Rumcake - a christmas quad

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NuclearRich

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8 gallon batch (scaled from 6gals, sorry for the weird numbers), split into two buckets

15lbs 9oz Pilsner Malt
7oz acidulated malt (for pH)
14oz British Amber Malt
1lb 12oz Biscuit Malt
2lbs 11oz Munich Malt

Clean water profile (no salts & filtered water, or use half tap half distilled)
Mash at 150F for 60mins.

Carmelize 1lb light DME and 1lb table sugar in a pot, careful not to burn it and immediately add to boil kettle, mixing fully with wort before heating to prevent scorching.

2oz Styrian Golding 50 mins (I had to sub Willamette)
1.5oz Saaz 15 mins

Wyeast Leuven Pale Ale 3538PC, big starter. (Belgian Abbey II is what I think I used last year)
Primary fermentation: 4 weeks @72F
Secondary: to taste (estimating 3-4 weeks)
Bottle condition: 4months to 2years

Spice: mix 1tsp ground cinnamon, 1/2tsp ground ginger, 1/4tsp ground allspice, 1/4tsp ground cloves. Added 1.5tsp of the mix to half of the batch.
Oak: 1.5oz medium toast oak cubes, soaked 24-72hrs in enough captain morgan to cover cubes. Rack onto cubes, age to taste (I would recommend 3 weeks)

Brewed 8/12/13. Based off of the 12 beers of christmas found in Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing, and brewed for this years swap. The recipe starts out as a caramel quad. Last year, I missed the swap and made this beer and put half of it on some gingerbread spices (kind of blending one of the other 12 beers of christmas, the gingerbread ale), and it was AWESOME. I felt like I would steal some thunder from the gingerbread ale if I did it the same way this year, so I wanted to change up the spiced half a bit. I thought of different holiday delights for spicing inspiration (apple pie, fruitcake, sugar plums), but finally decided to use similar spices as last time. The big difference this time comes with also oak aging with rum, and calling it RUMCAKE! I'll be using some medium toast cubes soaked in captain morgan once this comes off of primary.

I hit almost all of my numbers, except the OG (1.071) was a tiny bit lower than I wanted (goal was more like 1.080). I'm hoping a slightly lower mash temp (mine drifted from 151 to 149) combined with an aggresive yeast at the higher end of temps (72-74F) will bring me to a low FG near 1.010.


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22ish lbs all crushed up!

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The HLT getting strike water up to temp

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mashed in just about right, although I wouldnt have minded 1 or 2 degrees less

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70qt with 20+lbs, 8gals. Still not capacity baby, not bad. Although the batch sparge pushes it a wee bit.

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In the meantime, 1lb light DME and 1lb table sugar getting ready to carmelize.
 
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The sugar in the pan started to burn a lot faster than melt, didnt really go as well as planned. I ended up with a hard ball of candy, carmelized on the outside. Once I lautered the first runnings, it started dissolving, and by the time the kettle was filled, it was ready for the heat.

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Big fat hot break, nice colors. 10 gallon boil

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The boil

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Chilled in about 15mins

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Nice color on the sample, but a little lower OG than I wanted, but I'm hoping it ferments down pretty low.
 
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Some spices for one half

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About 4gals in the two buckets, with the yeasties hopefully ramping up soon! CW starting at the right 3:00 bucket: Caramel spiced quad (to become the rumcake), caramel quad (to remain unadulterated), Wit (some to be put on mulberries), Summer wheat (to be bottled soon)
 
I know I'm about a month late, but great post. I appreciate the photos as well. I'm planning a christmas beer now, so this may prove useful. Thanks.

BG
 
Will do guys, thanks for the interest. I just racked into rum soaked oak last week, so trading will be soon
 
Sample of the rumcake half 16 days after racking to rum soaked oak (1.5oz med toast hungarian oak soaked for a week in ~2oz spiced rum). Crystal clear amberish Brown color. Smells lightly of raw wood, with a medium spice, sweet. Tastes like spicy sweet clean oak, maybe how an oak tree would taste with maple sap lol. Not a hint of booze other than a slight warmth on the tongue, and this baby is warm and uncarbed! I'm going to leave it on the rum/oak for another week I think.

I bottled the "clean" (unspiced, no oak) half 14 days ago, and have a bottle chilling. Will post on that shortly.

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Tasting the chilled "clean" half now. It appears to be a little less clear than the rumcake, but not much, same color, with the added benefit of a thin cap of off-white foam. Smells much more like a quad! Dark malts, raisin, toffee. The taste gives me a certain idea of what flavors are coming from the yeast and which are coming from the oak: there is a certain woodiness that comes from it. Otherwise, taste is slightly sweet with a hint of booze that works to balance it out, just a little funky, toffee like, earthy. I'd call it medium bodied, it goes down really easily and feels a little thin, but coats the tongue and the taste lingers on quite a bit.
 
Great tasting notes! I don't know why I expected it to look darker. I went back and had a look at your grain bill, and it looks about the right SRM for the ingredients you used. I'm still intrigued. Is it heading the direction you wanted, or would you do something differently?
 
Great tasting notes! I don't know why I expected it to look darker. I went back and had a look at your grain bill, and it looks about the right SRM for the ingredients you used. I'm still intrigued. Is it heading the direction you wanted, or would you do something differently?

The yeast this time around is certainly different, not sure if I'd use the same one again, but I'm holding my judgment until Christmas time when It's more officially ready. I like the spice level very much this way, it's present but subtle and allows the actual beer flavors to shine in conjunction. It is fairly light for a quad, I agree, but I like it so I'll stick to it. If anything I would add some special b if I wanted darker, the subtle raisin and toffee could be enhanced nicely that way maybe.
 
I entered this in a small local HB contest at a bar. It did ok, scoring two 29s. One judge must have not read the special ingredients (entered in the belgian specialty category as a belgian holiday ale), as he noted some astringency. OAK, DUDE. The other judge detracted points from flavor, calling it slightly lifeless. It is probably a little green still and less than fully carbed, but I wouldnt call it lifeless. Clean, light spices for a holiday ale, perhaps could use a little more body, as the oak astringency definitely thins the feel but I find it a delicious addition.

So it could use a little tweaking. Next year...
 

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