Wood-Aged Beer Innis and Gunn ( or at least my take on it )

This was my shot at Innis and Gunn oak aged beer.
I love this beer due its all round complex but very subtle flavor profile.
My recipe for 5 uk gallons ( 23 litres )

6kg Maris Otter pale malt
400grm Torrified Wheat
300grm Brittish Caramalt
250grm Biscuit Malt
15grm Chocolate Malt

Mashed with 21.8 litres of 72c for 90 mins and batch sparged with 20.5 litres to achieve 6.5 uk gallons pre boil.

Hop additions:

43grm Magnum @14% for 60 mins
14grm Amarillo @10.4% for 20 mins.

Let ferment for 7 days at 68f then transferred to secondary on top of whiskey and rum soaked oak chips ( 57grm) that had been soaked for 12 weeks prior.
Tasted after 3 days on chips is good, very malty with just a hints of citrus from amarillo and subtle oak and whiskey flavor so far.
This will probable spend another week on the chips then bottled and left for 2 months before cracking and ( hopefully ) enjoying.

MattGuk said:

This was my shot at Innis and Gunn oak aged beer.
I love this beer due its all round complex but very subtle flavor profile.
My recipe for 5 uk gallons ( 23 litres )

6kg Maris Otter pale malt
400grm Torrified Wheat
300grm Brittish Caramalt
250grm Biscuit Malt
15grm Chocolate Malt

Mashed with 21.8 litres of 72c for 90 mins and batch sparged with 20.5 litres to achieve 6.5 uk gallons pre boil.

Hop additions:

43grm Magnum @14% for 60 mins
14grm Amarillo @10.4% for 20 mins.

Let ferment for 7 days at 68f then transferred to secondary on top of whiskey and rum soaked oak chips ( 57grm) that had been soaked for 12 weeks prior.
Tasted after 3 days on chips is good, very malty with just a hints of citrus from amarillo and subtle oak and whiskey flavor so far.
This will probable spend another week on the chips then bottled and left for 2 months before cracking and ( hopefully ) enjoying.

Click to expand...

I too was looking for a recipe for Innis and Gunn! This looks wicked yummy. A couple of questions for a newbie. One of the things I saw online was that the flavoring from oak-soaked chip method gets lost in the secondary. Recommendations were to add the flavorings separator: oak on secondary and then add a "squeeze" of rum to each bottle. This is the method I was going to try.

Why whiskey? Does it over power the rum? Where the chips toasted? In my area there are some micro-distilleries making rum so that will be my first stop and then it's off to my LHBS!

eagagnon said:

I too was looking for a recipe for Innis and Gunn! This looks wicked yummy. A couple of questions for a newbie. One of the things I saw online was that the flavoring from oak-soaked chip method gets lost in the secondary. Recommendations were to add the flavorings separator: oak on secondary and then add a "squeeze" of rum to each bottle. This is the method I was going to try.

Why whiskey? Does it over power the rum? Where the chips toasted? In my area there are some micro-distilleries making rum so that will be my first stop and then it's off to my LHBS!

Click to expand...

The secondary is to impart flavor and getting the beer off the trub due to ageing and clearing.
This will definatly add flavour trust me, plus adding a drop of spirit into a bottle is inconsistant l, this way ensures uniform flavouring throughout the whole batch.
i watched and inteeview with dougle "innis" sharp, the head brewer on youtube, and he states this beer, ( the original ) was aged with grants OAK reserve whiskey and not rum.
how true this statement is i dont know but its all i have to work on lol.
so far it tastes great.

so time for an update.
so far im Very impressed, this really is very close.
its sweet, but i never realised how sweet Innis and Gunn really is, my only guess is that they add vanilla extract to the finished product, but overall very good.
it still has a lot of aging as there is an alcoholic king of burn but nothing that time wont fix.
anybody trying to make Innis and Gunn really should try this, making any adjustments if necessary on the next attemp.
its looks good too, good head retention and lacing for almost 7%

MattGuk said:

so time for an update. so far im Very impressed, this really is very close. its sweet, but i never realised how sweet Innis and Gunn really is, my only guess is that they add vanilla extract to the finished product, but overall very good. it still has a lot of aging as there is an alcoholic king of burn but nothing that time wont fix. anybody trying to make Innis and Gunn really should try this, making any adjustments if necessary on the next attemp. its looks good too, good head retention and lacing for almost 7%

Click to expand...

Well I just transferred to the secondary on top of light toasted rum soaked oak chips. It was a bit of an adventure, but isn't that half the fun of home brewing? At the supply store the grain crusher malfunctioned. So as a perk they comped me the grains! I took them home and realized I didn't know how to crush my grains. I ended up using my food processor and pulsed them 2-3 times. This year my hops really took off so I used them in this brew. They are Brewers Gold, a moderate bittering hop,(5-7%). Because they were fresh I was not too sure how much to use. I ended up using a small cereal bowl as a scoop and tossed in 2 generous scoops @ 60 mins, and a third "scant scoop" @ 20 min. Other than that all went according to plan. The initial tasting was clean with a nice balance, not too hoppy nor too malty. Very excited thus far. Thanks for posting this recipe.

Glad to hear u have given it a shot.
I bottled 42 pints of this and im going to brew it again next week as friends liked it so much that i now only have 10 pints left.
Remember, the key to this brew is leaving it in secondary untill the oak and rum come through more than u want, as it will mellow and tone down over time to the right amount.
i read somewhere that if u bottle from secondary when the oak is just the right flavor, u wont get much flavour once its aged.

Matt,
Thanks for suggesting this recipe to me. I wonder, though, why you didn't put any molasses in it when the bottle clearly says they add molasses? Is that something they put on there to throw people off?

Personally, i would say its to throw people off, i mean do they really want to just give the recipe away?
Also i dont know if you have realised, but this recipe is for the original with wiskey and not the ruby rum ale?
It still tastes good though and like i said, theirs is really sweet compared to mine, which as u can see is sweet by the fg.

Well Matt,

I have just finished bottling this brew and I do not have words to describe it. I put a 1.5 gallon for Thankgiving, and another for Xmas. That left me with 18 bottles. I have never made a beer like this and I have very limited experience tasting so I hope I can do this justice.

There is a pronounced oaky flavor here which is very interesting. As you had said the rum is not a powerful but the flavoring is not all malt. My palette is distracted with the all the new sensations, though I can pick out my hops. Then the finish--its dry and clean. The only thing I know for sure is that I will be making this again!

Cheers,

Ellen G

Im glad it has worked out for u.
Im making a batch this week ready for xmas but i think i will do 10 gallons this time.
I Love how complex this beer is, and i dont think i really appreciated the work that goes into Innis And Gunn untill now.

Cheers

Matt

Well, i poured the last bottle of this last night and i had mixed emotions.
Its amazing how the last is always the best, so i was supping with a big smile, however i was sad that it was the last pint.
On the upside im brewing it again tomorrow night
Just stared drinking my hobgoblin clone so at least i have another tasty brew to keep me going.
Guess which is the real hobgoblin?

The trials with this beer did not end--It took a long time to carbonate, which was another first for me. So about three weeks weeks ago I opened the bottles and dropped carbonation tablets in each bottle. I also had two 6 liter Tap A Draft jugs that got the tablets too. Yesterday I cracked open the big jugs and was very pleased with the over all results.

The appearance is a deep dark amber--I think that is because of the way ground the grains, (it was my first time and some of them got really pulverized). The head is tall but short lived. The flavors are really amazing--sweet, malty and hoppy upfront, bold oak midway and subtle hints of vanilla, rum at the end. It is smooth and clean in its finish. When I first tasted this the flavors were discreet, (meaning separate not blended). After 6 weeks of sitting there is a bit more incorporation of the flavors, however I am already planning "corrections" for the next batch.

Thanks for posting this recipe. Its been a fun adventure.

Cheers,

This is great to hear, Im also very pleased with this beer.
I will be bottling the next batch next week.
slow carbonation I think is normal, don't forget that it's aged for a fair while, so there won't be a hell of a lot yeast and will take longer to carb.
mine to 4 weeks to fully carb and I'm expecting longer with the next batch as it has been in secondary for 5 weeks so far.

Cheers

My friend likes this beer so much he purchased a whiskey barrel for me to brew him a batch so I need to do this beer justice. On the Innis & Gunn website, they say they use ale malt (I will use Maris Otter), crystal, roasted barley, chocolate malt, and raw wheat. Super styrian hops (Aurora). Your recipe is quite different. I think I will try their ingredients, do you have any suggestions?

This is a bit of a thread resurrection but wondering if anyone else has brewed this? experience? Any changes from the OP?

My recipe.
Buy some cheap lager. Mix in some syrup and treacle. Pour it on a pub floor, preferably oak, lick the floorboards..

Ha ha sorry. I used to love it actually but now it tastes horrible to me. Tastes change