Can you Brew It recipe for Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere

All recipes are 6 gallons post-boil, 70% efficiency, Morey for color, 15% evaporation, 7.27 gallons preboil, Rager IBU, and most hops are in grams not ounces. Most, if not all recipes are primary only (no secondary).

If you brew this, please reply with your results.

The italicized text is the recipe and post by Mraz from TBN Forum

Batch Size (Gal): 6.00 Wort Size (Gal): 6.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 8.58
Anticipated OG: 1.037 Plato: 9.20
Anticipated SRM: 5.9
Anticipated IBU: 25.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
51.0 4.38 lbs. Pilsener Belgium 1.037 2
25.5 2.19 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America 1.036 2
13.8 1.19 lbs. White Wheat Belgium 1.040 3
6.6 0.56 lbs. Flaked Barley America 1.032 2
2.9 0.25 lbs. Crystal 80L America 1.033 80
0.2 0.02 lbs. Black Patent Malt America 1.028 525
(black patent is .25oz)

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.20 oz. Crystal Pellet 3.80 18.6 60 min.
0.80 oz. Crystal Pellet 3.80 6.5 30 min.
0.50 oz. Crystal Pellet 3.80 0.0 0 min.
0.25 oz. Crystal Pellet 3.80 0.0 Dry Hop


Extras

Amount Name Type Time
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.30 Oz Oak Cubes Other 14 Days


Mash Type: Single Step

Qts Water Per Lbs Grain: 1.40

Saccharification Rest Temp : 149 Time: 60
Mash-out Rest Temp : 169 Time: 10
Sparge Temp : 169 Time: 30



Notes
-----
.15 American oak and .15 French Oak
The oak cubes are boiled for 30 sec in the microwave to pull out some of the flavor and aromatics, also to soften the oak flavor. Pour off the water and add just the oak cubes. add the dry hop at
the same time.

you can dry hop with .25-.50 oz.



yeast can be from a fresh Bam Biere or

White labs wlp 550 then add Wyeast
5112 - Brettanomyces bruxellensis
5335 - Lactobacillus
5526 - Brettanomyces lambicus
to the secondary.

For this recipe I was worried about percentages so the amounts for the grain is odd feel free to round up if you like


Discussion regarding the recipe:
The brewer at Jolly Pumpkin recommended harvesting yeast from a bottle of Bam Biere. However, to make this recipe simpler and easier to replicate, the clone brewer opted to use WLP550. He did make a batch of harvested yeast, but he preferred the batch made with WLP550. It was recommended to use WLP550 for primary, then make a starter for the Wyeast 5112, 5335, and 5526 and add to secondary.

Ferment at 68.

It was recommended to use

Had this at the Jolly Pumpkin Old Mission at Bowers Harbor in Traverse City. What a great beer! I will definitely be brewing this one soon... Thanks for posting this!

Update??

I'd be more interested in brewing this if it didn't require purchasing four packets of microbes.

I'd be concerned that harvesting wouldn't give you the proper proportion of yeasts/bacteria in the starter too.

but, I do really love bam biere... hm...

bovineblitz said:

I'd be more interested in brewing this if it didn't require purchasing four packets of microbes.

I'd be concerned that harvesting wouldn't give you the proper proportion of yeasts/bacteria in the starter too.

but, I do really love bam biere... hm...

Click to expand...

You'll be fine culturing it. You just need step up the starter a few times. Also, don't depend on it for the full fermentation. Purchase a Saison yeast like 3726 to get it started. Thats my plan anyways. I'm also going to be using the micro's from some Trinity brewing beer.

Is that wheat malted or unmalted?

boostsr20 said:

Purchase a Saison yeast like 3726 to get it started. Thats my plan anyways. I'm also going to be using the micro's from some Trinity brewing beer.

Click to expand...

That sounds like a good plan, but it's hardly a clone of Bam Biere with different cultured yeast and a different set up bugs.

boostsr20 said:

Purchase a Saison yeast like 3726 to get it started. Thats my plan anyways. I'm also going to be using the micro's from some Trinity brewing beer.

Click to expand...

I'm doing something similar. I used the base recipe from this clone (except increased base malts to 1.045) and did WLP 565 by itself in the primary. I've got a bottle of La Roja dregs starting up that I'm going to throw on the secondary. I'm going to harvest both the primary/secondary cakes and do the same for the Madrugada Obscura recipe, which I'll brew next weekend.

I was initially planning on using Orval dregs for the secondary, but every bottle for sale in my area is 9+ months old, stored warm, and everything on the bottom is dead. At least I got to drink a couple of Orval's.

effigyoffaith said:

Is that wheat malted or unmalted?

Click to expand...

Unmalted.

I picked up two bottles of Bam Biere and one bottle of Oro when I was in MI over New Years. Planning on saving the dregs when I break them open and doing a batch of this... mmmmmmmmm biere.

yellowthere said:

That sounds like a good plan, but it's hardly a clone of Bam Biere with different cultured yeast and a different set up bugs.

Click to expand...

Even using soley there yeast won't end in a "cloned" brew. So much depends on the barrels used to age it in.
I'm actually do that for the Madrugada style sour. I just ordered the stuff and plan to actually pitch it on a yeast slurry from a tart cherry wheat I made. Hoping it picks up some of the cherry flavor.

bovineblitz said:

I'd be more interested in brewing this if it didn't require purchasing four packets of microbes.

I'd be concerned that harvesting wouldn't give you the proper proportion of yeasts/bacteria in the starter too.

Click to expand...

There's a clear solution to this problem, you know. Drink 3 bottles of Bam Biere and pitch them all!

I don't think you need a huge quantity of bugs for them to do their thing,once primary fermentation is over. There's not exactly a huge colony in a barrel, either, but they manage to sour a beer quite nicely given time. Really, that's all you need is time.

What if you did a primary with the WLP 550 and then made a dreg starter from a few bottles to get the good stuff going, pitched that in a week right into the primary with the oak. That would give the 550 times to do what it does and then the microbes could take over and finish the job.

???

Is there really black patent and crystal 80 in Bam? Seems strange...

boostsr20 said:

I just ordered the stuff and plan to actually pitch it on a yeast slurry from a tart cherry wheat I made. Hoping it picks up some of the cherry flavor.

Click to expand...

I like the call on the cherries for that beer!

McKinley said:

I like the call on the cherries for that beer!

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Yeah, I'm just hoping for a slight cherry hint. Summer time will roll around and I may just end up using cherries also.
I have used this cherry concentrate for a couple brews and its awesome. You need to be careful with lighter colored beers because it turns them red/pink easily. Worked very well in a stout.
http://kingorchards.com/store.htm?category=Cherry Juice Concentrate&gclid=CKqm7_6CzaYCFce7KgodlFFTJg

This is a great base recipe. I have brewed it a coulple of times first time without bugs just to see what it does as a session beer - its great!!
I brewed this beer with out the bugs and oak using the base grain beer and wy3522. This beer was choosen by New Begium for 2010 GABF ProAm. Ramped recipe from 5 gals to 100 barrels!

If you listen to the Can you Brew It podcast, Ron Jefferies expains the use of c80 - pull things together - and the Black Patent - for color only.

-Cheers

DBear said:

This is a great base recipe. I have brewed it a coulple of times first time without bugs just to see what it does as a session beer - its great!!
I brewed this beer with out the bugs and oak using the base grain beer and wy3522.

Click to expand...

have you brewed this with the bugs? Anyone know how long JP lets it barrel age...I'm curious how many months the scaled down clone recipe should sit on the microbes/oak to get that nice tart/funk balance.

I have a nice sized jar of dregs from two bottles of Bam Biere that have been stepped up and I've got the itch to pitch.

Listen to the can you brew mp3. They interview the brewer. With the obscure they say 6-12 months then blend multiple barrels to aciebe the desired sourness.

dcHokie

You need to listen to the podcast for detailed information. Mike Miraz describes exactly what he did.

Cheers

dcHokie said:

have you brewed this with the bugs? Anyone know how long JP lets it barrel age...I'm curious how many months the scaled down clone recipe should sit on the microbes/oak to get that nice tart/funk balance.

I have a nice sized jar of dregs from two bottles of Bam Biere that have been stepped up and I've got the itch to pitch.

Click to expand...

I did this grain bill (with just a little extra base malt to 1.045 and changed the hops to styrian goldings, same IBU) with a WLP565 primary. About 1.5 weeks ago I racked this into secondary with the dregs of a La Roja that I cultured in a starter for two days. The beer was 1.008 when I racked, so I was surprised to find that its been having a fairly vigorous refermentation over the past week. I've got the oak and a styrian golding dry hop in there now. It looks like I'm going to have to rack to a keg to let this refermentation cool off a bit before I bottle.

I did a similar thing with the madrugada obscura (again with 565, fermenting away now) that I'll throw on the cake from the secondary. I'll let you know in a couple of days what kind of contribution I'm getting from the bugs. Clearly the dregs from JP are very active (mine was only in the bottle 2 months when I harvested it).

I see a couple of your guys in the DC/MD area. Can you get JP beers up there? I usually have to wait until my bi-annual trip to Michigan to score some, but if there is some that close I might have to be on the lookout next time I swing up north.

BrewSpook said:

I see a couple of your guys in the DC/MD area. Can you get JP beers up there? I usually have to wait until my bi-annual trip to Michigan to score some, but if there is some that close I might have to be on the lookout next time I swing up north.

Click to expand...

There are a few spots here in DC that carry them. I've found them at D'vines in Columbia Heights and more recently at a Whole Foods that just expanded their beer selection.

Wow, gunna have to check the WF here and see if they've got any. Thanks for the info.

If you ever get the chance though, the Old Mission in Traverse City, MI is one of JP's brewery locations. Good food and you can get JP, north peak, and a couple of other local MI beers on tap there. Its a great place to hang out.

BrewSpook said:

Wow, gunna have to check the WF here and see if they've got any. Thanks for the info.

If you ever get the chance though, the Old Mission in Traverse City, MI is one of JP's brewery locations. Good food and you can get JP, north peak, and a couple of other local MI beers on tap there. Its a great place to hang out.

Click to expand...

The brewpub sounds great.

If you can't source any JP locally, let me know and I'll point you in the right direction up here.

dcHokie said:

There are a few spots here in DC that carry them. I've found them at D'vines in Columbia Heights and more recently at a Whole Foods that just expanded their beer selection.

Click to expand...

dcHokie, which products do they have at d'Vines? The La Roja is as Chevy Chase Liquors on Connecticut.

McKinley said:

dcHokie, which products do they have at d'Vines? The La Roja is as Chevy Chase Liquors on Connecticut.

Click to expand...

Last time I was there (~2 weeks ago) they had Calabaza Blanca, Bam Biere, Bam Noire, La Roja, & Weizen Bam if memory serves. Also, Meridian Pint nearby in Columbia Heights usually has 1-2 JPs on tap.

@McKinley

I live Northwest of DC in Germantown MD. Package stores with JP that I have found:

-Gilly's in Rockville, MD
-Spirit Shop in Frederick, MD
- Chevy Chase Beer and Wine - Chevy chase and DC line
- Perfect Pour in Columbia, MD

None have a large variety of JP - I'm looking for Dark Dawn - but Perfect Pour has a huge collection of all Micro, craft and imports- lots of belgians.

Homebrew shops:
-Flying Barrell - Frederick, MD
-Maryland HomeBrew - Columbia, MD

Cheers

DBear said:

@McKinley

I live Northwest of DC in Germantown MD. Package stores with JP that I have found:

-Gilly's in Rockville, MD
-Spirit Shop in Frederick, MD
- Chevy Chase Beer and Wine - Chevy chase and DC line
- Perfect Pour in Columbia, MD

None have a large variety of JP - I'm looking for Dark Dawn - but Perfect Pour has a huge collection of all Micro, craft and imports- lots of belgians.

Homebrew shops:
-Flying Barrell - Frederick, MD
-Maryland HomeBrew - Columbia, MD

Cheers

Click to expand...

Chevy Chase is my regular place to find belgians and so forth. They are good but not spectacular. If anyone is interested in getting dregs, I went in there two days ago and they had some Orval's that were bottled in January, 2011. I go to the MDHB up in Columbia, but have never stopped by perfect pour. I'll have to check them out as well as d'vines.

Thanks guys.

So I just tasted my version of this beer. While its not quite cloned, it is very close to the original despite the changes I made to the recipe (I used WLP565 and styrian goldings for flavor/dry hop and nugget for bittering, same IBU).

I had a chance to taste the original, although not side by side. I kind of like my version better, the bitterness is more aggressive in the original which doesn't go as well with the sourness, but both are really good.

All in all this was pretty easy to make (JP dregs are very viable and give immediate results in terms of sourness) and has a really great lemony flavor that will go well with the upcoming spring. I would recommend giving it a try.

I'll take a pic next time I open a bottle.

McKinley said:

So I just tasted my version of this beer. While its not quite cloned, it is very close to the original despite the changes I made to the recipe (I used WLP565 and styrian goldings for flavor/dry hop and nugget for bittering, same IBU).

I had a chance to taste the original, although not side by side. I kind of like my version better, the bitterness is more aggressive in the original which doesn't go as well with the sourness, but both are really good.

All in all this was pretty easy to make (JP dregs are very viable and give immediate results in terms of sourness) and has a really great lemony flavor that will go well with the upcoming spring. I would recommend giving it a try.

I'll take a pic next time I open a bottle.

Click to expand...

Mckinley, how did you end up using the JP dregs; secondary or on top of your primary?

dcHokie said:

Mckinley, how did you end up using the JP dregs; secondary or on top of your primary?

Click to expand...

Sorry, I forgot to check back with this post. I transferred the beer off the primary into a secondary and pitched the bugs at that time. Fermentation restarted well and I let that go for about a week before I added the dry hop. Then I think it was about a week later that I bottled.

In retrospect I should have let the bugs ferment out a little longer before adding the dry hop. If you keg, though, you could add the bugs and dry hop at the same time and just transfer to a "tertiary" keg after you've got enough hopping. I wanted to bottle this, so I primed this to 3 volumes in champagne bottles and I'm sure it got up to around 4.5-5 volumes by the time it stopped. It makes for a fun pour, though.

I really enjoyed this beer, it is almost gone already. Its a shame because I think it will drink very nicely during the summer months.

I finally scored 2 bottles of Bam Biere on a recent trip to the US. This is all I have access to, and would like to brew this recipe. Will the dregs from my homebrew version be viable for future brews?

So I pitched the dregs from a Bam Biere into some 1.020 wort, and after 3 weeks it's done nothing. I roused the yeast daily, and kept it warm but the yeast is just sitting on the bottom of the mason jar. I checked the gravity, and it's still at 1.020.

I only have one more Bam Biere left, what should I do?>

I'd say give it another shot...I've had great luck growing up jolly pumpkin dregs (3 times have taken off like a rocket!)

During the interview with The Brewing Network, they mention that you could also pitch pure strains of yeast + brett. (This is probably mentioned in the recipe as well). That would be your alternative if growing bottle dregs doesn't work for you.

Throw some oak cubes in there too if you want to keep the bugs for future use. The oxygen in the oak should help promote growth too.

Any idea if I could use Wyeast 1388 Strong Golden instead of the WL 550? Only reason I ask, is I have it at home and it would be one less pack I'd have to buy.

1388 has only slightly different flocc and attenuation % than wlp550, so I would think that as long as you are pitching viable dregs/bugs at some point in addition to your sacch strain you'll be fine.

I'm sure someone might say it won't be a true "clone", but what funky/sour beer can truly be cloned when most of that unique character comes from their brewery-specific microbes/barrels, etc.

Sorry for all the questions, but I'm not sure if I missed it but they didn't really talk timelines. When should it be racked to secondary? How long in secondary until packaging?

Really depends on how viable your bugs are, and how funky/sour you want it. At JP they only leave their beers in the barrels for 3 weeks, but the timeframe isn't going to be the same since you can't replicate the conditions/surface area of an inoculated barrel in 5 gallon homebrew batches. JP also has some open air ambient ferm conditions unique to their brewery. It seems the consensus is to co-pitch sacch and dregs or pitch the bugs not long after the primary sacch strain. Either way, you will likely make a darn fine replica.

My Bam Biere has been sitting for 2 months, after a few days in primary I dumped in 2 bottles of JP dregs. I added another bottle of JP dregs about 2-3 weeks later and just recently added a little maltodextrin for the dregs to munch on since I used 3711 and its such a sugar hog.

elproducto said:

Any idea if I could use Wyeast 1388 Strong Golden instead of the WL 550? Only reason I ask, is I have it at home and it would be one less pack I'd have to buy.

Click to expand...

I used 565 and it ended up tasting very similar to JP's product. I think the souring bugs end up dominating the flavor profile.