American Strong Ale Arrogant Bastard clone

[EvilTOJ]

1.021 seems rather high. I hope it drops a few more points before you bottle.

 

[Texas Redfish]

It is still doin its thang. the airlock is still going about 8 times a minute. Your origional post has a FG of 1.020. I know this may be a dumb question, and please forgive me if it is, but how much difference is .001. How will it change the flavor.

 

[MikeG]

I used Pacman yeast (with a starter), 1.075 OG; 1.015 FG. Took several days for fermentation to really take off, had trouble with my swamp cooler keeping it under 70F.

I have tried mine with only 1 week in bottle (I'm usually patient) but the sample I had when bottling was great so was worth trying. More like a bock, not enough 'bastard' in it yet and is a great beer.

 

[UnaBonger]

Drinking one right now...Excellent clone and close to the original...I'll brew this again but I think I'll double up on bittering additions and dry hoping...

 

[brrman]

I am going to brew this one on Saturday. How big a yeast starter do you guys recommend? WY1056 a good yeast for this?

Also - I only have Marris Otter on hand for base grains - think that will over-malt the taste?

 

[BarnabyHooge]

How will this be in 6 weeks? I was planning on brewing this Saturday for a Party on Dec 12. I guess that seems so far away, but it's only 6 WEEKS!

I'm going to go MO because I have it on hand as well and will double up on the bittering and and extra .5oz at KO.

 

[EvilTOJ]

Marris Otter will work fine for it. The Chinook is really aggressive, so the maltiness really won't overpower the hops at all. I think six weeks will work out just fine! That's about how long I go from brewday to drinking it.

 

[brrman]

I ended up using US 2 row. I just kegged it last night, force carbed tonight and poured my first pint (only 5 weeks from grain to glass!). I have to say tho, it really needed 2 oz of chinook dryhopped for 5 days before it actually tasted like the original.
Without the dryhop, it simply tasted like a nice ale - but definitely not arrogant.

My hop schedule:
1oz 60 min
1 oz 45 min
1.25 oz 2 min
2 oz dry-hop 5 days.

I am impressed - truly impressed - with how similar the beer is to actual AB. Kudos to this recipe!!! I will make this again thats for sure! Having Arrogant Bastard on tap is, however, very dangerous for me... lol

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

I'm going to brew this one up tomorrow. I'm going to use Pacman yeast and will modify the hopping schedule somewhat. I am trying to get rid of some year-old leaf hops so I'm assuming some degradation in AA%.

Here's the hop schedule I'm going to use:
1 oz. Chinook - 60 min.
.5 oz. Simcoe - 45 min.
.5 oz. Chinook - 30 min.
.5 oz. Chinook - 20 min.
.5 oz. Simcoe - 15 min.
.5 oz. Chinook - 8 min.
.5 oz. Chinook - 2 min.
1 oz. Chinook - Dry Hop

I should get upwards of 88 IBUs and a nice bastardy flavor.

 

[brrman]

I like the flavor hop additions at 30-8 mins - I will probably do the same when I brew this again to get more of the arrogant flavor mine was missing.

 

[MikeG]

That's a lot of hops! Hoppy New Year Bastard Ale is more like it.

This aged so well I brewed it again yesterday and pitched with Notty. I have oak chips and will use those in a few weeks.

 

[eurc51]

A few posts in this thread mention "oaking". I've had the oaked Arrogant Bastard and it was awesome. Can someone explain the process of oaking in a home brew?

Thanks,

euRC51

 

[portlandbeergeek]

I've oaked this recipe and it is awesome!!!

Your homebrew shop should sell oak chips, probably in 4 oz and/or one pound quantities. It's really more of a wine-related thing, so look in the wine making section at your LHBS.

After primary fermentation is done, rack your beer into secondary as normal but add some oak chips. Let the beer sit in secondary for a week or so, the fewer chips the longer it can sit. If you think you can bottle in a week, go heavier. If you prefer to let it sit in seconday for a few weeks or longer, use less. I used 2.5oz Toasted American oak for one week. The oakiness was very well pronounced and the next time I oak a beer I'll shoot for one ounce for maybe two weeks in secondary. Even after 6 months the oak is very dominant at these quantities (haven't tried one in a couple months)
Some people say to soak your chips in bourbon to sanitize, or to boil them. I did neither and got great results from a clean bag of chips that had been open and tightly re-sealed for a couple of months.

Ultimately i would advise to start with a small amount of chips (say, an ounce to five gallons) and go from there. Hope this helps, and please post your results if you try Oaking the Bastard!

 

[MikeG]

I brewed my 2nd batch of this (1st was excellent!) and plan on oaking this one. Following your advice, I have the chips so will probably add 1 oz and let sit for a week, dry hop with 1 more oz of chinnok for 1 week and then either bottle or keg (depends on if I clear a keg or not) for a total of 2 weeks oaking and only 1 dry hopping.

Thanks for the help beergeek

 

[rainingbullets]

So...I'm still a little confused about the volume of the original recipe.

The 5.31g of mash water is drained and discarded. The grains still in the tun are then sparged with 3g hot water, followed by two more sparges at 3g each? This would bring the total volume to 9g?

Thanks. looking forward to my first AG batch.

 

[ChshreCat]

So...I'm still a little confused about the volume of the original recipe.

The 5.31g of mash water is drained and discarded. The grains still in the tun are then sparged with 3g hot water, followed by two more sparges at 3g each? This would bring the total volume to 9g?

Thanks. looking forward to my first AG batch.

On the sparges, he's saying "once...twice" for two sparges. Two 3g sparges. And definitely do NOT discard your first runnings from your mash or you're going to end up with a very light brew.

Mash... drain into kettle.
Sparge... drain into kettle.
Sparge again... drain into kettle.

 

[rainingbullets]

On the sparges, he's saying "once...twice" for two sparges. Two 3g sparges. And definitely do NOT discard your first runnings from your mash or you're going to end up with a very light brew.

Mash... drain into kettle.
Sparge... drain into kettle.
Sparge again... drain into kettle.

Ah of course. Should have made that connection. This would put the total brew volume to 11.31g.

As I said, I'm looking at this recipe for my first AG.

Next question: what if I normally use the brew kettle to steep grains in a grain sack? In other words, the brew kettle is the mash tun....

 

[ChshreCat]

Remember that you won't get all that water out that you put in the mash so you won't end up with over 11 gallons. Quite a bit of it will get sucked up by the grain.

 

[portlandbeergeek]

Next question: what if I normally use the brew kettle to steep grains in a grain sack? In other words, the brew kettle is the mash tun....

How big is your kettle? You'll need a fairly large kettle to brew AG, especially this recipe with all that volume pre-boil. You may want to look into building a picnic cooler mash tun (or mash tun design of your choice) before diving into AG. It'll be very hard to both mash and boil in the same kettle, especially if the kettle is smaller than 30 quarts. That's the size of my kettle and sometimes just isn't big enough.

 

[MikeG]

I didn't get around to oaking this until last night. I boiled 1 oz of chips and added to my primary and added another 1 oz of chinook. I'll post back in about 6 weeks after I bottle and let age.

Not to get too far off topic, this is not a beer to brew for first AG.

 

[rainingbullets]

How big is your kettle? You'll need a fairly large kettle to brew AG, especially this recipe with all that volume pre-boil. You may want to look into building a picnic cooler mash tun (or mash tun design of your choice) before diving into AG. It'll be very hard to both mash and boil in the same kettle, especially if the kettle is smaller than 30 quarts. That's the size of my kettle and sometimes just isn't big enough.

26 quarts. Ya that probably won't work.

What about....using 6-7 bottling bucket as mash tun? Or is it not well-enough insulated...

Sorry for hijacking the thread. Last question I swear!

 

[ChshreCat]

I converted this to a PM partial boil since I can't do a full boil either and it came out pretty danged close.

 

[EvilTOJ]

Oh yea, a 6.5 gallon boil pot isn't nearly enough for AG. It might work for some other, lesser recipes but not this one . Sometimes when I want more malt flavor and/or a lighter beer I halve the 2 row and call it the Irritant Bastard. I have a converted keg and turkey fryer for my boiler, and I highly recommend it. You get to play with fire and boil-overs just get hosed off.

That said, I need to make this one again. I have enough grains to make 25 gallons, I need to get started!

 

[growmegrapes]

I cant do all grain yet so I switched the 2 row to LME (11.5 lbs) and steeped the specialty grains in a bag. I also retained about 10 grams of the last chinook addition for dry-hopping in secondary (5 days) Looks and smells just like the real deal, I cant wait!

 

[NotALamer]

I just drank a bottle of the oaked version and I would say the hop character was floral with a background of pine, I've never used chinook but the wiki says it's spicy? As far as malt character I'd say toasty and caramel with a bit of toffee in the background, so I would tend towards no special b.

Edit: Guess I should clarify, maybe 120 but probably no 150.

 

[mbtech]

I cant do all grain yet so I switched the 2 row to LME (11.5 lbs) and steeped the specialty grains in a bag. I also retained about 10 grams of the last chinook addition for dry-hopping in secondary (5 days) Looks and smells just like the real deal, I cant wait!

OMFG!!!! Your carboy is going to explode, lol.

 

[growmegrapes]

- OMFG!!!! Your carboy is going to explode, lol. -


Yeah i made a blowoff tube out of my siphon hose and put the end in a 10" cookie 1/2 full of water. I pitched an hour before the superbowl and when it was over, there was about 2 inches of foam in the carboy. it blew up so bad that night that the next morning it overflowed my cookie jar all over the counter with foam and wort. I woke up like YEEEAAAHHH! but the wife was pissed! "look at all this!" "it stinks in here!" lol just bottled sunday night 2/21. would anyone recommend aging or will it be close right away?

 

[HickoryMike]

I am drinking this after 2.5 weeks in the bottle and it's easily the best beer I have made. It's not really like an Arrogant Bastard, but it's damn good.

 

[SwampassJ]

Anyone tried adding another hop addition of 1/2 oz at 20 minutes and throwing 1/2 oz in at flame out? Think it would be a bit more arrogant.

 

[HickoryMike]

Anyone tried adding another hop addition of 1/2 oz at 20 minutes and throwing 1/2 oz in at flame out? Think it would be a bit more arrogant.

Mine is such a smooth drinker that I wouldn't tinker too much. Maybe a flame out addition or a dry hop to add a tad more nose.

Jamil did a radio show on cloning this beer and the first thing he established was that THIS recipe is not even close. Boy, this is a good beer though.