Bourbon County Stout Clone in a 5gal MLT

I have been unable to acquire any bottles of Goose Island Bourbon Stout this year, despite being on one "call when it's in" list and knowing the exact time the truck was dropping it off at another store. So F*** it. I decided to do a clone.

As I thought through my process, I decided I wanted to max out my equipment, get a total of 6.5 gallons. I had a vial of San Diego Super Yeast and made a 2L starter. Now, I'm brewing. This will be a partial mash recipe, partigyle style, with 10 gallons of second runnings (5 gallons per mash). So if anybody else wants to brew this with a small MLT, make sure you have a LOT of DME on hand so that when you miss your OG, you can tweak it a bit.

My plan was to do two mashes. The first runnings (about 4 gallons, pre-boil) will be used for the BCS. The second runnings will become 5 gallons of bourbon porter. I will use this lighter batch to get a better idea of how long to keep the BCS on the oak. I will then repeat this process a second time, resulting in two 3.25 gallon batches of BCS and two 5 gallon batches of porter. Once finished, I will then rack the BCS to a 6.5 gallon secondary, topped up with the beer. Talk about maximizing your equipment! But hey, if I'm going to let this beer age for 6 months or more, there's no sense in brewing any less than I possibly can!

The porter with the extra 2.5lbs of DME came in at 1.045 SG.
The 3.25 gallons of BCS came in at 1.122 with an extra 3 lbs of DME because I only did a 90 minute boil. If I really wanted to do it all grain, it would have been a 6 hour boil)... forget that!

What follows is the recipe I used this time. This link is to the other BCS thread where I posted my BIAB/Partial Mash recipe that I will probably use next time. Post #32 details how I developed the recipe and Post #33 gives you my suggestion for a BIAB Partial Mash version. Next time I brew this, I'm going to take the hit to authenticity and price and use more LME/DME. It's an expensive recipe, no matter how you cut it and having to conduct two mashes just to achieve your volume is kinda crazy. I would have rather have used more extract (or bought a bigger MLT).

Anyway, here's how I'm doing it this time. Note, this is a 3 gallon batch designed to fit in my 5 gallon MLT... and I STILL wound up using quite a bit of DME to hit my target SG. It's not that my efficiency was bad (around 79%, with the final runnings still reading at 1.008), I just didn't want to have to boil down 1.015 wort for 6+ hours to make it to the higher gravity.

Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.50 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 14.7 %
2.50 lb Munich Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 14.7 %
4.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 26.5 %
2.25 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 13.2 %
2.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 11.8 %
1.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 8.8 %
1.50 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 8.8 %
0.25 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.5 %
4.00 oz Williamette [4.60%] (60 min) Hops 59.0 IBU

Beer Profile Estimated Original Gravity: 1.129 SG (1.075-1.100 SG) Measured Original Gravity: 1.122 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.032 SG (1.018-1.034 SG) Measured Final Gravity: 1.035 SG
Estimated Color: 102.7 SRM (30.0-45.0 SRM) Color [Color]
Bitterness: 59.0 IBU (50.0-95.0 IBU) Alpha Acid Units: 6.1 AAU
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 12.8 % (8.0-13.0 %) Actual Alcohol by Volume: 11.5 %

Ok... for my two second runnings beers, one just had 3 lbs of DME added to make a porter (1.042 down to 1.018). The other one is going to be tweaked into a stout. A 3/4lb of Roasted Barley, 1/2lb Munich, 1/2lb Black Patent with 3 lbs of DME for an OG of 1.044 (down to 1.020).

I picked up a wine thief at the LHBS so I will be able to taste, sample, and measure as I go, but since it's still fermenting, I see no reason to take a sample yet.

For oak, I've decided on 2 ounces of Medium American Oak cubes. They have been soaking in bourbon for 1 week. After a second week, I will reserve the liquid for possible use at bottling time, then add the oak and taste it every 5 days or so.

Hopefully, the the bourbon will pull out some of the fresh tannins from the oak and allow the beer to absorb it more slowly. Otherwise, from what I have read, it would be easy to go from good to over-oaked very quickly.

Personally, I think the people who add more than an ounce of fresh oak, or 2 ounces of pre-soaked oak, are trying to do too much in too little time. In fact, I will probably only use 1 ounce of the oak cubes to allow for a longer secondary time before kegging and bottling.

9 days in and the airlock is still bubbling once every 5 seconds or so.... FANTASTIC!

Oh.. and I was able to get a taste of BCS on draft. Funny story. I was with one of my girlfriends at an outdoor festival and we came across a pub called "The Wild Monk" (st charles, il). I said, "Baby... Monks are only known for 2 things: Praying and Beer. And that doesn't look like a monastery!"

Sure enough, walked in and discovered a place with some tasty beers and got my hands on a glass of BCS.

I just tested the samples from my two Bourbon County Stout clones.

These were supposed to be identical batches, but when I missed my gravity a little bit on the first batch, I made up a bit of the difference in the second batch. Oddly, the first batch, which came out a little bit low on gravity (1.124/1.033) tastes noticeably thinner and less accurate than the second batch 1.131/1.036 and still bubbling slightly after 11 days). Fortunately, I have almost 4 gallons of the latter so I'll just blend the minimum amount of the 1st one in to make my 6.5 gallons. Blending the samples 50/50, it already seems pretty close.

As for the recipe, I will definitely say that you want to keep this above an SG of 1.13x. And I feel that I may have used too much roasted barley. This would be consistent with my interpretation of the recipe where I said that Crystal 60 and Roasted Barley MAY be used in equal amounts. Based on this tasting (after less than two weeks), I am thinking that you'd be better off with a bit less roasted barley, maybe an even 1 lbs. On the other hand, this beer needs to now age for 6 months or more and that will give it a LOT of time for the sharpness of the roasted barley to mellow out, so I'll reserve final judgment on that for now.

Also, Goose Island probably uses something like California Ale Yeast or US-05. I used San Diego Super Yeast. I also used a stir plate, a 1L starter pitched at high-krausen, and pure O2 to aerate. As a result, I got slightly better attenuation than they did and the beer is thinner. In this recipe, hitting your Final Gravity is probably more important than hitting your Starting Gravity. 10%, 11%, 12%, 13%ABV probably doesn't matter too much, but you've got to get close to 1.040 FG. Over the years, Goose Island's beer has climbed in ABV. It was originally around 10%. Now I believe it's around 13%. But the flavor profile is very similar (I actually preferred the earlier years, around 2005-08 when I believe they used Styrian Goldings). I attribute the similarities throughout the years to the FG. So I guess that's another challenge with this beer: Control your FG and aim for 1.040 +/- .003

And yes, having had the 2010 and 2012 vintages of this beer, as well as the 1999-2008 (in a vertical tasting, as well as during each year) I have to say that as the alcohol has climbed, it's not quite as good as it once was. The increase in alcohol has thinned out the beer a little bit and made it a little bit more balanced. I think it's more accessible now to the "big beer geeks", and a bit more special to them for being stronger. But I honestly don't think it's a better beer than it was back when it wasn't quite as strong. I think Goose Island got caught up in the arms race for stronger beers and they felt that 10 or 11% was no longer "special enough".

Finally, here's an offer: I know a few other people have brewed their own interpretations of this beer. And I know it's an expensive and challenging beer to brew, especially since there is no official recipe. So if anybody else would like to brew this beer with their own interpretation of the recipe and swap a bottle to compare notes, I'd be totally willing to do that. Just give me 6 months for me to finish brewing it.

Subscribed! Looks delicious!

I drew a sample today. Holy crap! I think it's better than the original. There's a couple competing issues that I will alert you to...

The oak seems just a LITTLE bit strong compared to the original, but is not objectionable. I can also clearly tell that, while totally drinkable and delicious, this beer needs another few months to be at its peak. Sooo.. I'm going to let it sit on the oak for another week or two, then let it age in a keg. Also, I only used about 1.25 ounces of the oak that I initially had soaked. And the bourbon flavor isn't quite strong enough... but it's close!

If you are really committed to making a beer this big and awesome, using less oak so it can age longer without getting over-powering, and allowing it to gather the oak flavor more slowly so you don't feel compelled to take daily or weekly samples, is clearly the way to go. I'll still have it off the oak long before it's well aged. At this point, it's just a matter of balancing the two.

It's been about 4 weeks on the 1.25oz of oak cubes.

My next batch will be a bourbon county stout interpretation. Here is my plan for 5 gallons:

20 lb 2 row
7 lb munich
2 lb chocolate
1.5 lb crystal 60
1.5 lb roast barley
1 lb debittered black malt
3 oz willamette @ bittering
3 packs US-05

Mash @ 152F for 90 minutes
Boil 2 hr 45 min
Ferment at 59F

Add 1 oz heavy toast oak cubes and half a bottle of bourbon to the secondary.

Shooting for 1.130 and 60 IBUs. I'm thinking I may pre boil the oak cubes to cut back on some of the oak flavor? I may just add the bourbon to taste as well. I have used a half bottle in the BVIP recipe with success. Obviously it won't be done for a while, but I may be interested in a trade.

bnuttz said:

My next batch will be a bourbon county stout interpretation. Here is my plan for 5 gallons:

20 lb 2 row
7 lb munich
2 lb chocolate
1.5 lb crystal 60
1.5 lb roast barley
1 lb debittered black malt
3 oz willamette @ bittering
3 packs US-05

Mash @ 152F for 90 minutes
Boil 2 hr 45 min
Ferment at 59F

Add 1 oz heavy toast oak cubes and half a bottle of bourbon to the secondary.

Shooting for 1.130 and 60 IBUs. I'm thinking I may pre boil the oak cubes to cut back on some of the oak flavor? I may just add the bourbon to taste as well. I have used a half bottle in the BVIP recipe with success. Obviously it won't be done for a while, but I may be interested in a trade.

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That looks alright, but I think it's way too much debittered black. Even though it's "debittered", it can still give you a bit of astringency. What do you calculate your SRM's at? I only used a quarter pound of black patent and my clone is BLACK. I really don't think you need it any blacker, and it's not a substantial flavor-contribution to this beer.

And I would up the munich and reduce the 2-row.. but that's just a hunch on my part. Your ratio of 2-row to Munich may be more accurate than mine, but I dunno.

Well, my BCS went into the keg today. Looks like it was on the oak for about 6 weeks based on my notes above. Actually, I wanted to transfer it a week earlier, but life got in the way and I figured that some extra oak flavor would just discourage me from drinking it sooner anyway.

No tasting notes this time... I just got it all into the keg and got it carbing. I know what it tastes like and haven't been much in the mood to drink these last couple of days.

Sir Humpsalot said:

That looks alright, but I think it's way too much debittered black. Even though it's "debittered", it can still give you a bit of astringency. What do you calculate your SRM's at? I only used a quarter pound of black patent and my clone is BLACK. I really don't think you need it any blacker, and it's not a substantial flavor-contribution to this beer.

And I would up the munich and reduce the 2-row.. but that's just a hunch on my part. Your ratio of 2-row to Munich may be more accurate than mine, but I dunno.

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Yeah, I was thinking going 14 lbs of 2 row, and 13 lb of munich. SRM is calculated at 100, to match the spec sheet floating around the interwebs.

Hey Sir Humpsalot- just wondering how it's come along so far 2.5 months later. Are you still aging it? What do you think- does it get close to the original BCBS?

Finally brewed this one up on Saturday. I hit 1.126, with my mash tun totally filled to the top. Efficiency was poor, but I expected that and countered by adding extra grain.

14 lb 2 row
13 lb munich
2 lb chocolate
1.5 lb crystal 60
1.5 lb roast barley
1 lb debittered black malt
5.25 oz ekg @ bittering
3 packs US-05

Mash @ 152F for 60 minutes
Boil 3 hr 45 min
Ferment at 59F

I plan on adding the following. I am going to pre soak the oak in bourbon and dump the liquid to get rid of some of the oak flavor. I will keep you all updated.

Add 0.85 oz heavy toast oak cubes and 1 1/3 cups of bourbon to the secondary.

I racked the above beer to the secondary Sunday. Final gravity 1.044. It's in the secondary now, where it will sit for 2 months. I decided not to dump out the bourbon the oak was sitting in, it tasted too good, so in with the cubes it went. This thing is definitely huge and syrupy. I can't wait to get some carbonation on it in a few months and see what I am dealing with/do a comparison.

So I ended up dumping about a liter of bourbon in total to get the balance right. A beer that finishes this high could definitely take it. Its being forced carbonated now. I will do a side by side in about three weeks.

bnuttz said:

So I ended up dumping about a liter of bourbon in total to get the balance right. A beer that finishes this high could definitely take it. Its being forced carbonated now. I will do a side by side in about three weeks.

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Been on the hunt for a good clone!
Cant wait to hear about it.

Any update on the outcome of this??

Well mine turned out quite good. It's huge. I haven't done a side by side yet, as I just bottled it last Thursday. I'll try to do a tasting this week. If I had to guess, right now i would say my version is roastier than the real thing, but I don't think its bad that way.

bnuttz said:

Well mine turned out quite good. It's huge. I haven't done a side by side yet, as I just bottled it last Thursday. I'll try to do a tasting this week. If I had to guess, right now i would say my version is roastier than the real thing, but I don't think its bad that way.

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Im glad you responded, i liked how you split the 2-row and munich into almost identical % and was woundering how it came out.
Im going to drop the roast to 1lb and brew this up this weekend, you added a whole liter of bourbon? HOLT $hit, any idea on how much you jumped the ABV?

How was the oak treatment process also? Mind detailing your "barrel process" and what you added/how long what soaked?

I plan on replaced a couple pounds of 2-row with DME so i dont have to boil for 3+ hours and overload my MT

Cheers!

Can you re-use bourbon soaked oak chips/cubes? Is there a washing technique?

I made 2 batches in back to back weeks. The first was a 5-gallon partial mash batch, using a general imperial stout extract recipe but converted to partial mash & upping the grain bill with extra grains i had laying around. OG was 1.120, missing my target 1.126 b/c I added a quart too much when topping off. Oh well. I pitched wyeast 1056 from an inflated slap pack & let it go. It kicked off smoothly so I saw no need for a a blow off hose, then it blew the top off on day 3. I cleaned up and let it finish up for 3 weeks at 60-64 degrees, finishing at 1.043. I transferred to secondary @ added about 2 oz of Knob-soaked oak chips (soaked for 2 weeks). It sat on the oak chips flr 2 more weeks and then I bottled. FG actually came down to 1.042 in secondary.

While this was all happening, i brewed a second, 3-gallon batch using the published ingredient list for GI BCS, plugged into Beersmith & reached a OG of 1.138. This time, when I pitched the 1056, the slap pack hadnt broken, so i piured some sleepy yeast into a sugar bowl. Fermentation activity was extremely week to say the least. it has been sitting in the primary undisturbed for 4 weeks. I havent checked the gravity & may need to do a starter & re-pitch, or try something else. Different problem for a different thread...Anyway, when it's ready, I will probably add the oak chips that have been soaking already soaking for a month, directly to the primary.

Here's where my question arises. I had a total of 4 oz of oak chips soaking in the Knob, and left 2 oz there when I racked to the secondary. So when i bottled, I simply recovered the chips from the secondary and reunited them with the chips that had been soaking for a month. I figured they're going into another stout very soon anyway, so why not?

Well it's been a couple days & I'm wondering if I'm going to have any sterilization issues. Thoughts? Is there bacteria growing in the oak? Do I need to add more Knob to sterilize? I never should have done this b/c I dont need 4 oz of bourbon oak chips for a 3 gallon batch, but we do stupid things sometimes.

UPDATE: I checked my notes, and i did take a gravity reading on the 3 gallon batch 10 days ago, when it was 1.050. Took another today, and it's 1.046. I'll see of i can put it back in warmer temps and get it down a couple more points before adding the chips.

I did some checking around about re-using the chips. I guess chips can be re-used, but they will be spent after anout 4 weeks & it will take longer for the beer to extract anything from them. So the bourbon has probably extracted every oak quality already.

My process was just to soak the oak cubes (~1 oz) in bourbon (half bottle) in a jar while the beer was in the primary. Then I dumped the whole lot into the secondary for 2 months. I then added more bourbon to taste (settled on 1 liter total). This raised the ABV by 1.7% per my calculations. My beer ended at 1.044 BTW.

Unfortunately I still have not done the side by side. Possibly Wednesday at my club meeting. I haven't forgotten about you guys.

bnuttz said:

Unfortunately I still have not done the side by side. Possibly Wednesday at my club meeting. I haven't forgotten about you guys.

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Cant wait for this!
Been dying for a recipe to start a solera and this might be it!!

OK, I am finally drinking a side by side right now. Here are my notes compared to a 2012 Bourbon County Stout.

-Bourbon County is less roasty. Some of the dark grains could probably be backed off
-Bourbon County has less overt bourbon flavor. The bourbon could probably be backed off some as well. I can say that it has more bourbon than my original addition which was 375 ml, but less than 1 liter which I have in mine
-The Bourbon County is smoother. This is probably due to age. I took care to ferment mine as cleanly as possible at low temps. From what I know, bourbon county spends about a year in bourbon barrels, and was in the bottles before I even brewed mine, so it was probably brewed a year earlier at least. I don't know how to remedy this besides age.

First thoughts would be back the roast barley off to 1 lb and bourbon off to 750 ml. But I have no idea if that is enough on either. This beer is way to big to make blanket judgements, but that would be my first step. I will taste it again when the 2013 Bourbon County comes out, and see how some more age helps it out.

Overall, the homebrew version is very good. I think the munich malt is what makes this beer what it is.

Anyone have a problem getting these high finishing gravity stouts to carb in the bottle? I added dextrose to carb at 2.0 per Beersmith. It's been 5 weeks & is perfectly flat. Do I just need to let it sit longer?

Fermentation with Wyeast 1056 ended at I think 1.045. I'm wondering if abv is too high for the yeast to wake up in the bottle. Don't have the numbers handy, but it's about 10-10.5%. I've got it sitting in 74 degree room. Anyone have this problem?

St this ABV, it will need 3+ months to carb up.

Brihaus said:

Anyone have a problem getting these high finishing gravity stouts to carb in the bottle? I added dextrose to carb at 2.0 per Beersmith. It's been 5 weeks & is perfectly flat. Do I just need to let it sit longer?

Fermentation with Wyeast 1056 ended at I think 1.045. I'm wondering if abv is too high for the yeast to wake up in the bottle. Don't have the numbers handy, but it's about 10-10.5%. I've got it sitting in 74 degree room. Anyone have this problem?

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Your at the ABV limit for 1056, i dont have experience in re dosing bottles or what strain you should use but i think is where your at now if theres no carb at all. Do you get any bubbles when u woosh it like mouthwash? If you do then give it a few more weeks.

Nope. I get nothing when I give it a swirl.

I'll give them a shake and warm them a little and see if I can wake it up. In all likelihood, this will push me over the edge to kegging and force carbing. Way too much guessing in bottle carbing.

Well after researching this to death and since no one has completely perfected their recipe yet, I decided to jump in. My recipe ended up as this:

13.5 lbs. Pale malt 2 row (42.9%)
8 lbs. Munich malt (25.4%)
4.5 lbs. Chocolate malt (14.3%)
3 lbs. Caramel/Crystal 60 (9.5%)
2 lbs. Roasted barley (6.3%)
.5 lb. Black patent malt (1.6%)

2 oz. Willamette 60 minutes
2 oz. Warrior 60 minutes

Irish Ale yeast White Labs WLP-004

I started by brewing up a brown ale and washing the yeast cake to get my needed cells for such a big beer.

Brew day went well until I figured out all grain on this is a trip. I have 2 coolers so mash went great, hit mash temp of 155 with a goal of 156. The problem is there is not nearly enough water left over for a proper sparge. I ended up adding more rinse water until I was running at SG 1.020. Because of the increased volume and still not hitting my desired SG, I boiled until I reached a reading of 1.110 and then added the hops for the boil. After 1 hour I hit my 1.132 which was perfect. Way to much pre-boil time, I think a much larger grain bill and doing 2 batches is what I will do next time. (1st runnings for this beer and 2nd for a Bourbon "light") I was shooting for a 6 gallon batch but because of low efficiency, I now have a 5 gallon batch happily bubbling away.

None of the things I did were my idea, I just took previous posts and found what sounded good to me. As far as hitting an identical clone, I don't care, I just wanted a Big Bourbon stout. The prices of Founders Backwoods Bastard and Bourbon County are killing my wallet. I will be aging on soaked oak chips and not even going to try bottle carbonation. I was going to do 3 oz of heavy toast oak chips but after reading others I will back off to 1.5 oz. I am using a 750 ml bottle of Benchmark Bourbon to soak the chips and add at bottling. It's a much cheaper Bourbon but still ranks right up there. ($10.00)

I'm curious of any updates on some of these batches.

thx

Still flat. Shook bottles, placed them next to the heating vent getting them up to 85 degrees at least. Still nothing.

I way underpitched for fermentation. Looking into opening the bottles, adding fresh yeast, and re-capping.

I have some 2013 BCBS, and plan on doing another side by side in a month. My batch will be about a year old then, and it should be more apples to apples with the BCBS. I can tell you my batch has smoothed out considerably since July when I did the last side by side, so maybe this will be closer than I originally thought. Stay tuned.

Eager to hear. This may end up being what I use to fill our 53 gallon barrel

OK, just did another comparison. My batch is essentially a year old now, and comparable to bourbon county in age. I'm comparing it to a 2013 bourbon county, to try to get as close to apples to apples as possible. So, I would now say that bourbon county stout has more bourbon flavor than my homebrew. They are both on the same level as far as smoothness, but my homebrewed version is still definitely roastier. If/when I brew this again, I may drop the roast and carafa by 1/2 lb each and see where that gets me.

And, there is definitely an oxidative quality from the barrel that you don't get by adding bourbon and oak cubes to a fermenter (duh).

bnuttz said:

OK, just did another comparison. My batch is essentially a year old now, and comparable to bourbon county in age. I'm comparing it to a 2013 bourbon county, to try to get as close to apples to apples as possible. So, I would now say that bourbon county stout has more bourbon flavor than my homebrew. They are both on the same level as far as smoothness, but my homebrewed version is still definitely roastier. If/when I brew this again, I may drop the roast and carafa by 1/2 lb each and see where that gets me.

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could you post the updated reciepe?
also I noticed your post from earlier says you boiled for 3+ hours? what was the reason for the long boil.
Thanks

Here would probably be my next shot at it. I decreased the dark malts by a pound overall, and upped the base malts a bit. I had 3% lower efficiency than i was shooting for the first time, so that is to help make up for that. The long boil is to help concentrate the flavors. To be honest, I only planned on 2 hours, but overshot my water volume by a lot, so I'm going to stick with it going forward. Right now, my beer is a huge bourbon stout, and I hope I can push it more towards BCBS. Dropping the dark malts by a lb will hopefully help.

15 lb 2 row
14.75 lb munich
1.75 lb chocolate
1.5 lb crystal 60
1 lb roast barley
.75 lb debittered black malt
5.25 oz ekg @ bittering
3 packs US-05

Mash @ 152F for 60 minutes
Boil 4 hr
Ferment at 59F

Add 1 oz heavy toast oak cubes and 1 liter of bourbon to the secondary for 3 months.

What do you think of Gentleman Jack for soaking the oak in?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Few questions for the OP that I didn't see addressed in the thread.

1. What kind of fermenter did you use for aging? Have people had varying success with the allowed oxidation of plastic vs glass and how it compares to a real barrel?

2. Why is there such a difference in the yeasts everyone is using for different clone recipes? A lot of people swearing by SuperYeast, but then a lot of people using many packs of English Ale or Irish Ale... Can someone give a good reasoning why you chose what you did or have results?

Thanks for the info folks; I'm excited to brew this.

Brihaus said:

Still flat. Shook bottles, placed them next to the heating vent getting them up to 85 degrees at least. Still nothing.

I way underpitched for fermentation. Looking into opening the bottles, adding fresh yeast, and re-capping.

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I don't know if this has been mentioned yet but you could use those new carbonation pills. I think they're called prime dose? It has yeast nutrient, yeast, and sugar all in the pill. 2 capsules per 12oz bottle.