Cedar aged IPA, thoughts?

I bought all of the ingredients for SkeezerPleezer's (sp?) Zombie Dust clone. I'll post a link to the thread when I get home but the gist of it is it's a single hop IPA using Citra hops. I was thinking of aging it on some Spanish Cedar, similar to what Cigar City does to their Humidor Series Jai Alai IPA. I am looking for some input from folks who have experience with IPAs since this will be my first one. Any advice, tips, tricks or criticism would be appreciated.

*EDIT
Now that I am home and can copy and paste the recipe I am going to be brewing, Here it is:

Batch Size: 5g
Boil Volume: 3g

6.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 70.6 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 11.8 %
0.50 lb Carafoam (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.9 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5.9 %
0.50 lb Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 5.9 %
1.00 oz Citra [12.40%] (60 min) Hops 25.1 IBU
0.75 oz Citra [12.40%] (First Wort Hop) Hops 12.5 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [12.40%] (15 min) Hops 12.4 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [12.40%] (10 min) Hops 9.1 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [12.40%] (5 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
1.00 oz Citra [12.40%] (1 min) Hops 1.1 IBU
3.00 oz Citra [12.40%] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
SafAle English Ale (S-04)
or
Wyeast 1968

This is assuming a 3g boil, so if you can do a full boil remove the extra oz of hops at 60minutes.

Ferment at 65F for 7-10 days

The FWH addition's IBUs are calculated as a 20 minute addition to better calculate the perceived IBUs. They are boiled the whole 60 minutes.

This recipe has had favorable results with both S-04 and WY1968. For more information here is the original thread from the Recipes/Ingredients section: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/3-floyds-zombie-dust-attempt-help-info-requested-245456/

I am definitely interested in how it turns out. The Humidor Jai Alai is great.

The guys at Brewmasters urged me against doing it. They said the hops will deteriorate. That is part of why I started this thread. I wanted some more opinions.

Also, I have had Jai Alai once, but not the Humidor one. I must say the Jai Alai is absolutely wonderful. My friend and I are cellaring a bottle of 110k+ot 5th batch that someone from Cigar City gave us. There is a cigar shop nearby, I'm sure they can provide the Spanish Cedar for me (it is used in cigar boxes). I don't know how much or how long to let it sit on the wood to get the flavor but not let the hops deteriorate too much. I have some research on wood aging to do before I give this a shot.

Maybe just try part of it on wood.

FWIW, When i toured cigar city, i saw some Cedar spirals, so i imagine that they use them instead of cedar barrels.

skeezerpleezer said:

Maybe just try part of it on wood.

FWIW, When i toured cigar city, i saw some Cedar spirals, so i imagine that they use them instead of cedar barrels.

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They have custom made infusion spirals that they age the beer on. I only have one secondary carboy so it's all or nothing unless I can convince my roommate to let me use her better bottle, they are both 5 gallons so I can do half in one and half in the other. It might oxidize with that much head space though. I might forego the cedar in this one and brew up a small test batch with the cedar sometime in the future. Whenever I do I'll make sure you get a bottle. Since this is based on your recipe and all.

You could just throw the cedar in right at the start of primary; with 10 days of dry-hopping, there will be a decent amount of contact time before packaging.

If you are using Spanish Cedar Spirals, 1/2 a Spiral for about 5 days is plenty. Blocks of Spanish Cedar will take longer to extract. It's a much more potent wood than oak is.

Have you read this?

http://www.lugwrenchbrewing.com/2010/10/interesting-brewing-ingredients-spanish.html

I've brewed with the spirals. I loved it, but then I love the humidor series from CC.

The wood has a very strong aroma. Don't confuse this with the oaked beers you've had.

I added 2 full spirals to a 5g batch of a Bells 2 Hearted IPA clone.

I've bought spanish cedar locally at a Woodcraft store. Small, thin project planks, not spirals. It smelled exactly the same.

Much more here. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/jai-alai-cedar-aged-ipa-178837/

As far as I know the infusion spirals that CC uses are not available from The Barrel Mill. I think CC has them made just for them. I was going to use some spanish cedar from a cigar box. I was also concerned with how the wood and this particular hop would work together. Citra is a very tropical and fruity hop, I'm kind of worried that it might not mesh well with the earthy wood flavor.

I think what I will do is brew the batch as is this time around and when I go pick up ingredients for the pumpkin ale I want to brew next just pick up enough ingredients to do a 1gal test batch with the cedar and if it's good I will do a full batch. It doesn't really make sense to go changing things around when I don't really have a baseline for what the recipe tastes like as is.

ajohnson153 said:

As far as I know the infusion spirals that CC uses are not available from The Barrel Mill.

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That's where the shop I work for got them from.

ArcaneXor said:

That's where the shop I work for got them from.

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I'm not calling you a liar. I looked at their online store and didn't see Spanish cedar, just two varieties of oak. It may be a special order item.

ajohnson153 said:

I'm not calling you a liar. I looked at their online store and didn't see Spanish cedar, just two varieties of oak. It may be a special order item.

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Send them an e-mail. They are pretty responsive and will let you know if they still carry them. That's a good rule for any homebrew or brewing supply store, online or physical - not all items are listed or visible.

ArcaneXor said:

Send them an e-mail. They are pretty responsive and will let you know if they still carry them. That's a good rule for any homebrew or brewing supply store, online or physical - not all items are listed or visible.

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Yeah, I figure the Oak is what sells, so why waste the time advertising a product you won't sell much of. I'm not going to bother them with asking. I was going to go another route to get the cedar anyway. The infusion spirals are nice but a bit pricey.

Any update on this? I plan on brewing the Maduro Stout recipe I found on HBT, and, I think that'd be a perfect candidate for aging with Spanish Cedar. I've got a nice old cigar box with almost no paper labels just waiting to be chopped up.

I ended up just making the beer to recipe on the first go. I might try to work the cedar in next time I brew this, but I wanted to get a good idea of what the beer tasted like as is before messing with it.

If it's a clone of the Maduro Brown ale from CC I'd say go for it. That is a beer that they make a Humidor Series (Spanish Cedar aged) version of. I'd be cautious though. I've been told that this wood requires less time to impart the required flavor than oak or other woods. I'd taste frequently to avoid overdoing it.