Wood-Aged Beer Pirate Strong Ale

I usually do the same as pwortiz stated and reuse the "oaked rum" for later use.

You should get a nice balance of rum and oak by just adding the soaked chips.

Don't forget that vanilla bean....

pwortiz said:

I'm assuming you had to use nearly the full bottle of rum, right? I did - if you didn't, please tell me your secret! So, adding all that rum would basically be bad juju for your beer says I.

I filtered mine out using a mesh bag over another container so I could save the "oaked rum" and use it in some marinades or something down the road - you can definitely get the difference in taste!

That said, you're going to want to transfer if you have that option so that you have 2 things going on:
1) You're removing the beer from all the proteins that have settled out.
2) Clarity of the final product will be better as you'll have less protein base to suck up when racking to the bottling bucket.

However, if you don't have the option, then you gotta work with what you got

Best of luck!

J <- If I mispoke here, call me out!

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I went a little different route and used Captain Morgan Black rum (which is already aged in blackened oak barrels) with 4oz of toasted french oak chips. I poured about half the bottle into a jar with the chips. Its 47.3% so I'll most likely end up straining out most of the rum.

As far as transferring, I should have another carboy available in 3 weeks so I will be able to do the transfer. I will be kegging this so I don't have to worry about a bottling bucket! Will update as time goes on!

Ok did second taste test, reminds of a strong IPA with hints of pineapple and the oak n rum. Tastey

Well, that sounds better, grimmer. Still...I am surprised by the "strong IPA" comment. It'll be interesting to hear the next taste test results

I've had this bottled for about 5 weeks and its flavors are just starting to blend and mellow into a nice, smooth drink. I tried it with some friends at 3 weeks bottled and it had too much hot alcohol taste as well as a lot of rummy oak flavor. NOT a session beer though.

Continues to be awesome and get better. Had some guests over this past weekend and they slammed the Pirate. Even warm. Since I have a variety of beers I stock basically 4 of each in my minifridge for a total of 20 pints. I replaced the 4 of the pirate midway through the night so they couldn't have been cold and it did not matter. I was out.

Will be making it again this week!

Just racked my batch onto the oak chips/vanilla bean. Checked the gravity and its at 1.022. After having an OG of 1.092 this is perfect! Had a little taste and was pretty shocked at how much pineapple flavor there is. Really sweet. Hopefully the oak chips can balance this out! Can't wait to keg it!

AirricK said:

Just racked my batch onto the oak chips/vanilla bean. Checked the gravity and its at 1.022. After having an OG of 1.092 this is perfect! Had a little taste and was pretty shocked at how much pineapple flavor there is. Really sweet. Hopefully the oak chips can balance this out! Can't wait to keg it!

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I haven't really got any of the pineapple and cinnamon notes, just the oak and vanilla. I will let go a couple of more weeks, and see how it goes. Maybe Pineapple and cinnamon in secondary, instead of boil?

Did you use fresh or canned pineapple and how much?

I used a whole, very ripe pineapple.
It has been in bottle only a couple of weeks?

Holy cow.....an entire pineapple? uh....well, that would explain it if that's what went in the boil. Recipe calls for 10oz and that's something near only a 4th of one of those suckers.

It was small, probably doule the 10oz, by the time it was trimmed. i don't see how that would negate the flavor. it should have intensified?
Thanks, anyways.

whoops, sorry, mnsveatch (how do you pronounce that btw?) I accidentally crossed your reply with Arrick's where he said he was surprised by how much pineapple flavor was present and wanted to have the oak balance that. My experience was similar to yours though. Initially, I didn't have a lot of the pineapple flavor either. After week 3 I definitely started to get it. Even those people that tried a sample with me at 2 weeks noted a significant difference. As it continues in the bottle, the flavors continue to meld nicely and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised

I actually added a little bit less than 10oz. My cousin and I are thinking about holding a little charity event and selling some homebrew to people in the neighborhood. It wont be until the end of next month so now I am actually thinking about bottling this to let it sit for a month and maybe sell a few at the event. Whats it like after a few weeks int he bottle?

Awesome. I really enjoy it and, as I mentioned in my previous post, my friends will even drink it warm Mine turned out smoother, mellower, tastier...just better as time moves on. We'll be going on vaca shortly to NC and will be bringing this for the beach. Awesome stuff says I! I'm very glad Jlaskey posted it!

I agree....it will take a few weeks for the oak to mellow and balance.

If you want more cinnamon taste you could add another half or whole stick.

This brew looks great and excited to make it this weekend. Couple of questions:
- How much water do I use for the mash?
- At what point do I use the brown sugar? Didn't see it in the directions.
- have regular oak chips. Are these ok to use instead of the French?

Thanks.

Backnine said:

This brew looks great and excited to make it this weekend. Couple of questions:
- How much water do I use for the mash?
- At what point do I use the brown sugar? Didn't see it in the directions.
- have regular oak chips. Are these ok to use instead of the French?

Thanks.

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I mash with 2 gallons of spring water.

I add the brown sugar when I add the DME (after the mash, but before the boil, flameout).

Sure, why not use the chips you have? Report back with your findings?

Hope this helped

Made this today but mistakenly put the entire pack of Galena (1 oz). Any thoughts on what this will do? Will it just be extra hoppy or bitter and undrinkable?

Just more hop profile, says I. A single oz will give you a different flavor profile than half an oz of course, but I don't think you'll need to be worried about anything. With all the mistakes I made on my 2nd batch of this, you're gonna be fine RDWHAHB!!

Thanks for the quick response. 6 weeks cannot come quick enough.

Well this recipe is getting me to transition away from extract. Safe lazy extract. How dare you!
Ordered supplies today. Got a hop blend to substitute the citra. Looking forward to this beer.

I actually did my first version of this recipe nearly 100% extract. I only steeped the Caraaroma My second attempt was with the grains and I failed on a level I didn't even know was possible.

pwortiz said:

I actually did my first version of this recipe nearly 100% extract. I only steeped the Caraaroma My second attempt was with the grains and I failed on a level I didn't even know was possible.

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Way to make me more nervous then i already am. What mistakes did you make so i can learn?

I used 2 voles of ca ale yeast and it took a little bitt for the flavor to settle down, now after 3 weeks bottled its a kick butt beer, drink 3 and you know you had something

Dang right, bgrimmer. This beer actually lent itself to the discovery of the name of the "brewing company" I now have. Guys got so wasted off it and started yellin, "grab my strong hand!"...no frickin' idea why. But, it's fun.

smurfwar said:

Way to make me more nervous then i already am. What mistakes did you make so i can learn?

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Sorry Smurfwar! I didn't see your response until now I sent Jlaskey a list of my screw ups so I'll copy/paste them here:

...today was a day of complete eff ups for me:
- I did end up using the amount of water mentioned. But I trusted my "towel" surrounding my pot WAY too much and mashed by hitting 165, dropping the grains in and walking away - bottling a different batch while that was mashing (I needed the primary )
- Coming back to the pot at the end of the time, I checked the temp and it was 140. well, that was a waste of 2 row.
- I filled my pot to just over 5 gallons with water from the fridge (filtered) so it cooled it to 94 or so. I decided to take a gravity reading and only hit 1.050! And that was after adding the 3lbs of DME.
- So, I added 2lbs of table sugar and that brought gravity to 1.060.
- Then I realized, I completely forgot the Caraaroma. REALLY?!!!
- I had my son fill the pot to it's usual level from the fridge water while I heated up a half gallon of water to steep the Caraaroma in for 30 minutes. I knew it would take at least that long to get the full pot to a boil.
- Pot on burner, I added the caraaroma steepage and ended up with basically 7 gallons..maybe even 7.25 or .5....
- To counter all that I ended up boiling for 15 or 17 minutes just to evaporate some of the wort and waited to start my official 60 minutes with the first hop addition.
- In the end, I hit around 5.75 gallons or so (little less) with a gravity @ 1.068 @ 84 degrees.

What a frickin' brew day.

With all that said, however, I just hit the 3 week point yesterday and racked onto the oak this morning. Aside from some of the tweaks I made this time around to the recipe (different fruit 'n stuff), it all seems to be working out pretty well! The SG reading was at 1.004 @ 76 degrees so that currently pegs me at 8.1% which is what I had on my first batch. That was a surprise!

I fermented high though due to temps here locally. Basically between 73-76 almost for the entire primary. The taste from they hydro sample before racking was awesome which was another surprise. Also, side note, I used washed yeast from the WLP060 on the last batch of this - not sure how much that affects the "blend" portion of the strain but it seemed to work OK for me.

If you haven't made it yet, GOOD LUCK! (watch that pot temp close if you're doing it the same as I did!)

Does anyone have this recipe as an extract version? I really want to make this!

I think I have it in my note book at home. I can check when I get get home from work today.

Hey Nightwolf,

It's a pretty easy conversion actually as the only thing you're going to change is the 2-row. You'll need the other grains for steeping. I did this for my first batch:
1 lb of 2 row = .6 lb of DME

Since this recipe is calling for 5 lbs American 2-row that's 5lb*.6 = 3 lbs of DME instead of the mashing grains. The DME you should use is either "Light" or "Extra Light."

So, just add that 3 lbs to the already called for amount. Steep the specialty grains between 155-160ish for 30-45 mins and everything else remains the same!

Best 'o luck! You'll enjoy it

Pwortiz is right.

I just checked my old notes and I had a total of 7#s DME.

I hope this helps

This recipe sounds great and I plan on making it soon. My LHBS doesn't have any WLP060 but I've got some Pacman in the fridge. Does anyone know if that would be an acceptable substitute or should I suck it up and order some WLP060 online? Thanks!

I have 0 experience with the pacman and have used only 1 original 060 yeast and 1 washed yeast. I have one more left of the washed and will make my 3rd batch. I have NO idea how it would be/work with the pacman. All I know is that this stuff is frickin' awesome as it is stated. But, brewing is experimenting...let us know how it turns out!

Lurch69 said:

This recipe sounds great and I plan on making it soon. My LHBS doesn't have any WLP060 but I've got some Pacman in the fridge. Does anyone know if that would be an acceptable substitute or should I suck it up and order some WLP060 online? Thanks!

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Are you doing extract, pm, or all grain? Mine ended up at 1.020 doing pm and I would worry about it finishing out too dry with that yeast. Mine needed a good malty backbone to balance the alcohol and multiple flavors.

SoupNazi said:

Are you doing extract, pm, or all grain? Mine ended up at 1.020 doing pm and I would worry about it finishing out too dry with that yeast. Mine needed a good malty backbone to balance the alcohol and multiple flavors.

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I plan on doing PM. I recently switched to a keggle setup and I haven't been able to dial my process in yet so my all grain BIAB efficiencies have been suffering lately. I feel a PM would be best to make sure I get close to the desired OG.

Anyway, when I look at the attenuation of the two strains, Pacman is listed as having a range of 72-78% while WLP060 has a 72-80% attenuation so I didn't think that Pacman would run a risk of drying it out more. I haven't used WLP060 yet though so maybe it doesn't usually attenuate that much?

I haven't used Pacman yet but I would pick a yeast that does not complicate the flavor profile.

j1laskey said:

I haven't used Pacman yet but I would pick a yeast that does not complicate the flavor profile.

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Looks interesting for something to drink in February to March. Anybody used Wyeast Ringwood Ale for this one? It's supposed to be relatively clean fermenting, but highlights fruity tones so I think it might be perfect.

I have this in secondary right now with the vanilla bean and rum-soaked French oak chips. I left itin primary for a month vs. three weeks, so my oak chips had been soaking in rum all that time. After I drained the rum from the oak chips, I tasted the oaked rum; it was, in a word, TERRIBLE. Extremely bitter, turpentine-ish, and reeking of petrochemicals. So of course, down the drain with that mess.

I went ahead and added the oak chips to the secondary on Tuesday. Now I'm starting to get nervous that the beer will start to pick up those disgusting flavors. I just dumped the chips in the bottom to the secondary, so I would 't be able to easily remove them--I'd have to rack to another container.

Did anyone else have their rum turn out that gross, and also do you think it would be a good idea to just go ahead and bottle this now instead of waiting the full week to ten days? I am hesitant to open it up and taste it now as I don't want to risk infection, bu I understand this may just be necessary.

Wow....I didn't have that issue. What kind of Oak Chips did you use?

I don't know what particular brand they were, just French Oak Chips from my LHBS--never had any issue with "off" ingredients from them before. The rum was Tortuga Spiced Rum that I got in Grand Caymen.