Allagash Curieux Clone

[1Mainebrew]

If I were to make this again I would pit it in a secondary fermenter and age it on the JB soaked oak for 6-12 months. It's great but I needed add the JB to the keg to get the Curieux taste. It needs more time on the gas too. I'll post a picture when it's fully carbed.

 

[heywolfie1015]

Just FWIW, and to impart my relatively limited knowledge about Curieux, my understanding is that they age the tripel for two months, age it for two more months on the JB barrels, and then bottle.

 

[1Mainebrew]

True, but the surface area of the JB barrels is much larger than oak cubes so that is why I personally would age it longer on the cubes.

 

[1Mainebrew]

So I just found a small co2 leak last night. That explains why this hasn't carbed yet! I fixed it so hopefully this will be fully carbed in a week. Thanks for the interest!!

 

[cjever19]

True, but the surface area of the JB barrels is much larger than oak cubes so that is why I personally would age it longer on the cubes.

Not necessarily. Volume is a factor too, so it's the surface area to volume ratio that is of interest. Having a much smaller, homebrew scale volume, you should have a pretty easy time matching that ratio, what ever it is.

I'd think it would be a pretty easy ratio to find here on the fourm since barrels are a standard size.

 

[stevehollx]

Not necessarily. Volume is a factor too, so it's the surface area to volume ratio that is of interest. Having a much smaller, homebrew scale volume, you should have a pretty easy time matching that ratio, what ever it is.

I'd think it would be a pretty easy ratio to find here on the fourm since barrels are a standard size.

Well a 60 gallon rain barrel is 24" diameter by 28" high.

That's:

Two discs of 12" radius squared * pi = 452.16 sq in. each
1 rectangle of circumference (24*pi) * height (28) = 2110
Total surface area = 3014

2014 sq in/60 gall = 50 sq in per gallon.

So a 5 gallon batch needs ~250 sq in.

I don't have oak cubes on hand to measure the average face, but if we assume 1" cubes, that means 6" of surface area per cube, so you would need ~42 cubes to get the same surface area ration that a 60gal wine barrel gets.

I'm getting some cubes in this weekend, and I can measure the average face length, get a weight, and report back with the recommended weight.

 

[1Mainebrew]

You are amazing!

 

[heywolfie1015]

I don't have oak cubes on hand to measure the average face, but if we assume 1" cubes, that means 6" of surface area per cube, so you would need ~42 cubes to get the same surface area ration that a 60gal wine barrel gets.

I'm getting some cubes in this weekend, and I can measure the average face length, get a weight, and report back with the recommended weight.

Nice. Thank you for that. This also seems about right to me. The common wisdom is that you should use 1-2 oz. of cubes per 5 gallons of brew. I recently completed a big English strong ale using 1 oz. of cubes and, as I remember it, there were about 20 cubes (possibly more) in the fermenter.

 

[WolvinMaine]

Just a comment on the yeast strain that Allagash uses. I was at a AHA rally 2 years ago at Allagash, and I asked one of the brewers about the yeast they bottle with, and he said in the big bottles, it is a bottling yeast, not their house strain. However, in the thread below, on the 6th page, someone got a response from Allagash that the 12 oz bottles of White is the primary strain, the same one they use to ferment their triple. So, looks like you maybe able to culture up from there.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/commercial-beer-yeast-harvest-list-262713/index6.html

 

[1Mainebrew]

I actually just read that in another thread too. I'm going to have to give it a try!

 

[WolvinMaine]

One other thing, all of the curieux is not barrel aged. They age some in barrels for about 8 weeks, and then blend it with the triple to make the final beer. I don't remember the ratio, but it would change based on the oak profile of each barrel. Obviously, as a homebrewer this is harder to do, but if you love the style, you can brew a large batch, have some oaked, and blend them together to your taste. This way you could control the oak better, and more closely reproduce the beer.

Anyway, great project, and good luck!

 

[1Mainebrew]

Yeah I remember that from the tour too, but at the time I had a lack of empty carboys, so I just went for it and figured for simplicity sake, I would oak the whole batch. Thanks for all of the interest everybody. I didn't expect this to be so interesting to anyone. Thanks!

 

[stevehollx]

Well a 60 gallon rain barrel is 24" diameter by 28" high.

That's:

Two discs of 12" radius squared * pi = 452.16 sq in. each
1 rectangle of circumference (24*pi) * height (28) = 2110
Total surface area = 3014

2014 sq in/60 gall = 50 sq in per gallon.

So a 5 gallon batch needs ~250 sq in.

I don't have oak cubes on hand to measure the average face, but if we assume 1" cubes, that means 6" of surface area per cube, so you would need ~42 cubes to get the same surface area ration that a 60gal wine barrel gets.

I'm getting some cubes in this weekend, and I can measure the average face length, get a weight, and report back with the recommended weight.

Okay to finish the oak calculation.

The cubes I have are about just shy of 1/2" cubes. I measured three and the average surface area comes out to about 1.06 sq inches per cube.

This makes our target about 236 cubes.

10 cubes weigh 8g. So to get our 236 cubes, we're looking at 189g which is about 6.5 oz.

So there you have it. A 60 gallon barrel is equivalent to 6.5 oz of oak for a 5 gallon batch.

In practice, I'm not sure how much 6-7 oz of oak would actually fare, since that's on the high side of what people typically recommend.

 

[WolvinMaine]

A few things to keep in mind regarding that. First off, Bourbon barrels have already had much of their oakiness stripped by the aging of the spirit. That is why brewers and the Scottish distillers use these barrels, so they are not overpowering. Secondly, barrels are built so there is very little end grain exposure, where you will get much deeper penetration of the liquid, and conversely more extraction. Obviously, you have significant end grain exposure with cubes. Cubes are usually fresh, and even boiling them for a while or putting them in vodka will not duplicate the months to years of aging the barrels get from the Bourbon makers. While your surface area calculations maybe correct, there are these other variables that will make it very difficult to have this bear out exactly. 6 oz of oak cubes in a beer would overpower pretty much anything in a very short order, and once it is oaked, there is no going back.

 

[1Mainebrew]

Good points wolvin!

 

[1Mainebrew]

Here's a picture from last week. I'm really having a hard time getting this to carb up. I increased the gas to 30 psi for the last week and I will recheck the carbonation after work and repost. At least the color is on par.

 

[Corey_James]

What was your mash and fermentation temps if I may ask?

 

[1Mainebrew]

149 f for mash
70 f for fermentation week 1
78 f for fermentation week 2
70 f for fermentation weeks 3,4

 

[1Mainebrew]

Much better! And the taste is amazing! It's just getting better! The more it's aging the more the faint coconut aroma and flavor is kicking in. I'm very pleased!

 

[WolvinMaine]

How did you end up doing the oak?

 

[1Mainebrew]

How did you end up doing the oak?

See post #20 of this thread. If its still not clear I will try and clarify.

 

[1Mainebrew]

So I have the Curieux keg aging in the crawl space right now while I have a Schwarzbier Lager in the kegerator for fermentation purposes, and once that is taken out for a D-rest, I will probably put the keg of Curieux back in the kegerator and bottle the rest of the batch up for long-term aging and then will put the Munich Lager in that keg (after its been cleansed and sterilized) for the lagering phase. I will need my other keg for another Kate the Great clone that's in primary now.

I will try a bottle every month or so and keep the thread updated...

 

[browillard]

Awesome thread! I love this beer but am disappointed that the larger bottles do not contain the primary yeast strain. I actually collected the slurry from a couple of bottles to grow from the restaurant where I work.

I did not know that it was a Trippel but explains a lot of the flavors. I am aging an APA with chips made from Jack Daniels casks. I am curious how it will turn out...

 

[1Mainebrew]

I just had a glass yesterday after another month of lagering and let me say stellar! Just delicious and smooth without harshness. But it is powerful, be warned!

 

[dogbar]

Sparging on this right now. Couldn't be more excited about a beer I won't be drinking for at least six months

Thanks for all the work OP has put into documenting his progress on this one.

 

[1Mainebrew]

You're welcome! Just a little advice: IF you end up adding JB to the keg, add like 1/4 what you think you should. It will cut down on your aging.

 

[1Mainebrew]

How did the rest of the brew day go and are you having a strong ferment yet?

 

[dogbar]

It was a bit of an odd brew day, in that I had to take a break post-sparge to pick up my kids from daycare. I raised the temp up near boiling to ensure no more conversion, then killed the flame and made my trip. When I came back, there was a hellacious hot break. Huge clumps that were really easy to scoop out as I went back to boiling, with a possibly related end result (?) being a very, very clear beer going into the fermenter.

I'll need to read more about this

What were your calculated IBUs? I ended up having to futz with the hop schedule to make up for the seriously low AAs they had. Should really have checked those before I left the brew store.

 

[1Mainebrew]

My IBUs were 27

 

[dogbar]

Yeah, Brewsmith spit out 26 when I put the recipe in as-is. I ended up having to push all the hop additions to the beginning of the boil to get close to that.

Not super concerned given the style, but it's a good reminder to check the AAs at the store even when I'm not brewing something hoppier.