Can you Brew It recipe for Firestone Walker Double Barrel Ale

All recipes are (unless otherwise specified): 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 for discussion.

OG 1051
IBUs 13
SRM 13.1

3.8kg British Pale Malt 68.2%
900g Marris Otter 16.2%
390g light munich 7%
340g crystal 75 6%
110g crystal 120 2%
30g chocolate malt 0.6%

90 minute boil

3g Magnum 14%AA at 75m
18g EKG 5%AA at 30m
22g EKG at 0m
22g Styrian Goldings or US Fuggles or Willamete or German Tradition) at 0m

WLP002

Mash at 145F for 60m, 155F for 15m, then mash out

RO Water. Add gypsum and CaCl to 100ppm

Cool to 63F and pitch, raise to 66F after 24 hours.

1.4oz american oak cubes (medium or medium plus) after 24 hours of fermentation.

Ferment for 15 days.

Discussion Notes:
This was deemed not cloned with a caveat. The tasters believed that the DBA commercial example was slightly sour and did not have the oak character that they remember for this beer. None could find anything that they would change about the recipe. Jamil said that he would call it cloned, and save some for further comparison to verify.

Tasty actually used 1.25oz american oak medium toast. He steamed the oak for about 10min, put them in a hop sack with marbles to sink in the conical.

I brewed this two Sundays ago and used 0.7 oz of oak chips because I accidentally bought those instead of oak cubes. The thought on using less chips is that they generally impart a stronger "oaky" flavor than cubes, so I wanted to err on the side of caution.

Pulled my first hydro sample tonight to check gravity and I can say (a) it is a damn tasty beer, and (b) if I used chips again, I would probably up the amount a bit. The oak flavor is a nice "Hmm, what is that?" flavor addition, but my experience with DBA is that the oak is a little more forward in the nose and taste.

I will say this, though. Firestone Walker is my favorite brewery and I am stoked because this recipe really does make a clone. If the oak was a little bit stronger in my beer, it would be spot on. I am loving life right now.

Another quick update now that my batch is fully carbed. I will probably up the Magnum addition by 2-3 grams in the future. The beer is just a tad too sweet (although still amazingly good). I think it needs a little more bittering. Otherwise, perfect.

Brewing this right now! Ill check back in after a few weeks and let you know how it goes. I did up the Magnum by a quarter oz.

Question about the malts - Why the separate quantities of the "British Pale Malt" and MO? It has been my understanding that MO is a form of British Pale malt. Perhaps I need to listen to the show again - but they often gloss over this sort of detail

Have this in the kegorater as we speak. I did the extract version. Very smooth and not over the top with the oak.

http://morebeer.com/products/firestone-walkers-double-barrel-ale-extract-beer-kit.html

Are we sure there are no dry hops in this clone?

crazymonkey said:

Are we sure there are no dry hops in this clone?

Click to expand...

The recipe listed was given to the boys at Can You Brew It by the Firestone Walker brewer, whose name I now forget. So we can be fairly certain the recipe listed is accurate (aside from the substitution of using oak chips instead of transferring to barrels.)

I brewed this last year and I think this recipe is not quite right. I think it needs more bittering hops. The recipe above clocks in at 13 ibus while the Firestone website says DBA is around 30. Also, I'd shortened the boil to 60 mins and readjust the magnum addition accordingly. When I brewed this, I got a lot of wort caramelization and my version came out much darker and maltier. In itself, that's not a bad thing, but it still it does't taste like DBA. If your brew kettle has a thin bottom like mine, a shorter boil will help this. I have a couple of other things I want to try also to improve it but I'll report back when I have it figured out.

@beerhappy - I'd agree that my beer from this recipe also turned out too far on the malty/sweet side.

I've experimenting with the addition of gypsum, calcium chloride and lactic acid to control the wort pH prior to boiling. So far, these additions have helped greatly in reducing the body of the beers probably through the precipitation of more protein during boil. I've tried on a mild which had a similar grain build to the firestone dba, just with a lower SG and it has made a world of difference in clearing up the malt character. I'm extremely pleased with it. So I'm tempted to try this recipe with the same grain bill while trying the pH adjustments before changing it. I would however boost the bittering hop addition to get 30 ibus. I've been home brewing for 8 years and I'm still learning new things and improving my beer.

I know this is an old thread but I doubt I'm the only one using it so I thought I'd mention that it should be much more bitter than this recipe. The 13 IBU stated here is 30 IBU on their website. I'm guessing it was just heard wrong. It also says there is some EKG added as a dry hop.

You can see what I'm talking about here http://www.firestonebeer.com/beers/products/dba

Hi eucrid this is an old old thread and I've been using it for most of my brews since last summer.

Your right about the ibus but the majority of bitterness comes from the 0 min which is a whirlpool addition.

If you've listened to all the cybi podcasts you will learn as jamil and crew find out over time that when a 0 min whirlpool for x amount of time always adds bitterness and not just flavour as the wort is still at a high temp. Not sure if it's 80c you still get isomerisation somebody may come along and correct me.

On a side note I just made this on the 3rd and beersmith calculated my 0 min to give me 15 ibus which put me up to 27 ibus total.

Not that that matters to me had the 0 min hops weighed out in the pot the alarm went switched off the element put the lid on and waited for 20 min then looked and the pot was still sitting with the hops still in it.

Oh **** so I just through them in and put both elements back on for 15 mins and then started the countdown again.

Jamie

Thanks for the reply, good point on the Whirlpool IBUs. I've heard tasty himself say he thinks it adds up to similar to a 20 minute addition. I'll probably just boil all my hops anyway and hope to get close enough.