Russian River Supplication Clone Advice

I have recently become a convert to sour/wild beers and was lucky enough to get my hands on a bottle of Russian River Supplication which simply blew me away and only furthered my obsession for these types of brews. I must try to brew this beer!

Below is an outline of my proposed recipe and general plan, but I wanted to see what the experts thought of this plan & recipe. Thanks in advance for all the help and advice! Brew on!:rockin:

RR Supplication Clone Attempt #1 – Extract w. Specialty Grains

Batch Size: 5.0 gal
Boil Size: 3.0 gal
Efficiency: 80.0%

Original Gravity: 1.063
Terminal Gravity: 1.013
Bitterness: 21.7
Alcohol: 6.5%
SRM: 20

Ingredients:
8.50 lb Pale Liquid Malt Extract
1.0 lb Crystal Malt 40L
1.5 lb Vienna Malt
0.25 lb De-bittered Black (Carafa Special® III)

Hop Additions:
0.5 oz Perle (7.1%) – Add @ 60 mins
0.25 oz Perle (7.1%) – Add @ 30 mins

Yeast:
White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale
Russian River Supplication Bottle Dregs

Additional Ingredients:
1 oz French Oak Cubes soaked in Pinot Nior
Appx. 2-3 Cans (14.5oz) of Oregon Fruit Co. Tart Cherries
Whirlfloc
Yeast nutrient

Plan:
Ferment for 2 weeks in primary with just White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale

Rack to secondary directly onto tart cherries & oak cubes and add RR Supplication bottle dregs that have been step-up via starter

Transfer off of cherries and oak at appx the 2 month mark

Bulk age for additional 6-8 months or so….or until I reach desired taste profile

Recipe looks solid to me, but why transfer off of the oak? For what it is worth Russian River uses dried sour cherries. You may also want to blend a cup or so of the wine into the beer to boost that character.

I’ve always had trouble adequately souring beers aged in carboys without adding the bugs in primary. I know Russian River does a clean primary, and I’ve never had an issue with this when aging in barrels. Making a starter is a good idea, although if you pitch in primary the wine yeast in the bottle could cause issues for the primary strain (not sure if their “Rockpile” strain makes the kill factor though).

Good luck!

Thanks for the input Oldsock, really appreciate it!

I'll have to look into finding some dried cherries and will definitely be adding some of the wine.

Agreed, I have heard others having better souring success when adding bugs to the primary, but I'm also wary about the possibility of wine yeast taking over.

FYI, there's a really thorough thread on supplication clones here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/attempting-supplication-clone-220141/