Crescent Valley Ale

[55chevydude]

Malt
13.00 lbs Briess 2-Row or Marris Otter 60 mins 1.037
1.50 lbs Special B Malt 60 mins 1.030
0.75 lbs Pale Chocolate (optional for a sweeter, darker brew)

Hops
2.00 oz 54.53 Chinook 60 mins
1.00 oz 22.02 Chinook 20 mins
1.00 oz 19.78 Chinook 10 mins
1.00 oz Chinook flowers (Dry hop)

Yeasts (Double pitch recommended)
Wyeast 1272 American Ale II or Nottingham

Additions
1.00 oz Burton Water Salts before boil
2 oz. light American oak for final 7 days in secondary

I just brewed this up on 10/6 using my new Dark Star burner. Love that thing! The smells were incredible on this brew with faint chocolate, raisins and biscuits being predominate. I went with the Marris Otter malt on this one as I was shooting for more the English side of things with the potent American hop bite. This was a BIAB session and things went smoothly. I tried a dunk sparge for the first time and was not satisfied with it. I will go back to batch sparging in the future. Due to this, my OG was slightly down and I ended up adding 1 lb. light DME to boost it. I also went with 1.5 lbs. dark brown sugar, diluted with 2 cups water, and added in after the third day of fermentation. That woke this thing right back up and it was bubbling again the next morning. I had to siphon off 1 qt of wert/beer to make room in the fermenter for the brown sugar slurry. That enabled a mid-fermentation test and taste. It had already fermented down to 1.020 after just 48 hours so things were good there. The taste and aroma is awesome, just what I wanted from a strong ale. The Special B malt really shines. By the way, this was inspired by a tasting of Stone's AB and Lagunitas' WTF.

 

[55chevydude]

Okay, so here we are 4 weeks and change from brew day. Transferred from primary to secondary after 12 days. I discovered that my carboy only holds 5 gallons and this was more like 5.6 gallons. So I decided to top off a 1 gallon growler and put an airlock on it for later experimentation. Also, I have not added the 1 oz. dry hop addition. This was already a bit hoppier then I was wanting so I won't be dry hopping. Just two days ago I added 4 tablespoons of lactose to 4 tablespoons boiling water, cooled and added to the one gallon jug. I bottled that one gallon "cream ale" version a few hours later. I will be racking off another 1 gallon tomorrow and adding .4 oz. French oak chips to get an "oaked" version. The remaining 3.5 gallons or so will be the original recipe and will go in the keg. My hope is that I will essentially get three varieties from one batch and get to decide which is the best. That way I know which Crescent Valley Ale reigns supreme!

 

[55chevydude]

Well, this turned into an awesome conundrum. I was attempting to see which of the three variations would be best. Turns out they were all great in their own ways. Some liked the slight added sweetness from the lactose version, others enjoyed the sophisticated oak notes in the oaked version. But everyone loved the original version. Its big, malty, strong and nicely hopped. This will surely be brewed again by popular demand.
I would not brew 5 gallons of the oak version only because I could see myself being "over" the oak before the keg was tapped out. But pulling off two gallons from the original recipe and oaking it would be a great little batch.