I am really pleased 8/10. The creamy body and very nice head really make this beer. It will be an excellent summer beer.

Next steps:
I am going to pull the sorghum back to 1-2lbs and try to make up the gravity with more buckwheat and millet in a proper mash. I am thinking 8lbs of Millet and 2lbs of buckwheat. I am also going to pull the honey back just a bit to 2lbs. If you are looking for a sweet summer beer this really hit the spot for me.

 

[sardlot]

hey op! Salmon fly is also my white whale and the reason I got into brewing! I noticed in your history you said you had celiac's, is that why you used buckwheat and millet? I've seen a handful of other recipes that use other grains, but your recipe by far has the largest additions of honey and syrup I've seen. Do you think that you successfully re-created the original, or do you think you made a good GF substitute to satisfy the craving?

 

[lumpher]

hey op! Salmon fly is also my white whale and the reason I got into brewing! I noticed in your history you said you had celiac's, is that why you used buckwheat and millet? I've seen a handful of other recipes that use other grains, but your recipe by far has the largest additions of honey and syrup I've seen. Do you think that you successfully re-created the original, or do you think you made a good GF substitute to satisfy the craving?

He may not answer you. He hasn't been on for 6 1/2 years. "Last seen May 26, 2017"

 

[sardlot]

He may not answer you. He hasn't been on for 6 1/2 years. "Last seen May 26, 2017"

Yeah I'm aware. I'm hoping OP will see the email notification and pop back on. There's not many published recipes for this beer and I'm very curious!

 

[traetox]

wow... it HAS been a while.

So I haven't brewed this in a while (been kind of going ham with hazy's and IPAs) but I did go back through my notes on batches. Unfortunately I can't really say how close it was to the original because I haven't tasted the real thing in almost a decade.

A couple of these did turn out extremely well, but you HAVE to age it. Every single batch has a note about tasting like young mead for the first couple weeks.

The batch that I rated the best aged in a carboy for almost 3 months and used clover honey instead of wildflower honey. I am in east Idaho so wild flower honey is almost entirely alfalfa which is really interesting raw, but just tastes like dirt after it ferments out. I also have a batch that used orange blossom honey and the notes say that it was really tasty but conflicted with the "malt" flavor.


Basically my best batch was close to the above, used local raw clover honey (2lbs), aged for almost 3 months and minimized sorghum as much as possible. If you are in a position or location where you could do an all grain and can get a wild flower honey that is fed by food crops I bet it would be amazing. The head brewer that I got to speak to DID mention he didn't use local honey so I have to assume he figured out the Alfalfa "funk" too and was using honey from other crops.

I might give this another run, maybe with Lutra. That yeast seems to tolerate and suppress the Sorghum twang rally well. Please update if you manage to do all grain or learn new stuff.