Bourbon County Stout clone attempt

[Hwk-I-St8]

Update: Happy with my version! The smoke flavor was intense but seems to really be settling down. Still green but not really getting much bourbon flavor. Has been in the keg since 5/6/18.



Anyone add bourbon into keg?

View attachment 578399

I soaked a charred chunk of oak that a generous member here sent me in about 4 oz of bourbon. I added it all along with 3 oz of cocoa nibs. Tasting it, the cocoa was insane, but I felt it needed something more to balance, so I added another 4 oz of bourbon. 2 more oz. would have been better.


The beer is amazing. I took it to a share and a guy who's part owner of a local micro brewery wants me to collab with his brewers.

 

[Stu Alp]

My fermentation is complete.

OG was 1.12 (just a little shy of my goal of 1.13) but I also ended up with more volume then planned. Added a huge starter of WLP007 and finished fermenting in 72 hours and final gravity is 1.041. Going to leave this in primary for a month then transfer to a keg with oak and bourbon until desired oak flavor is achieved.

Tasted the sample today and it's rough but I suppose that's expected of a big beer that's only 3 days old. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

 

[anteater8]

I've brewed the following recipe (from another site) twice and planning my third this weekend. I bump up the grain ratios and shoot for ~1.135 using two separate mashes and a 4-5 hour boil. Tons of oxygen, huge yeast starter. Both times its gotten down to about 1.035 or 1.040 and ends up around 14% to 14.5% after adding bourbon.

I do primary for 1 month and then rack onto medium toast American oak cubes for 9-12 months. I've been using 0.25 oz/gal oak cubes and boiling them in water for a few minutes first to remove the harsh tannins. I've been happy with the results. My first batch I just let the oak & bourbon shine. My second batch I used oak, apple brandy, vanilla and cinnamon. This is a really great base for experimenting with different flavors.

This time I'm trying something different... I took the same amount of oak cubes and charred them completely black and have been soaking them in bourbon for a few months, taking it in and out of the fridge so the wood soaks up the bourbon. I'll discard the bourbon and add the cubes for 9-12 months and then add more bourbon to taste.

Grain Bill:
18.25 lb 2-Row
5.75 lb Munich (10L)
1.25 lb caramel/crystal 60L
1.25 lb Chocolate Malt
1.25 lb Roasted Barley
.75 lb Black Printz (Debittered Black Malt)
Dark Liquid Malt Extract (if pre-boil gravity missed) at 60 min

Hop Bill:
50 IBU Magnum (approx 1.5 oz) at 60 min
10 IBU Willamette (approx 1 oz) at 30 min
1 oz Willamette at flame out

 

[jturman35]

I brewed this and bottles 6 months ago. Unfortunately it tastes like cough syrup mixed with moonshine! 10.5% I used 3 packs of US05. I’m praying these smooth out over the next few years but right now it’s just way too rich!

 

[Vanderfell]

I've brewed the following recipe (from another site) twice and planning my third this weekend. I bump up the grain ratios and shoot for ~1.135 using two separate mashes and a 4-5 hour boil. Tons of oxygen, huge yeast starter. Both times its gotten down to about 1.035 or 1.040 and ends up around 14% to 14.5% after adding bourbon.

I do primary for 1 month and then rack onto medium toast American oak cubes for 9-12 months. I've been using 0.25 oz/gal oak cubes and boiling them in water for a few minutes first to remove the harsh tannins. I've been happy with the results. My first batch I just let the oak & bourbon shine. My second batch I used oak, apple brandy, vanilla and cinnamon. This is a really great base for experimenting with different flavors.

This time I'm trying something different... I took the same amount of oak cubes and charred them completely black and have been soaking them in bourbon for a few months, taking it in and out of the fridge so the wood soaks up the bourbon. I'll discard the bourbon and add the cubes for 9-12 months and then add more bourbon to taste.

Grain Bill:
18.25 lb 2-Row
5.75 lb Munich (10L)
1.25 lb caramel/crystal 60L
1.25 lb Chocolate Malt
1.25 lb Roasted Barley
.75 lb Black Printz (Debittered Black Malt)
Dark Liquid Malt Extract (if pre-boil gravity missed) at 60 min

Hop Bill:
50 IBU Magnum (approx 1.5 oz) at 60 min
10 IBU Willamette (approx 1 oz) at 30 min
1 oz Willamette at flame out

So anteater8, odd question. How “thick” is this version? One thing I love about BCS is just how heavy it is. Also, in Portland, are you in the OBC?

 

[anteater8]

So anteater8, odd question. How “thick” is this version? One thing I love about BCS is just how heavy it is. Also, in Portland, are you in the OBC?

Good question... I'd say mine is about the same viscosity as the majority of barrel aged stouts, but maybe slightly less than BCBS. However, when I'm brewing this style I'm usually more concerned with making sure the FG isn't too high. I'll actually add a bit of table sugar on day 2 or so to give the fermentation a boost, and to up the ABV if I missed my OG. In any case, its definitely "thick" and right where I personally want it.

I am in OBC but rarely attend meetings.

 

[Vanderfell]

Good question... I'd say mine is about the same viscosity as the majority of barrel aged stouts, but maybe slightly less than BCBS. However, when I'm brewing this style I'm usually more concerned with making sure the FG isn't too high. I'll actually add a bit of table sugar on day 2 or so to give the fermentation a boost, and to up the ABV if I missed my OG. In any case, its definitely "thick" and right where I personally want it.

I am in OBC but rarely attend meetings.

Cool. I tend to go every other meeting. Me and a few other members are brewing a barley wine to go in a 55 gallon whiskey barrel right now, fun times.

 

[AMessenger]

Status update from Posts #271 and #286:

I brewed up a Clone of BCBS in January 2018 and then aged it for 8 months on White Oak that I had toasted at 450 F, Charred, and then soaked for several months in Makers Mark Whiskey. I started out with 2 oz of this oak and then increased this to 4 oz when the Whiskey Character wasn't strong enough.

I bottled the beer in November 2018. It started out at 1.130 (right on target), was 1.048 at the start of aging, and was down to 1.046 at bottling (target was 1.040) for an ABV of ~13%. I captured detailed documentation of the process of making the beer on my blog here: Andrew's Homebrew Log

Here are my tasting notes:

• Aroma:
  • Oak and light whiskey aroma hits first followed by the smell of bitter dark chocolate, roasted malt, and coffee
• Appearance:
  • Black and opaque. Pours with a thin layer of brown foam. This fades into a thin ring after a couple minutes
• Flavor:
  • Malt hits up front - it has a chocolate and caramel character. The oak (vanilla, roast, and smoke) and whiskey then come through. They meld very nicely with malt. In the finish there is a bitter roast flavor - very much like eating a high % dark chocolate. I suppose some of the bitter finish is the hops as well although there isn't any hop flavor that clearly comes though. There is also a strong alcohol component in the finish. The finish has a balance between the sweet malty, bitter roasty, and alcohol flavors.
• Mouthfeel:
  • It is a full bodied beer with quite a bit of sweetness. It drinks fairly smooth - maybe a slight bit of astringency. Has a warming alcohol presence. As strong as this beer is it drinks very easily - not so heavy that you feel full after drinking one (although a second would be way too much if I want to get out of bed the next morning).
• Overall:
  • This is a big, rich, and complex beer. The base beer brought a real rich set of flavors which stand up nicely to the the whiskey and oak. This was intended to be a clone of BCBS but I'm thinking I likely missed the mark a bit in terms of the strength of the whiskey character (will do a final side by side comparison). Even so I think the beer strikes a very nice balance of it's own. I'll be brewing another one of these.

I really love BCBS (but hate paying the high $$$ for it) and am very interested in getting as close as possible. I performed multiple side by side comparisons while aging this. Here is the final, post bottling, comparison with BCBS 2017:

• Aroma:
  • Both beers have a fairly pronounced whiskey and oak character but the BCBS has a more pronounced booze character. I get a lot more chocolate and caramel malt out of mine than from the BCBS
• Appearance:
  • The two beers are pretty much an exact match for color. Carbonation seems about the same as well - about equal amount of head on an agressive pour. The BCBS head lingers a bit longer than mine.
• Flavor:
  • My beer has bold set of malt flavors that then sort of fade into oak and whiskey. The BCBS seems to be more whiskey and oak forward right out of the gate and malt is playing more of supporting role. In the finish my beer has lingering alcohol presence, some malt, and a bit of hop bitterness. The BCBS is a bit firmer in terms of alcohol burn and has a really lovely chocolate malt component that lingers. A lot of similar flavors but the balance is quite different.
• Mouthfeel:
  • The beers are very similar in terms of body and sweetness (full and slightly sweet). Mine is a bit smoother where the BCBS is a bit prickly. Both have noticeable alcohol warming. BCBS burns the nose a bit when swirling it in my mouth.
• Overall:
  • I think the major difference between the two beers is the intensity of the alcohol. Both have a whisky and oak presence but the balance is shifted much more towards the whiskey with BCBS than in My Beer. Both are pleasant but I think I prefer the balance struck by the real BCBS.
  • As an experiment I added some Whiskey mixed with a few drips of water to the mix. The difference in terms of Whiskey character between my beer and BCBS is much less than the difference between BCBS and whiskey.

I have a new batch going (see blog post) which I hope will get a bit closer. Some changes from last time:

1. BCBS has a much sharper whiskey character than my version. I suspect this could be due to the strength of alcohol in the wood. Whiskey is typically aged around 60% ABV while the packaged product is watered down to around 40%. Aging my oak in Makers Mark (45% ABV) was not a good approximation for BCBS which goes into barrels containing 60%+ strength spirit. To address this I have been aging 6 oz of oak in Everclear which I watered down to ~63%. I am going to use this for aging. I'll start out with 4 oz like last year and increase if needed.
2. Whiskey is aged in warehouses which are exposed to significant temperature variation. This creates pressure differentials in the barrel which drives spirit into and out of the oak and helps extract flavor. BCBS is aged in a non-climate controlled warehouse to cause the beer to be pushed into the oak in the same way. Last year I started out aging the beer in the coolish basement and found that flavor extraction from the oak wasn't coming along very quickly. I then moved into a warmer part of the house and found that the contribution of the oak increased. This year I plan to age the beer in my non-climate controlled attic to see if that causes more flavor to be drawn out. I'll age in a bucket fermenter like last year. It was able to withstand quite a bit of pressure which I wouldn't be comfortable putting a glass carboy under. I'll switch to a hard bung this year compared with a vented bung for my last batch to try to promote more pressure.

The new beer was brewed a few weeks ago and is wrapping up fermentation. I'll cold crash it during week #5 and fine with gelatin to try to ensure that fermentation will not start back up and then transfer it onto oak for aging. I will post updated status as it progresses (both on my blog and in a new post)

 

[jturman35]

I brewed this beer back last April and kegged in May. I had never even had BCS until this January which I had a 2016 version that was 3 yrs old. It was ok I suppose. I honestly thought it would be better. I just had a 2018 version which still is pretty sweet and boozy. I don’t know after having two different versions of this beer if I would have gone through all the trouble to brew and age this. However, I will say this recipe in my opinion comes out much smoother and balanced compared to the commercial example. For the first 9 months the version I made tasted like charred ashes and was undrinkable, still green. But somewhere after 9-11 months and all of the sudden the flavors are just now coming around. I would put this clone version up against the original and bet it would score better in a comp.

 

[smagic14]

Attending Goose Islands Bourbon County Stout Making a Variant (in October I know late posting this) but was able to try BCS unaged which was very interesting to see the changes the barell made, as we were able to taste both side by side. If you have the chance I recommend this class. The brewers are very helpful and looked over my recipe and gave me changes during the class. They were very open with any questions about making it at home.

 

[anteater8]

I've brewed this recipe 3 or 4 times. It always came out well but I made a critical mistake every time.

For oak aging I would rack to secondary, add oak cubes, and leave for 9 to 12 months. The seasonal change in temperature would draw air in through the airlock. I didn't put it together at the time but the beers came out with varying degrees of oxidization. One still scored a 37 or 38, another scored in the 20s. In general the big bold roasty flavors were dulled and just didn't meld and pop like that should have. I can only imagine how good it would have been otherwise.

Seems very obvious to me now, but anyone planning to age for an extended period of time should do so with a solid bung, co2 filled balloon attached, or ideally in a purged keg.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

I've brewed this recipe 3 or 4 times. It always came out well but I made a critical mistake every time.

For oak aging I would rack to secondary, add oak cubes, and leave for 9 to 12 months. The seasonal change in temperature would draw air in through the airlock. I didn't put it together at the time but the beers came out with varying degrees of oxidization. One still scored a 37 or 38, another scored in the 20s. In general the big bold roasty flavors were dulled and just didn't meld and pop like that should have. I can only imagine how good it would have been otherwise.

Seems very obvious to me now, but anyone planning to age for an extended period of time should do so with a solid bung, co2 filled balloon attached, or ideally in a purged keg.

I aged in a purged keg. Made it easy to sample as the aging progressed. I felt like it really only needed the oak for about 4 weeks, so I aged w/o for about 6 months. Extremely tasty beer. I still have a couple bottles left.

 

[anteater8]

I aged in a purged keg. Made it easy to sample as the aging progressed. I felt like it really only needed the oak for about 4 weeks, so I aged w/o for about 6 months. Extremely tasty beer. I still have a couple bottles left.

Good to know. I really had it in my head that less oak + more time = the best beer, but I kind of regret this line of thinking. I talked to a local who always seems to win the wood-aged category and he was using much more oak for less time in a purged keg.

 

[ultravista]

The brewers are very helpful and looked over my recipe and gave me changes during the class. They were very open with any questions about making it at home.

What were the recommendations? Care to post the recipe?

 

[smagic14]

Sorry my app wasn't working for the past week...this is what I came up with

 

[secretlevel]

Sorry my app wasn't working for the past week...this is what I came up with View attachment 668100

Thanks for the update! Is this with the changes that the brewers recommended? It looks like less Munich and more late hop additions, but otherwise pretty similar, right?

Status update from Posts #271 and #286:

I have a new batch going (see blog post) which I hope will get a bit closer. Some changes from last time:

1. BCBS has a much sharper whiskey character than my version. I suspect this could be due to the strength of alcohol in the wood. Whiskey is typically aged around 60% ABV while the packaged product is watered down to around 40%. Aging my oak in Makers Mark (45% ABV) was not a good approximation for BCBS which goes into barrels containing 60%+ strength spirit. To address this I have been aging 6 oz of oak in Everclear which I watered down to ~63%. I am going to use this for aging. I'll start out with 4 oz like last year and increase if needed.
2. Whiskey is aged in warehouses which are exposed to significant temperature variation. This creates pressure differentials in the barrel which drives spirit into and out of the oak and helps extract flavor. BCBS is aged in a non-climate controlled warehouse to cause the beer to be pushed into the oak in the same way. Last year I started out aging the beer in the coolish basement and found that flavor extraction from the oak wasn't coming along very quickly. I then moved into a warmer part of the house and found that the contribution of the oak increased. This year I plan to age the beer in my non-climate controlled attic to see if that causes more flavor to be drawn out. I'll age in a bucket fermenter like last year. It was able to withstand quite a bit of pressure which I wouldn't be comfortable putting a glass carboy under. I'll switch to a hard bung this year compared with a vented bung for my last batch to try to promote more pressure.

View attachment 619984

My version is still at about 7 months in secondary and I am getting the same feeling - not enough bourbon flavor even though I did have some temperature variability. One other thing to consider is that whiskey is aged in those barrels for 2+ years at least before the beer goes in, while we are aging it for only a few months at most. Something I did for my next batch is start aging the oak on bourbon for at least a year to try to absorb as much of the bourbon flavors as possible. You also make a good point about the 60%+ spirit, but there isn't much we can do there.

 

[smagic14]

This year's version took a big step up! (wish me luck) brewed with recipe posted above. 15 gallon bourbon barrel dumped 5 days before I purchased it!

 

[Mark Solomon]

I brewed a BCBS inspired brew in mid-August, and just pulled it out of the barrel tonight. Below is my recipe (used 6oz Willamette in the boil).

I aged mine in a 20L whiskey barrel that was dry, so I dumped a 1/2 bottle of Waterford in to "sanitize" it. It all got absorbed into the barrel. At month 3, I dumped another 4oz of Waterford that was soaking in chips for a couple weeks. The actual FG was 1.040 before putting it in the barrel. What's strange is that it was reading 1.092 tonight, however this was dregs from the bottom of the barrel.

I transferred it to a keg for carbonation, and will bottle it this weekend. The sample I pulled has me very surprised....HUGE bourbon character.

 

[madscientist451]

I brewed a BCBS inspired brew in mid-August, and just pulled it out of the barrel tonight.

I transferred it to a keg for carbonation, and will bottle it this weekend. The sample I pulled has be very surprised....HUGE bourbon character

So do you like the taste of your version better than the original?

 

[Mark Solomon]

So do you like the taste of your version better than the original?

I wouldn't say it is better, but it is very close. It has a thicker mouthfeel....almost too thick, and a tad more bourbon than BCBS (though I drank it straight from the barrel warm). I am hoping some bottle conditioning will settle this in nicely.

 

[secretlevel]

Very nice! Supposedly small barrels have much more surface area so you get more bourbon quicker! Any tips on how to get a barrel of this size?

 

[Mark Solomon]

Very nice! Supposedly small barrels have much more surface area so you get more bourbon quicker! Any tips on how to get a barrel of this size?

I went to a local distillery and they had a couple small barrels. They charged about $100. They are also easy to find online but it is neat to get a freshly dumped barrel, which typically needs to be preordered on a homebrew supplier website.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

Very nice! Supposedly small barrels have much more surface area so you get more bourbon quicker! Any tips on how to get a barrel of this size?

I haven't done this, but my plan is to brew a big stout this summer (I like to brew them in May/June to have ready by Dec/Jan). I'll order a barrel about the time mine goes into the secondary (a Keg for me), then I can transfer to the barrel when it arrives. If there's a delay/backorder, the beer can just hang out in the secondary.

 

[AMessenger]

Follow up on a version I made last year (see post #308):

This was my second attempt at a clone. I toasted and charred my own White Oak for this batch. After my first attempt, aged with about 4 oz of oak which had previously been soaked in 45% ABV Makers Mark Whiskey, didn't have anywhere near sufficient whiskey character I reasoned that part of the issue could be due to the real BCBS being aged with Barrel Proof Spirit which is about 60% ABV. To test this out, I aged this batch with about 6 oz of oak which had been soaked in Everclear diluted down to 60% ABV. My beer ended up stopping at a FG of 1.055 rather than at the target of 1.040. It tasted good so I decided to let it ride.

I aged the beer for 7 months on oak before bottling. The beer is delicious but, upon doing a side by side tasting (see blog post for this) with the real BCBS, I found that the balance of mine was way, way off (don't make my mistake with such a high FG) - too sweet. Additionally, the whiskey character was a bit improved with the 60% spirt soaked oak but it was still nowhere near as prominent as in BCBS

So, this was another tasty beer but a failure as a clone to BCBS.

For my third attempt (brewed back in August 2020), I've done a bit of re-assessment of the approach to oaking to match the profound whiskey character of BCBS.

1. Oak preparation using 6x1x1 inch White Oak sticks toasted for 4 hrs and then charred aggressively, to get an alligator char, produces a sprit with lovely caramel and vanilla along with a perceived sweetness
2. Aging with a 60% spirit provides a significantly increased flavor intensity over 45% spirit. I think this additional strength, if used in the correct volume, is a critical factor for cutting through the bold flavors of the BCBS base
3. 6 oz of oak isn't enough. Evaluating oak additions by weight is maybe a flawed concept.

I've done some analysis to determine how much oak I should be using. I have a couple interesting data points to arrive to an interesting conclusion:

• First, and most obvious, is an assessment by surface area:
  • A 53 gal barrel exposes each gal to 56 square inches of oak on average
  • If I use a 6x1x1 inch oak stick at 26 square inches I would need 2 sticks per gal and a whopping 12 of these sticks for a 6 gal batch. I had used 3-4 of these sticks in my last batch
  • Now, of course, a barrel doesn't expose end grain to the liquid as my sticks do which, we'd hypothesize, might change the way spirit absorbs into and interacts with the wood in some meaningful way
• For my second analysis, I've done an assessment on the absorption of 60% spirit into wood:
  • The oak barrels used to age BCBS are freshly drained and have spirit soaked into the wood. This is pulled from the wood during the long aging of the beer to flavor the beer and increase the alcohol percentage. Looking at some numbers:
    • BCBS has a target OG of 30 Brix and a target FG of 10.5 Brix for an 11.75% ABV. The bottled beer varies in ABV - you see anywhere from 13-16%. The extra alcohol extracted from the barrel is a big reason for that.
    • I have a 2017 BCBS which is 14.1% ABV. 1 gal of the original 11.75% beer would have included 15 oz of pure alcohol while 1 gal of 14.1% beer had increased up to 18 oz of pure alcohol. This is an addition of 3 oz of pure alcohol per gal from the wood.
    • Barrel proof spirit is 60% alcohol so we'd need 5 oz of this spirit to add 3 oz of pure alcohol.
    • As an interesting sanity check, this would mean that for a 53 gal barrel there was 2 gal of spirit absorbed into the wood after draining. This seems plausible to me.
  • I did an experiment where I took 4 sticks of my 6x1x1 inch wood and soaked them in 60% spirit for over a year. These started out weighing 11 oz. After the soak they were up to 20.4 oz. Let's assess these numbers:
    • We picked up 9.4 oz of spirt by weight for 4 sticks of oak
    • To convert from weight to volume, I weighed 1 cup (8oz) of spirit as 7.4 oz by weight. So, 9.4 oz of spirit by weight is just about 10 oz of spirit by volume
    • 4 sticks absorbed 10 oz of spirit by volume which is 2.5 oz absorbed per stick
  • So, we would need 5 oz of spirit added per gal to go from 11.75% ABV to 14.1% ABV like BCBS and, per my experiment, I would need 2 sticks per gal to add the equivalent amount of my spirt.

So, in conclusion, it seems that the 2 sticks per gal both closely matches the surface area of a 52 barrel and provides a good approximation of the spirit absorption rate observed in BCBS to get their alcohol increases (despite the end grain)

Based on this analysis I've decided to age my current beer with 12 sticks of 6x1x1 inch oak

This is in secondary and aging. I plan to give this until Fall 2021 before bottling. I'd had a stuck fermentation on this batch as well (hung at 1.055 again) but I opted to add some WLP 099 Super High Gravity yeast to it which has gotten it down to the target 1.040. I will follow up with results. If you want to read more about this experiment you can read my blog post here.

This is a risk to be taking with an expensive and time consuming beer. I'm comfortable with my analysis but would suggest caution to any other brewers trying this prior to seeing some results.

 

[Mark Solomon]

So that’s 30 oz of booze? When I researched this, I saw people using 8-12 oz of booze and they all said it needed more. I used a 20L barrel with 3/4 bottle of woodford and it was slightly over the top. I am hoping it ages out a bit.

-Mark

Follow up on a version I made last year (see post #308):

This was my second attempt at a clone. I toasted and charred my own White Oak for this batch. After my first attempt, aged with about 4 oz of oak which had previously been soaked in 45% ABV Makers Mark Whiskey, didn't have anywhere near sufficient whiskey character I reasoned that part of the issue could be due to the real BCBS being aged with Barrel Proof Spirit which is about 60% ABV. To test this out, I aged this batch with about 6 oz of oak which had been soaked in Everclear diluted down to 60% ABV. My beer ended up stopping at a FG of 1.055 rather than at the target of 1.040. It tasted good so I decided to let it ride.

View attachment 702977
View attachment 702978
I aged the beer for 7 months on oak before bottling. The beer is delicious but, upon doing a side by side tasting (see blog post for this) with the real BCBS, I found that the balance of mine was way, way off (don't make my mistake with such a high FG) - too sweet. Additionally, the whiskey character was a bit improved with the 60% spirt soaked oak but it was still nowhere near as prominent as in BCBS

So, this was another tasty beer but a failure as a clone to BCBS.

For my third attempt (brewed back in August 2020), I've done a bit of re-assessment of the approach to oaking to match the profound whiskey character of BCBS.

1. Oak preparation using 6x1x1 inch White Oak sticks toasted for 4 hrs and then charred aggressively, to get an alligator char, produces a sprit with lovely caramel and vanilla along with a perceived sweetness
2. Aging with a 60% spirit provides a significantly increased flavor intensity over 45% spirit. I think this additional strength, if used in the correct volume, is a critical factor for cutting through the bold flavors of the BCBS base
3. 6 oz of oak isn't enough. Evaluating oak additions by weight is maybe a flawed concept.

I've done some analysis to determine how much oak I should be using. I have a couple interesting data points to arrive to an interesting conclusion:

• First, and most obvious, is an assessment by surface area:
  • A 53 gal barrel exposes each gal to 56 square inches of oak on average
  • If I use a 6x1x1 inch oak stick at 26 square inches I would need 2 sticks per gal and a whopping 12 of these sticks for a 6 gal batch. I had used 3-4 of these sticks in my last batch
  • Now, of course, a barrel doesn't expose end grain to the liquid as my sticks do which, we'd hypothesize, might change the way spirit absorbs into and interacts with the wood in some meaningful way
• For my second analysis, I've done an assessment on the absorption of 60% spirit into wood:
  • The oak barrels used to age BCBS are freshly drained and have spirit soaked into the wood. This is pulled from the wood during the long aging of the beer to flavor the beer and increase the alcohol percentage. Looking at some numbers:
    • BCBS has a target OG of 30 Brix and a target FG of 10.5 Brix for an 11.75% ABV. The bottled beer varies in ABV - you see anywhere from 13-16%. The extra alcohol extracted from the barrel is a big reason for that.
    • I have a 2017 BCBS which is 14.1% ABV. 1 gal of the original 11.75% beer would have included 15 oz of pure alcohol while 1 gal of 14.1% beer had increased up to 18 oz of pure alcohol. This is an addition of 3 oz of pure alcohol per gal from the wood.
    • Barrel proof spirit is 60% alcohol so we'd need 5 oz of this spirit to add 3 oz of pure alcohol.
    • As an interesting sanity check, this would mean that for a 53 gal barrel there was 2 gal of spirit absorbed into the wood after draining. This seems plausible to me.
  • I did an experiment where I took 4 sticks of my 6x1x1 inch wood and soaked them in 60% spirit for over a year. These started out weighing 11 oz. After the soak they were up to 20.4 oz. Let's assess these numbers:
    • We picked up 9.4 oz of spirt by weight for 4 sticks of oak
    • To convert from weight to volume, I weighed 1 cup (8oz) of spirit as 7.4 oz by weight. So, 9.4 oz of spirit by weight is just about 10 oz of spirit by volume
    • 4 sticks absorbed 10 oz of spirit by volume which is 2.5 oz absorbed per stick
  • So, we would need 5 oz of spirit added per gal to go from 11.75% ABV to 14.1% ABV like BCBS and, per my experiment, I would need 2 sticks per gal to add the equivalent amount of my spirt.

So, in conclusion, it seems that the 2 sticks per gal both closely matches the surface area of a 52 barrel and provides a good approximation of the spirit absorption rate observed in BCBS to get their alcohol increases (despite the end grain)

Based on this analysis I've decided to age my current beer with 12 sticks of 6x1x1 inch oak
View attachment 702982

This is in secondary and aging. I plan to give this until Fall 2021 before bottling. I'd had a stuck fermentation on this batch as well (hung at 1.055 again) but I opted to add some WLP 099 Super High Gravity yeast too it which has gotten it down to the target 1.040. I will follow up with results. If you want to read more about this experiment you can read my blog post here.

This is a risk to be taking with an expensive and time consuming beer. I'm comfortable with my analysis but would suggest caution to any other brewers trying this prior to seeing some results.

 

[secretlevel]

Follow up on a version I made last year (see post #308):

This was my second attempt at a clone. I toasted and charred my own White Oak for this batch. After my first attempt, aged with about 4 oz of oak which had previously been soaked in 45% ABV Makers Mark Whiskey, didn't have anywhere near sufficient whiskey character I reasoned that part of the issue could be due to the real BCBS being aged with Barrel Proof Spirit which is about 60% ABV. To test this out, I aged this batch with about 6 oz of oak which had been soaked in Everclear diluted down to 60% ABV. My beer ended up stopping at a FG of 1.055 rather than at the target of 1.040. It tasted good so I decided to let it ride.

View attachment 702977
View attachment 702978
I aged the beer for 7 months on oak before bottling. The beer is delicious but, upon doing a side by side tasting (see blog post for this) with the real BCBS, I found that the balance of mine was way, way off (don't make my mistake with such a high FG) - too sweet. Additionally, the whiskey character was a bit improved with the 60% spirt soaked oak but it was still nowhere near as prominent as in BCBS

So, this was another tasty beer but a failure as a clone to BCBS.

For my third attempt (brewed back in August 2020), I've done a bit of re-assessment of the approach to oaking to match the profound whiskey character of BCBS.

1. Oak preparation using 6x1x1 inch White Oak sticks toasted for 4 hrs and then charred aggressively, to get an alligator char, produces a sprit with lovely caramel and vanilla along with a perceived sweetness
2. Aging with a 60% spirit provides a significantly increased flavor intensity over 45% spirit. I think this additional strength, if used in the correct volume, is a critical factor for cutting through the bold flavors of the BCBS base
3. 6 oz of oak isn't enough. Evaluating oak additions by weight is maybe a flawed concept.

I've done some analysis to determine how much oak I should be using. I have a couple interesting data points to arrive to an interesting conclusion:

• First, and most obvious, is an assessment by surface area:
  • A 53 gal barrel exposes each gal to 56 square inches of oak on average
  • If I use a 6x1x1 inch oak stick at 26 square inches I would need 2 sticks per gal and a whopping 12 of these sticks for a 6 gal batch. I had used 3-4 of these sticks in my last batch
  • Now, of course, a barrel doesn't expose end grain to the liquid as my sticks do which, we'd hypothesize, might change the way spirit absorbs into and interacts with the wood in some meaningful way
• For my second analysis, I've done an assessment on the absorption of 60% spirit into wood:
  • The oak barrels used to age BCBS are freshly drained and have spirit soaked into the wood. This is pulled from the wood during the long aging of the beer to flavor the beer and increase the alcohol percentage. Looking at some numbers:
    • BCBS has a target OG of 30 Brix and a target FG of 10.5 Brix for an 11.75% ABV. The bottled beer varies in ABV - you see anywhere from 13-16%. The extra alcohol extracted from the barrel is a big reason for that.
    • I have a 2017 BCBS which is 14.1% ABV. 1 gal of the original 11.75% beer would have included 15 oz of pure alcohol while 1 gal of 14.1% beer had increased up to 18 oz of pure alcohol. This is an addition of 3 oz of pure alcohol per gal from the wood.
    • Barrel proof spirit is 60% alcohol so we'd need 5 oz of this spirit to add 3 oz of pure alcohol.
    • As an interesting sanity check, this would mean that for a 53 gal barrel there was 2 gal of spirit absorbed into the wood after draining. This seems plausible to me.
  • I did an experiment where I took 4 sticks of my 6x1x1 inch wood and soaked them in 60% spirit for over a year. These started out weighing 11 oz. After the soak they were up to 20.4 oz. Let's assess these numbers:
    • We picked up 9.4 oz of spirt by weight for 4 sticks of oak
    • To convert from weight to volume, I weighed 1 cup (8oz) of spirit as 7.4 oz by weight. So, 9.4 oz of spirit by weight is just about 10 oz of spirit by volume
    • 4 sticks absorbed 10 oz of spirit by volume which is 2.5 oz absorbed per stick
  • So, we would need 5 oz of spirit added per gal to go from 11.75% ABV to 14.1% ABV like BCBS and, per my experiment, I would need 2 sticks per gal to add the equivalent amount of my spirt.

So, in conclusion, it seems that the 2 sticks per gal both closely matches the surface area of a 52 barrel and provides a good approximation of the spirit absorption rate observed in BCBS to get their alcohol increases (despite the end grain)

Based on this analysis I've decided to age my current beer with 12 sticks of 6x1x1 inch oak
View attachment 702982

This is in secondary and aging. I plan to give this until Fall 2021 before bottling. I'd had a stuck fermentation on this batch as well (hung at 1.055 again) but I opted to add some WLP 099 Super High Gravity yeast too it which has gotten it down to the target 1.040. I will follow up with results. If you want to read more about this experiment you can read my blog post here.

This is a risk to be taking with an expensive and time consuming beer. I'm comfortable with my analysis but would suggest caution to any other brewers trying this prior to seeing some results.

This is great research, you are a true pioneer. My initial batch was too oaky but I only added about 8oz of whiskey. I'll wait for your results until I brew this beast again.

In the meantime, I'm experimenting with barrel staves chips to see what they add to beer. Will report back.

 

[AMessenger]

So that’s 30 oz of booze? When I researched this, I saw people using 8-12 oz of booze and they all said it needed more. I used a 20L barrel with 3/4 bottle of woodford and it was slightly over the top. I am hoping it ages out a bit.

-Mark

A side by side comparison with BCBS can be a very illuminating test. Before I tried my previous attempts next to BCBS I was thinking they were fairly close to the real thing with some assertive whisky character cutting through. The real thing was a whole different level.

 

[Duncan83865]

Follow up on a version I made last year (see post #308):

This was my second attempt at a clone. I toasted and charred my own White Oak for this batch. After my first attempt, aged with about 4 oz of oak which had previously been soaked in 45% ABV Makers Mark Whiskey, didn't have anywhere near sufficient whiskey character I reasoned that part of the issue could be due to the real BCBS being aged with Barrel Proof Spirit which is about 60% ABV. To test this out, I aged this batch with about 6 oz of oak which had been soaked in Everclear diluted down to 60% ABV. My beer ended up stopping at a FG of 1.055 rather than at the target of 1.040. It tasted good so I decided to let it ride.

View attachment 702977
View attachment 702978
I aged the beer for 7 months on oak before bottling. The beer is delicious but, upon doing a side by side tasting (see blog post for this) with the real BCBS, I found that the balance of mine was way, way off (don't make my mistake with such a high FG) - too sweet. Additionally, the whiskey character was a bit improved with the 60% spirt soaked oak but it was still nowhere near as prominent as in BCBS

So, this was another tasty beer but a failure as a clone to BCBS.

For my third attempt (brewed back in August 2020), I've done a bit of re-assessment of the approach to oaking to match the profound whiskey character of BCBS.

1. Oak preparation using 6x1x1 inch White Oak sticks toasted for 4 hrs and then charred aggressively, to get an alligator char, produces a sprit with lovely caramel and vanilla along with a perceived sweetness
2. Aging with a 60% spirit provides a significantly increased flavor intensity over 45% spirit. I think this additional strength, if used in the correct volume, is a critical factor for cutting through the bold flavors of the BCBS base
3. 6 oz of oak isn't enough. Evaluating oak additions by weight is maybe a flawed concept.

I've done some analysis to determine how much oak I should be using. I have a couple interesting data points to arrive to an interesting conclusion:

• First, and most obvious, is an assessment by surface area:
  • A 53 gal barrel exposes each gal to 56 square inches of oak on average
  • If I use a 6x1x1 inch oak stick at 26 square inches I would need 2 sticks per gal and a whopping 12 of these sticks for a 6 gal batch. I had used 3-4 of these sticks in my last batch
  • Now, of course, a barrel doesn't expose end grain to the liquid as my sticks do which, we'd hypothesize, might change the way spirit absorbs into and interacts with the wood in some meaningful way
• For my second analysis, I've done an assessment on the absorption of 60% spirit into wood:
  • The oak barrels used to age BCBS are freshly drained and have spirit soaked into the wood. This is pulled from the wood during the long aging of the beer to flavor the beer and increase the alcohol percentage. Looking at some numbers:
    • BCBS has a target OG of 30 Brix and a target FG of 10.5 Brix for an 11.75% ABV. The bottled beer varies in ABV - you see anywhere from 13-16%. The extra alcohol extracted from the barrel is a big reason for that.
    • I have a 2017 BCBS which is 14.1% ABV. 1 gal of the original 11.75% beer would have included 15 oz of pure alcohol while 1 gal of 14.1% beer had increased up to 18 oz of pure alcohol. This is an addition of 3 oz of pure alcohol per gal from the wood.
    • Barrel proof spirit is 60% alcohol so we'd need 5 oz of this spirit to add 3 oz of pure alcohol.
    • As an interesting sanity check, this would mean that for a 53 gal barrel there was 2 gal of spirit absorbed into the wood after draining. This seems plausible to me.
  • I did an experiment where I took 4 sticks of my 6x1x1 inch wood and soaked them in 60% spirit for over a year. These started out weighing 11 oz. After the soak they were up to 20.4 oz. Let's assess these numbers:
    • We picked up 9.4 oz of spirt by weight for 4 sticks of oak
    • To convert from weight to volume, I weighed 1 cup (8oz) of spirit as 7.4 oz by weight. So, 9.4 oz of spirit by weight is just about 10 oz of spirit by volume
    • 4 sticks absorbed 10 oz of spirit by volume which is 2.5 oz absorbed per stick
  • So, we would need 5 oz of spirit added per gal to go from 11.75% ABV to 14.1% ABV like BCBS and, per my experiment, I would need 2 sticks per gal to add the equivalent amount of my spirt.

So, in conclusion, it seems that the 2 sticks per gal both closely matches the surface area of a 52 barrel and provides a good approximation of the spirit absorption rate observed in BCBS to get their alcohol increases (despite the end grain)

Based on this analysis I've decided to age my current beer with 12 sticks of 6x1x1 inch oak
View attachment 702982

This is in secondary and aging. I plan to give this until Fall 2021 before bottling. I'd had a stuck fermentation on this batch as well (hung at 1.055 again) but I opted to add some WLP 099 Super High Gravity yeast to it which has gotten it down to the target 1.040. I will follow up with results. If you want to read more about this experiment you can read my blog post here.

This is a risk to be taking with an expensive and time consuming beer. I'm comfortable with my analysis but would suggest caution to any other brewers trying this prior to seeing some results.

I posted a similar question on your blog page... I've read and experienced that barrel-aging 5 gal batches goes much quicker than 53 gal barrels. Now that you have the surface area close, do you still plan to age for a year? If so, do you plan to sample along the way?

 

[AMessenger]

I posted a similar question on your blog page... I've read and experienced that barrel-aging 5 gal batches goes much quicker than 53 gal barrels. Now that you have the surface area close, do you still plan to age for a year? If so, do you plan to sample along the way?

I guess I feel pretty safe with a year but will probably take some samples to make sure I don't over do it. Per Homedistiller.org, a 5 gal barrel has like 3x the surface area of a 53 gal barrel. A shorter time with oak would seem like a major concern with that much more exposure.

There are so many aspects to barrel aging between the spirit proof, char, toast, the air exposure, temperature and pressure variances, as well as time that it is tough to really know what are the most important variables to replicate. At this point, after making 2 batches that fell short of the desired whisky character, I'm thinking I'd rather end up a bit over-oaked, and have a new data point to work with, than under oaked again.

 

[secretlevel]

I'm planning another go at this, and here's my question for everyone. It looks like the grist from post #188 (video) mentioned Black Malt as part of the grist, and not debittered black malt, but all of the recipes in this thread feature Debittered. The beer should be much more roasty with Black malt and the flavor addition from Black Malt as opposed to Debittered is also pretty different. Is there a source saying that Debittered black malt is used rather than regular Black malt?