Cigar City maduro oatmeal brown clone attempt

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Any updates from people who's brewed this up?
I've stocked the ingredients, but won't be able to brew before March - can't wait!
 
Tasted my first one yesterday after work. I think it will be a staple in my rotation.
 
Tasted my first one yesterday after work. I think it will be a staple in my rotation.


That's great. Does it taste like a maduro?

Would anyone know how to convert this to a extract or a little less grains for a partial mash?

Thanks can't wait to try it.
 
That's great. Does it taste like a maduro?

Would anyone know how to convert this to a extract or a little less grains for a partial mash?

Thanks can't wait to try it.
 
While I haven't had maduro in a couple of months. I think this is close. If not its a damn tasty brown ale any way
 
Any updates from people who's brewed this up?
I've stocked the ingredients, but won't be able to brew before March - can't wait!

I brewed this on Saturday, Feb 7th. I am a partial mash brewer, so I converted the recipe to extract + grain. Here's what I did:

5.5 lb Pale LME

Mashed the following for 1 hour at 154 degrees:
18 oz Caramel 60L
4 oz Pale Chocolate Malt
8 oz Brown Malt
10 oz. Victory Malt
12 oz. Flaked Oats

Wyeast 1335 British Ale II

1 oz East Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes
1 oz Willamette @ 20 minutes

I plugged this in to a recipe calculator, and got an exact stats for Maduro Brown!

I recently took a tour at Cigar City, and asked Bob (tour guide) which strand of yeast they use for Maduro. He said WYeast 1335, and that they ferment it at 60 degrees. My swamp water technique will only get me down to about 65 degree (I live in Florida), but I don't expect there to be many differences at all in the yeasts' performance - given that I am still within ale temps. So, it's bubbling away at 65-69 degrees right now.

I will reply with a picture side-by-side with Maduro and mine. Worst case scenario - if it doesn't taste like Maduro, I'm just left with a great Brown ale!

Fingers crossed....
 
Hey orlando guy nice post. I brewed this yesterday in a similar fashion but instead of 5.5 dme I did 6 lb of Marris otter lme. I used Wyeast 1968 London ESB from the previous post. Wonder how the yeast strains will change the flavor between these 2 recipes.

My only comment thus far is that the color was lighter than a maduro. Wort tasted pretty darn good tho.

I'm fermenting at 68 right now.

Will report back on how it comes out.
 
Side by side with maduro on the left, and my recipe on the right. It came out great! Obviously color isn't as dark as maduro, and not as clear, but I personally love a hazier beer.

Taste notes:

Mine: light, creamy mouthfeel. Finished with a sweet caramel - nut flavor. Very slightly roasty.

Maduro: higher carbonation, a drier, thiner bodied mouthfeel. The nuttiness comes out more prevelantly, and finishes with a more assertive roasty aftertaste (mmmmmm yum).

My conclusion would be to mash at a lower temperature to thin out the body a bit more...I accidentally mashed too high and hence the sweeter finish. There seems to be darker malts used...obviously, so maybe more chocolate malt?

Still, a great brown ale recipe!

View attachment 1425685534241.jpg
 
@TheOrlandoGuy, soo.. I'm brewing this in 7-10 days if I'm lucky. Bump up the brown to 10oz to accentuate the roastyness but adding more choc would make it even sweeter no? What temp schedule did you mash?
 
@TheOrlandoGuy, soo.. I'm brewing this in 7-10 days if I'm lucky. Bump up the brown to 10oz to accentuate the roastyness but adding more choc would make it even sweeter no? What temp schedule did you mash?

The chocolate malt will make it roastier. If you want sweet, add some honey malt or a touch of lactose. Be careful of adding too much chocolate. It will give it a burnt toast flavor.
 
I agree with @planetscott. My experience with chocolate malt is that it will definitely give it more of a roastier flavor. The brown malt in this grain bill is actually lending more color than anything, and a great nuttiness/toffee flavor. If you want sweeter, mash higher like I did (by accident). I also don't see anything wrong with more chocolate and brown malts. I'll end up doing that for my next batch if I want to get it closer to maduro.

As a stand alone recipe though, it makes a fantastic brown ale.
 
Thanks for the pointers guys. Will let you know how it turns out :)
 
Thanks for the pointers guys. Will let you know how it turns out :)

Happy brewing then!

Sorry I realized I didn't answer your initial question about mashing temps. I shot for 154 for 1 hour, but I was trying a new method of mini mashing...I started at 154, and it got up to 159 for at least a half an hour of the mash. :smack: I managed to slowly get it back down again, and it finished at 154 at the hour mark. Again, it was a mistake on my part, but it gave me a great reference point of dry/sweet characteristics that you could achieve from playing with mash temps - lesson learned! Haha, but either way, if you actually are going for that sweetness I seem to have created in my batch (without adding lactose), I'd mash high, probably 155-157. However, this will leave you with less fermentables..and a lower potential of alcohol in your beer.

Hope that helps, and let us know how it turns out!
 
Hey OrlandoGuy thanks for the posts and pics. I had about the same results as you with color & taste with your recipe. Hazier, Lighter & Sweeter.

What do you think about the below to get closer to Maduro? Was going to try to brew this week. I would like to figure this out HA HA! Same as you. Enjoying the beer recipe you gave tho! Thanks!

5.5 lb Pale LME
MASH @ 154

12 oz Caramel 60L (went down 6oz)
12 oz Pale Chocolate Malt ( tripled chocolate )
16 oz Brown Malt ( doubled brown )
10 oz. Victory Malt (same)
16 oz. Flaked Oats (upped a little)

Same Yeast & Hop Schedule

Thanks again and will report back with results if you think this is a good recipe to try out or did I up the ingredients too much?

5.5 lb Pale LME
Mashed the following for 1 hour at 154 degrees:
18 oz Caramel 60L
4 oz Pale Chocolate Malt
8 oz Brown Malt
10 oz. Victory Malt
12 oz. Flaked Oats

Wyeast 1335 British Ale II

1 oz East Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes
1 oz Willamette @ 20 minutes
 
Thanks gishua! Definitely a good call on the chocolate malt increase. I'd say why not kick that crystal malt up to 80L? Should impart more a burnt/toasty flavor than the 60L...

As for the rest, I'd actually be curious to see how doubling the brown would affect that nuttiness. Hopefully its not too much with the increase in chocolate malt. Remember, brown malts dont have as much potential sugars to contribute to the mash compared to the rest of the grains on that bill. Idk if adding anymore oatmeal would change much of the mouthfeel though, but it's worth a try!

Please post some pics when you're done! I think it will be closer to maduro for sure.
 
Ok cool! I'll get ingredients this week and try to show color going into fermenter and then thereafter follow up pics. I rounded all but 1 to 12 oz for an in between recipe ha ha, maybe everything at 12 will result in a close clone. Fingers crossed. Thanks again!

5.5 lb Pale LME
MASH @ 154

12 oz Caramel 80L
12 oz Pale Chocolate Malt
12 oz Brown Malt
10 oz. Victory Malt
12 oz. Flaked Oats

Wyeast 1335 British Ale II

1 oz East Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes
1 oz Willamette @ 20 minutes
 
Nice! Depending on the stalled brown ale that is currently cold crashing I might also start up a half batch tomorrow.

P.S. Likely going to dump the stalled one. Too sweat and only a gallon.
 
Could anyone share the beersmith recipe?
I can't get anywhere close to the desired - color, IBU, nor ABV.
(Could me that my Beersmith is messed up - not the first time that happens)

EDIT: nevermind - BeerSmith cocked up. Going back to Brewer's Friend
 
Cigar city +11111 had their IPA in the Tampa Airport after a wedding. Which I could find it in NC. Excited to see how this turns out.
 
What OG did you guys hit?

1.046 (bit low compared to BeerSmith) but fine enough for an English brown ale. Think I crushed the grains too coarse.

Color looks spot on.

Expect an updare in a few weeks :)
 
wow!

first taste test.

best beer brewed till date.

Based on the percent wise grain bill, wyeast 1864.
mashed at 150F (66C)

EKG and Fuggles hops

IMG_4120_2.JPG
 
Hk823 what recipe did you end up using? I really want to circle back around to this one.
 
Hk823 what recipe did you end up using? I really want to circle back around to this one.

I did this exactly (I don't have Beersmith on this computer so can't give you the grain bill on weight basis right now but shouldn't be too hard to work out):

63% Maris Otter - 2 row
13% Crystal 60L
3% Briess 6-row Chocolate
5.5% Brown Malt
7% Victory
8.5% Rolled Oats

==> (sorry about the metric units but that's how I roll)

3.7kg maris otter
0.8kg crystal 60
0.4kg victory
0.3kg brown
0.2kg chocolate
0.5kg oats


Mashed for 60 mins at 66C/150-1F.
Mash out and sparge at 77C/170F.

Fermented with Wyeast 1968 at 19-20C/68F for 8 days.
Then ramped up to 22C/71F the last 4 days to do a diacetyl rest.
(in the fermentation fridge)
Achieved FG of 1.013

However I made a mistake of crushing my grains too coarse so I only achieved OG of 1.046 vs expected 1.054-58. But seriously I can't tell the difference; the aroma and the flavour shines through.

P.S. Head doesn't hold too well on this one (the genuine doesn't too well either AFAIR).
 
Hey guys, just a quick update. I know we have a couple brew recipes going on here, but hopefully one of these will end up being fairly close.

I brewed this one on Saturday.
5.5 lb Pale LME
MASH @ 154

12 oz Caramel 80L
12 oz Pale Chocolate Malt
12 oz Brown Malt
10 oz. Victory Malt
12 oz. Flaked Oats

Wyeast 1335 British Ale II

1 oz East Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes
1 oz Willamette @ 20 minutes


After tasting the wort, it's sweeter than Maduro, but the color looks alot closer than the first round from OrlandoGuy post. I will post as soon as I'm done fermenting at 68F.

My OG was 1.051. Cheers
 
Yeah I'd say our going recipe would be that one from HK823. His came out much closer in color to Maduro, and from what he said, closer to taste too. I'll have to try a second attempt soon as well.
 
Great! Let me know. Either way all these brews are pretty tasty.
 
After a few weeks of tasting mine is lacking a bit mouthfeel, it's predominantly a "roasty" flavour on the sides of the tongue - not much in the center and back.

I even tried dropping a herbal drop in one of the bottles to spice it up a bit and it helped a lot.

Can probably blame it on my mash temp which is on the low side and for the next batch maybe cut the brown malt just a tiny bit, and increase the caramel a bit more.
 
Hey HK thanks again for the follow up. I think i'm going to try your recipe. What do you think the decrease in brown and increase in caramel would end up being? Something like this?

3.7kg maris otter
1 kg crystal caramel 60
0.4kg victory
0.2kg brown
0.2kg chocolate
0.5kg oats

Thanks again and I will report with pics & summary of the taste.
 
Here is the recipe I am trying in a couple weeks:

8 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 68.8 %
12.0 oz Brown Malt (65.0 SRM) Grain 2 6.5 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.5 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.5 %
12.0 oz Oats, Golden Naked (Simpsons) (10.0 SRM) Grain 5 6.5 %
10.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 6 5.4 %
1.00 oz East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 7 17.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 8 10.8 IBU

Any thoughts?

Dave
 
That looks like a very good brown ale IMO. If there's anything I would tweak is to bring the caramel malts down a bit. I may try that as my next brown ale. I love UK beers.
 
I'm going to use these recipes for my first all grain batch here soon. Which one of these recipes has been the closest?
 
I'm brewing this tomorrow. Pretty much the same recipe as HK823. This is the first time using Fullers yeast (wlp002) so I'm not sure about mash temp. Thoughts? I'm thinking 151F. Dont have room to mashout. 10 gal batch split with a friend.

Predicted OG 57, FG 14, SRM 23.8, IBU 26.6
14 lbs Maris Otter 62.2%
3 lbs Crystal 60L 13.3%
2 lbs Flaked Oats 8.9%
1.5 lbs Victory 6.7%
1.25 lbs Brown Malt 5.6%
0.75 lbs Chocolate Malt 3.3%
2.75 oz Fuggles 4.0 AA% at 60min
2.00 oz Fuggles 4.0 AA% at 20min
200 Billion wlp002 Fullers yeast from starter (in each 5 gal split)
Mash at ??? 151F for 60min. I'm expecting an 56-57 OG and hope to stop at 1.014 for ~75% Att and 5.5% abv

Kettle water profile mg/l: 66 Ca, 10 Mg, 16 Na, 43 Cl, 22 SO4. Afraid to increase Ca much more for early flocculation concerns. Mash pH target 5.44; using phos acid to adjust mash and sparge water.

Let me know your thoughts on mash temp and attenuation with Fullers yeast and beers with 13% crystal. I plan to pitch at 63F and let self rise to 67-68F max (wort temp not ambient).
 
I'm brewing tomorrow as well. Using Wy1335 yeast.

Since you are splitting into 2x 5gal batches, you could do 2 different yeasts.

Since you live in florida, we expect a side by side comparison with the original when the ale is ready. :)
 
Brewing this using Wyeast 1968 which is the same strain Cigar City uses.

Also doing this extract using 3.15 lbs Marris Otter extract and 3.qt lbs Amber extract. Specialty grains stay the same.
 
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