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Attempting Supplication clone

Russian River's Supplication is one of the best beers I've ever had. I really enjoy this beer, but unfortunately, being in Texas, I cannot readily obtain any. I would like to try my hand at brewing a batch of this, but I haven't found much information other than what their website provides. Here's what I know:

Supplication
*brown ale aged in French Oak Pinot Noir barrels
*aged with sour cherries
*fermented with Brett, Lacto, and Pedio
*7.00% ABV
*1.064 OG
*27 IBU's

I know that Vinnie has shared a lot of information regarding his brewing process through different channels (Brewing Network, BYO, various books, etc) but I was hoping to collect a comprehensive knowledge database about this beer and it's process so that we could attempt it. Any info helps! Thanks in advance.

Brian

I also love this beer and would love some insight into the recipe if anybody can share.

http://www.chow.com/food-news/54702/vinnie-cilurzo-gets-funky/

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How long do you age your beers?

Consecration is aged 6 to 9 months, Temptation 9 to 15 months, Supplication 12 to 18 months.

http://www.chow.com/food-news/55162/the-perfect-beer/ has a good video on the topic.

Conventional mash
Belgian yeast fermented pretty warm
Post-fermentation, add brett and age in pinot noir barrels with sour cherries and bugs
Can be 18-20 months for a batch, 12-15 months in the barrels.

http://www.russianriverbrewing.com/pages/barrel.html
In addition to what you noted, this claims 3 strains of Brett.

http://www.byo.com/stories/techniques/article/indices/8-aging/1279-professional-barrel-aging

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There is no real formula for the time a beer must sit in a barrel with the bugs and critters, but, it is those very bugs and critters that will tell you when the beer is ready to be pulled out. It takes at least six months for the Brett to show any signs of the work it has been doing, and the Lacto & Pedio are not much faster, depending on the strain. We go 12 to 15 months for Temptation and Supplication and longer on Beatification, which is spontaneously fermented.

It is just a slow process regardless of how you look at it. Sometimes we develop some acid character from the bacterias pretty early on, but it is usually pretty sharp then, and in time it tends to mellow out and meld with the Brett.

french oak:

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We tend to use French oak, but we are about to start a new beer called Consecration, which will be aged in used, 100% American oak Cabernet Sauvignon barrels.

Generally unblended:

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In many cases, blending only happens if the final beer needs it. If we can bottle it unblended, we will. With Beatification, it will always be blended now because we bottle multiple vintages, just like a Belgian-style Lambic Gueuze. We also always keep some sour, acid beer around if we need to acidify a beer at blending.

Finished and fined before going into barrels:

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For most of our barrel beers, we will finish a beer with either fining or filtration and then put it in wood. I like putting fairly clean beer into the barrel. With that said, though, now that Beatification is spontaneously fermented, it stays in the barrel for 24 months and we don’t take it out until it is ready to bottle. So, it is sort of a mixed bag for us. There are no real rules.

be careful if you're thinking of using small barrels:

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The problem with a small oak barrel is that you get too much oxygen diffusion because the oak staves are thinner than, say, a 60-gallon (227-L) wine barrel. A Belgian friend of mine who makes lambic beer just emailed about barrels but he wanted larger used wine barrels, something like 100 or 120 gallons (379 or 454 L). This is because there is less oxygen diffusion as the barrel gets larger.

For the homebrewer, he or she needs to watch the O2 uptake and consider only aging in the small barrel for a maybe six months. Then maybe move to a keg or a carboy to finish.

I love the idea of using oak chips to move the funk from one batch to another. For those that heard me speak at the AHA conference in Denver or at the NorCal Homebrewers Fest, I have my “dime bag of oak chips” with some bugs and critters from Russian River. It is a concept.

The specifics of the recipe really aren't that important, the bugs/oak/cherries are the primary flavors. I would use mostly pale/pils, some Munich, a bit of dark caramel malts for color, maybe some flaked wheat. Mash pretty warm to leave undermentables, aim for an OG of 1.064. Minimal hopping with something neutral (RR site say 27 IBUs, but my instinct would be to go lower). Pitch Bastogne or Abbey Ale (from their bottle log) along with the dregs from 2-3 bottles of fresh RR sour dregs. I’ve found that putting clean/fermented beer into barrels works, but on a homebrew scale getting the bugs in early is the only way I’ve gotten that much sourness.

Let it ferment out -23 weeks, then rack it to secondary onto .5 oz of French oak and 1 cup or two of Pinot Noir. Leave it along for 6-12 months before adding the sour cherries, that will give the bugs time to become the dominant organisms so you are feeding them not the Sacch. Something like 1 lb per gallon is probably enough, I like to freeze/defrost them first to breakdown the cell walls. Give it 2-6 months on the fruit, then bottle with some fresh wine yeast or Brett, and enough sugar for medium carbonation.

Thanks for the feedback. As for the brown ale base, I was thinking of a modified version of Tasty McDole's Janet's Brown sound? His base (extract version) is:

Light LME (8.4lbs)
Wheat LME (1lb)
CaraPils (1.25lbs)
Crystal 40 (1.25)
Chocolate Malt (0.5)

The OG for this is 1.066, right around where we want to be at 1.064. Long term, how would the various bugs respond to the fermentables provided by this malt bill? Would it affect the pH and thus the activity of the bugs?

I figured that having a tried and true base recipe may create more success than some hair-brained recipe that I can come up with.

BK

I would hold off on using RR dregs because they use wine yeast on all but Supplication for priming.

Any good Lambic dregs would be a great addition though.

Enjoy,

BW

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Originally Posted by B-Dub (Post 2581490)

I would hold off on using RR dregs because they use wine yeast on all but Supplication for priming.

Why not Supplication dregs, then?

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Originally Posted by SumnerH (Post 2581563)

Why not Supplication dregs, then?

Agreed, I think a few wine yeast cells in primary would be overwhelmed by the billions of brewers yeast cells. That said I’m assuming he doesn’t use a “killer” strain. I’ve never had an issue with their dregs anyway.

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Originally Posted by BK1017 (Post 2581170)

Will that recipe get you in the ballpark? Probably, but I think a few more modifications would help. That would give more roasted flavors than I taste in Supplication (I’d go 4 oz at most). Vinnie also tends to be anti-crystal, maybe there is some darker crystal in there for flavor, but not much.

You’ll also be a bit higher in gravity, the Light LME alone would get you to about 1.064. I imagine Mike’s recipe is designed to have extra volume for the hops to suck up and still get a full keg.

I would use Supplication for dregs, but only Sup. I have had odd flavors from adding champagne yeast to a stuck Quad once and have been scarred ever sense. ;}

BW

I sent Vinnie an email about this sometime back. Here is my proposed recipe and his response:

86% Pale Malt (2 Row) US
4% Aromatic Malt
4% Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
4% Special B Malt
2% Chocolate Malt

OG: 1.060

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Originally Posted by Vinnie

There is a good amount of C40-Crystal, around 10%, we also get color from
Vienna Malt, it is about 15 or 20% of the grain bill and also we use Carafa
3 Special malt from Weyermann (sp) to get color, this leaves a cleaner
flavor but the special B and chocolate will certainly work.

We ferment in the primary with Abbey 530 Yeast and remove the yeast post
fermentation and hit the beer with Brett and the cherries (25 pounds to a 60
gallon wine barrel) in the wine barrel and let it sit for 2 months. After
that we add the bacteria and more Brett, it normally ages for 12 months in
the barrel.

Good luck,

Vinnie

Unfortunately, I haven't gotten around to actually brewing the beer yet.