Monday, September 12, 2011

Adventures in Homebrewing-The Bourbon Oaked Stout!


I am brewing this batch of Bourbon Oaked Stout to donate to The Charlotte Oktoberfest.  Anyone who donates a keg of homebrew will receive a free ticket to event.  I will also be able to pour my beer if I choose to.  It all depends on how it turns out.  If it happens to suck, I will pretend we never met.  If it's good, I will certainly be there pouring with a big smile on my face.  I brewed this on August 27th.  It was a bit windy, since this was the weekend of Hurricane Irene.  

Here's the recipe:

Malt & Fermentables
13.50 lbs 2 Row Malt
.75 lbs Black Malt
.5 lbs Roasted Barley
.25 lbs Caramel 120L
.25 lbs Dehusked Carafa III

Hops
2 oz. Williamette 60 mins
1 oz. Cascade 15 mins
1 oz. Cascade 1 min
Total Bitterness 40.5 IBU

Yeast
Wyeast Northwest Ale Yeast

Alcohol Content

6.9% ABV


Here are some pics from the brew day:

Sexy grain

Could barely fit all the grain and the strike water in my mash tun

 Mashed at 152 degrees and sparged at 170 degrees
 Loving the jet black color

Hurricane Irene only effected us with a little bit of wind that I needed to block

 Hops!

 One of my fav hops!

 It looks like beer!

My Original Gravity was off by about 10 points...not sure what I could have done wrong???

The beer fermented at around 69/70 degrees and took off within about 24 hours.  I left in the primary fermenter for about 13 days, then transferred to my secondary.  The Gravity was 1.008.  That would put it at about 6.7% ABV.   I gave it a tasting, and it's not as hearty as I would like it to be.  We'll see how it ends up.  Here are some pics of that day. 

 While the beer was fermenting, I had my oak cubes soaking in Maker's Mark Bourbon!

 I dumped the bourbon and the oak cubes in the carboy and transferred my beer on top 

 While siphoning/transferring, I had to sample my Belgian IPA (only 6 days in the bottle)

 Now it's gonna sit in my tub for another few weeks

Cheers!

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