Firestone Walker Sticky Monkey Clone

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JediJoel

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I was just wondering if anyone has had FW's Sticky Monkey by itself enough to take a guess at the grain bill. I had it a while back but don't know enough to reproduce a recipe. Their website is usually helpful but woefully secret on this brew. Here's what I have from some research and guess work:

OG = 1.11
FG = 1.018
IBU = 45
SRM = 28
ABV = 12-12.5
Fermentation - Ale House Strain (in bourbon and brandy barrels)
Style - English Barley Wine
Brewed with Mexican Turbinado (Brown) sugar

Description from the site:
This brew sits firmly in the English Barley Wine class. We have a lot of lean and hot beers in our barrel program, so we formulated a beer to sit on the sweeter and malty side so that we could utilize it as a blending piece. We used brown sugar from Mexico that has wonderful molasses flavors that are reminiscent of Belgian candi sugar. It has a full body and lush texture. There is barrel expression all over this beer: toasted oak, coconut, leather and cigar tobacco. This is a beer that we will brew again for future blends.
Click to expand...
 
Just a follow up on this clone, I haven't brewed it yet but got some good information from one of their brewers. The only thing I am worried about at this point is attenuation. Firestone uses a British house strain similar to WLP002 which is listed at 63-70% attenuation while this beer gets about 80. Any suggestions on this issue would be helpful.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP002
Yeast Starter: Yes
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.108
Final Gravity: 1.018
IBU: 45
Boiling Time (Minutes): 120!!!
Color: 28 SRM?
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 days at 66
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 days at 66

Notes: After 24hrs of fermentation add 1.4 oz American oak cubes (medium or medium plus), half of them soaked in brandy, half in bourbon.

Grains:
------------

Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) 71.7 %
Crisp British Crystal Light Malt (45.0 SRM) 8.3 %
Crisp British Crystal Dark Malt (77.0 SRM) 4.1 %
Briess Chocolate Malt (630.0 SRM) 0.7 %
Mexican Turbinado (10.0 SRM) 15.2 %


Mash at 151 for 90 min.
Mash out 168

Hops:
------------
1.50 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - 90 min
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] - 0 min
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - 0 min

Make sure to whirlpool the late hops for 20 min or so (Firestone does this with most of their beers).
 
This would be a fun brew. Might have to do this at some point. I am not sure about your attenuation issues. My only thought would be to make sure you have a strong culture going, brew a few beers before it to work up the culture, maybe pale, IPA, then it. But still 80% is still crazy.
 
Firestone has a brewery trick to get good attenuation with this yeast where they mash at 145 for 60 min and then run it up to 155 for 15-30 min to finish conversion. I know they do it on other brews but I am unsure about Sticky Monkey. Perhaps I should do a 3 gal batch with different mash schedules to figure it out (or if someone brews this let me know!).

And, of course, a high pitch rate and a strong culture with that!
 
Did FW say they boil for 120 mins? Which specific parts did they tell you? Curious as I'm also doing a FW barleywine brew.

Also you could try mixing WL002 with some WL007.
 
mikegowen said:
Did FW say they boil for 120 mins? Which specific parts did they tell you? Curious as I'm also doing a FW barleywine brew.

Also you could try mixing WL002 with some WL007.
Click to expand...

They told me the grain bill but not percentages. I'm guessing the hops based of what they typically use and style. I know they use Turbinado as well as D-80 which I haven't updated in the recipe above (yet). I also know that they use WLP002 almost exclusively. I guessed the mash but these temps are used on many of their other brews. I'm also guessing on the boil based on style and color.

Some of my info was a Twitter conversion with one of their brewers but it started on his blog

And last time he brewed Sticky Monkey he mentioned using this candi
 
dantheman13 said:
How did your recipe come out?
Click to expand...

I thought it turned out pretty good. I added the candi sugar during the boil but if I had to do it again I'd add it during the fermentation.

My FG was at 1.022 which was a little high and the beer did taste a little sweet. If I could get the FG down I think it would be a good blend. This beer tends on the sweet side but my brew was a little too much even with the high ABV.

The bourbon and brandy didn't show up as much as I hoped for. Not sure what to do there.

I wish I could compare it to the real think but it's been over a year now since I've had it.

Here's what the recipe ended up looking like. A few improvements and I think this could be a bomb brew!
Code: 
Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size (fermenter): 3.50 gal   
Bottling Volume: 3.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.108 SG
Estimated Color: 29.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 44.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 66.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
9 lbs                 Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)         Grain         1        68.9 %        
1 lbs                 British Crystal Light Malt (45.0 SRM)    Grain         2        7.7 %         
1 lbs                 Turbinado (10.0 SRM)                     Sugar         10       7.7 %         
1.1 oz                Chocolate Malt (630.0 SRM)               Grain         4        0.5 %         
8.0 oz                British Crystal Dark Malt (77.0 SRM)     Grain         3        3.8 %         
0.7 pkg               English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [35.49  Yeast         9        -             
1.25 oz               Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min         Hop           6        44.0 IBUs     
0.50 oz               Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min          Hop           7        0.0 IBUs      
0.50 oz               Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 0.0  Hop           8        0.0 IBUs      
1 lbs 8.0 oz          Candi Sugar, D2 (80.0 SRM)               Sugar         5        11.5 %        


----------------------------
Temp           Time   
145.0 F        60 min         
155.0 F        30 min         
168.0 F        10 min
 
thanks for making this thread

i'm curious how you decided on the grain bill? the percentage pale malt seems very low for a barleywine. it looks like you were shooting for their SRM, too, so the mexican turbinado # might be pretty important if you crafted your grain bill toward the color. piloncillo (mexican brown sugar) is probably closer to dark brown sugar (50SRM) than light, though i am only going off of what i have bought in latin groceries. i have no idea what firestone sources.
 
Did you ever end up making the 2nd batch? After having some Monkee at GABF this weekend, I'm determined to make something similar.
 
Hey JEDIJOEL,

Have you had a chance to compare your homebrew clone with FW Stickee Monkee? Please share the detailed info that you received from The FW Brewer that you spoke with. I'm curious to know parts of your Final Recipe was assisted by your FW Brewer contact. Did he tell you what base malts, specialty malt, hops, and/or yeast were used? Thanks for looking into this recipe. I put together a recipe based on their SRM, ABV, and IBUs given on their website but it looks very different than your recipe.
 

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