Bourbon Apple Pie Brown Ale

[youmeandbrew]

I'm looking for feedback on a recipe I concocted. I'm having trouble figuring out when to add the apples and spices and how much to add. The times and amounts below are my initial thought. I don't want a cider taste. I'm looking for more of a brown ale taste with a good dose of apples and apple pie spices with some creaminess from the oats and lactose.

Bourbon Apple Pie Brown Ale (BIAB, 5 gallon batch)
Grain Bill:
-8 lbs Maris Otter
-2 lbs Light Munich Malt
-1 lb Special B Malt
-8 oz Chocolate Malt
-8 oz Flaked Oats

Notes:
Heat Water to 160⁰-162⁰ F. Mash in at 155⁰ F for 75 min. Heat to 168⁰ F over 7 min

Hops/Adjuncts/Spices:
-East Kent Goldings 5% alpha (60 min)
-Whirlfloc Tablet (15 min)
-8 lbs caramelized apples* (15 min)
-East Kent Goldings 5% alpha (10 min)
-10 Allspice berries (5 min)
-6 Cinnamon sticks (5 min)
-1/2 tsp cardamom (5 min)
-1/2 tsp nutmeg (5 min)
-8 oz Lactose (flameout)

*Peel and core 8 lbs of apples. Freeze apple peels for secondary addition. Cover diced apples, allspice berries, and cinnamon with just enough bourbon to cover and soak for 24 hours. Remove and set aside allspice berries and cinnamon sticks (crush cinnamon stick in a bag). Strain apples from bourbon (save bourbon for later). Bake apples until caramelized. Add apples and spices to separate mesh bags, tie, and add to boil when indicated.

Fermentation:
-White Labs English Ale Yeast (WLP002)
-Frozen apple peels
-5 Allspice berries
-3 Cinnamon sticks
-3 Vanilla beans (cut down the middle and scraped)
-Reserved bourbon + additional (if needed)

Notes:
After wort is complete, cool to 70⁰ F. Pitch the yeast. Ferment for 7 days. One to two nights before racking to secondary fermenter, soak frozen apple peels, cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, and vanilla in reserved bourbon. Let sit at room temperature until ready to add to secondary. Place in mesh bag and add to secondary. Rack beer on top of spices. Ferment for 10 days.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

 

[bolus14]

Looks tasty, sub'd to see responses.

Over the last week or so I've been looking for something with apple to brew up for the fall, as I'm tired of Pumpkin and don't know if I'll even try a Pumpkin beer this year. What I have found so far is people have said you need a TON of apples to get any apple flavor and that concentrate or cider is the better route to go.

Might be worth looking through some of the Graff threads to see what others have come up with, but I have been leaning in the same direction as you in that I want a stronger malt/beer presence and less of the apple/cider flavor.

 

[youmeandbrew]

Ditto. I've grown tired of pumpkin and wanted to get away from it. I've done countless research on apple beer only to come up with cider and graff. I began to look into graff but most, if not all I've read says it turns out dry which is what I'm trying to avoid. I'm looking for a more pie like sweetness with a malty backbone.

I may incorprate some of the ideas of graff like adding cider to the fermenter or maybe replacing a few gallons of mash water with unsweetened pasteurized cider. I'm curious to see what others have to say. Hopefully we'll see some responses soon.

 

[bolus14]

Found this post last night that might be worth working off of:
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=17002.0

Scroll down to the 4th reply, there's a recipe for a Apple Pie Strong Scotch Ale

 

[youmeandbrew]

Found this post last night that might be worth working off of:
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=17002.0

Scroll down to the 4th reply, there's a recipe for a Apple Pie Strong Scotch Ale

Thanks! I saw that one. Thats where I got the idea of putting the peels in the secondary. It's really hard to find any recipes with apples in it other than cider amd graff.

 

[youmeandbrew]

Found this post last night that might be worth working off of:
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=17002.0

Scroll down to the 4th reply, there's a recipe for a Apple Pie Strong Scotch Ale

Thanks! Yeah I saw that one. That's where I got the idea of putting the peels in the secondary. It's really hard to find a recipe with apples in it other than cider and graff.

 

[youmeandbrew]

Thanks! Yeah I saw that one. That's where I got the idea of putting the peels in the secondary. It's really hard to find a recipe with apples in it other than cider and graff.

 

[bolus14]

Personally I think apple is going to be a lot like pumpkin. You don't get pumpkin flavor from the pumpkin you get it from the spices, the pumpkin adds to the mouthfeel because of the starches and might provide some earthy/vegetal flavor but very little. I've started leaning more towards thinking I'm going to give the Scotch Ale recipe a shot, might drop some of the grains to lower the ABV and time for it to be ready though.

Issues I've thought about and have seen posted about with apples is it will take a ton to get any real flavor into the beer, by the time you add that many apples you're going to lose a lot of beer/wort, and much like using AJ, cider, or concentrate after the sugars ferment it's going to leave the tartness but not necessarily the sweet apple flavor I think many would look for.

So, I started thinking about Pumpkin beers I have made and the comments I have seen while researching those beers and for the most part people tinker more with the spices than with the amount of pumpkin they're using, in my opinion this is because the actual pumpkin isn't contributing a whole lot, except a lot of messy mashes. Many pumpkin beers try to have a somewhat creamy mouthfeel which I'm sure the actual pumpkin helps with, but that can also be achieved with a higher mash, using oats, rye, and sometimes lactose.

Then for commercial breweries they want to be able to market these as Pumpkin beers and not pumpkin spiced so legally they have to use pumpkin in them. I don't know if there's a certain percentage/amount of pumpkin that has to be used or if they can throw in 1 can of Libby's pumpkin into a 7bbl batch and still call it a pumpkin beer, but personally I'm not concerned with this, I just want a good beer with some apple/apple pie spice taste to enjoy through the fall and holidays. If you want to tell people you used apple in it then use the peels like the Scotch Ale calls for and technically you used real apple in it...

 

[bolus14]

Picked up grains yesterday and planning to brew today or tomorrow, more or less going with the recipe below which is from https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=17002.0


HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Apple Pie Scotch Ale

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Scottish Heavy
Boil Time: 90 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Efficiency: 65% (brew house)


STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.079
Final Gravity: 1.019
ABV (standard): 7.78%
IBU (tinseth): 33.85
SRM (morey): 21.4

FERMENTABLES:
12 lb - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (66.7%)
2 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 40L (11.1%)
2 lb - American - Bonlander Munich (11.1%)
1 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 120L (5.6%)
1 lb - German - Wheat Malt (5.6%)

HOPS:
0.7 oz - Warrior, Type: Pellet, AA: 15, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 33.85

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 152 F, Time: 60 min

YEAST:
Wyeast - American Ale II 1272

Soak in 1 cup bourbon for a couple of days and add to secondary
-the peel of 8 large apples
-2 cinnamon sticks
-2 tsp. cassia chips
-4 cloves
-1 vanilla bean
I may change the spices and amounts, still looking around at apple pie spice amounts. I can easily find cassia chips so I will likely forgo those and just use cinnamon sticks. I may cut back on the bourbon a little bit as well, I made Denny Conn's BVIP a couple years ago and used 250ml in that. It was very very good, but the bourbon was there. For this I want it to play much more of a background role.

 

[bolus14]

Brewed the recipe I posted today, OG was slightly low at 1.077. If the wort taste is anything like the finished product I may debate adding apple pie spices to it. Usually I don't even taste the wort or hydro sample before fermentation, but did on this and it was delicious.

 

[youmeandbrew]

We brewed Saturday with some changes to the initial recipe:

5.5 Gallons (BIAB)
OG: 1.064 (1.062 recorded)
FG: 1.024
IBU: 29.63
SRM: 19.2 (came out more of a brown than an amber; not quite what I was hoping for)

Grain Bill (started with 8.5 gallons of water; boil size around 7.25 gallons):
8 lbs Maris Otter (61.5%)
3 lbs Munich (23.1%)
12 oz Flaked Oats (5.8%)
8 oz Carmel/Crystal 40L (3.8%)
6 oz Roasted Barley (2.9%)
6 oz Brown Malt (2.9%)

Hops/Adjuncts/Spics:
.5 oz East Kent Goldings (60 min)
1 Whirlfloc tablet (15 min)
.5 oz East Kent Goldings (10 min)
.5 oz Calypso (10 min)
.5 oz Galaxy (10 min)
.5 oz Calypso (0 min)
.5 oz Galaxy (0 min)
10 Allspice berries (crushed) (0 min)
5 Cinnamon sticks (crushed) (0 min)
1 whole Nutmeg (crushed) (0 min)
.5 tsp ground Cardamom (0 min)
8 oz Lactose (0 min)

Tasting notes: Friggen delicious. The spices are subtle but noticeable. The bicuit/graham cracker/caramel flavors from the grain work perfectly with the spices and is exactly what I was looking for as far as "apple pie" flavors.

Fermentation:
Added 1 gallon of pasteurized, unsweetened apple cider to cooled wort. Pitched 2L starter of WLP002.

Planned:
We'll be adding 8 lbs of Gala apples to the secondary (diced, frozen and thawed twice to kill infection) along with 3 cinnamon sticks, 2 vanilla beans, and 5 allspice berries (crushed in a hop bag and soaked in 2 cups of bourbon for 48 hours). We're going to pour the spices and bourbon into the secondary with the apples and rack on top. I'm going to reconsider pouring all 2 cups of bourbon in the secondary after reading your experience with it.

Overall I think brew day went very well and I'm very excited to see how this turns out.

 

[bolus14]

My only issue with adding spices in the boil, or at the end, is that by the time fermentation finishes the smell/taste is more or less gone. Not saying you're wrong for doing it that way but I don't think spices provide much when added in the boil. I have the same issues with a lot of Wit's, commercial and homebrewed, my preference is to add them after rigorous fermentation completes, it just seems to carry through the finished beer better, but I guess it depends on how subtle or prominent you want it to be.

As for your process I hope it works out for you, just seems "busy" to me for a first shot at the recipe. Having spices in the boil, adding cider to the wort and then adding spices and apples in the secondary is going ot make it difficult to know where you might have loss some apple/spice flavor vs what provides the most flavor you're looking for. For the bourbon, I would just say start with a smaller amount, give it a few days and taste it, if you want more you can always add more, but you can take it out and it will take a while to blend and become less noticeable.

I'll be sure to update my thoughts as mine moves along. As of this morning there's a lot of bubbling coming out of the airlock, I'll likely give it a few weeks to ferment and clean up a little bit, then add the apple peels and spices, and age it for 2-3 weeks. Hoping to bottle either 10/21 so I might be able to take a few bottles on a trip to Hershey Park, otherwise I'll be bottling it on 10/29. I just don't want to rush it, if it takes more time or if I end up having to add more spices, bourbon, apples then I'll take the hit to get this where I want it...hopefully

 

[bolus14]

Had a little bit of krausen blow through my airlock overnight, cleaned that up this morning and put the airlock back on since I thought fermentation was slowing going by the bubbling I saw in the airlock last night.
Got home from work today and the airlock again was filled with krausen and slightly coming out of the top.
Replaced the lid and airlock and it looked like the krausen was receding, so hopefully I won't have to clean anything up tomorrow morning.

I had just over 5gal of wort and it's in a 6.5 gal fermenter, I've never had that much krausen fill the headspace and the flow out, yeast must think this one tastes pretty good too

 

[youmeandbrew]

Sweet!

 

[bolus14]

Pulled a hydro sample tonight and this is down to 1.018 so I'm pretty sure it's done as I estimated it stopping at 1.019. was still quite murky looking, to be expected. Took a small sip to get a taste, but it's too yeast and unsettled at this point to get a good idea of what it will end like.

Might drop the apple peals and bourbon spice mixture in this week to let those sit in for 2-3 weeks.

 

[bolus14]

Added the apple peels and bourbon/spice mixture a couple days ago, pulled another sample and it was still quite hazy and the taste was still had a yeastiness that masked everything else. Going to let it sit for a week or so and pull another sample, if I like where it's at i'll bottle it then, otherwise I'll add more apple peels, or spices to get the apple flavor where I want it.

 

[youmeandbrew]

Pulled a sample after two weeks in the primary and a week in the secondary with 8 lbs of apples and the spices. Gravity actually got down to 1.018. Clarity was good and color had a nice red hue to it. Taste was solid. Nice malt character with subtle apple flavor. I get more flavor from the spices but that was to be expected. Not too much vanilla or bourbon. Mostly cinnamon, but liked the flavor where it was and decided to bottle today. Going to condition at room temp for two weeks before I try one.