Dark-Fruit Rye Wine - Thoughts?

[laiced]

I am looking to create a Rye Wine inspired by Perrin's Brewery back in Michigan. I am not going to clone anything, I just know the flavors that I want included, and I know that I want it to be strong.

Target Flavors: Dark-fruit (fig, raisin, plum), toffee or caramel, slight chocolate, booze

Here is my initial brainstorm. I would love suggestions, especially for the hops.

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Recipe Type: Extract with Specialty Grain
Yeast: WLP500 Trappist Ale
Yeast Starter: 1L
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: 1 tbsp yeast nutrient
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.106
Final Gravity: 1.024
IBU: 17.35
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 28.62 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 2 weeks
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 1 month
Tasting Notes: I am going for dark fruit, caramel/toffee, and malty boozy-ness

Ingredients
Fermentables
12.00 lb Rye LME
02.00 lb Extra Light DME
01.00 lb Belgian Candi Syrup - D180

Steeping Grains
01.00 lb Flaked Rye
01.00 ib CaraRed
02.00 ib Briess Caramel 90L
01.00 oz Torrified Wheat

Hops
01.00 oz Columbia (8.8 AA) @ 60 min
01.00 oz Cascade (7.0 AA) @ 30 min
01.00 oz Amarillo (8.6 AA) @ 15 min

Conditioning
I am hoping to have some whiskey barrel oak to condition this with during the month it sits in secondary.

 

[motorneuron]

For dark fruit flavors, you should consider using some Special B. That stuff has serious raisin and plum going on. C90 and Carared will also give you some fruit flavor, though it'll be different. Whatever you choose, though, I would not use 3 lbs of crystal malts. That is going to create havoc for your FG. In a beer this big, you need to think about ways to get the FG to be low enough--even a high apparent attenuation will leave you with some residual sweetness.

I also definitely agree on the choice of WLP500 (great attenuation, for one thing) and some D180.

 

[laiced]

I was able to pull the description of the beer that I am paying homage to, from the Perrin Brewing Co. website menu.

Rye Wine
This Rye Wine pays homage to the English Barley Wines that preceded it. This Rye Wine has been aged in Bourbon Barrels. It
has a quaint, alcoholic warmth, low carbonation, fruit undertones and is brewed with nine different malts including Caramel
Rye Malt; an extremely unique malt that lends itself to the exquisite malt profile of this ale. ABV 9.8% IBU's 36

I need to double the IBU's and get my hands on the Caramel Rye Malt for sure.

 

[laiced]

Updating my recipe with some more grains for a PM + Extract option. Upped the IBUs as well.

Recipe Type: Extract with Specialty Grain
Yeast: WLP500 Trappist Ale
Yeast Starter: 1L
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: 1 tbsp yeast nutrient
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.113
Final Gravity: 1.026
ABV (Standard): 11.53%
IBU: 31.34
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 35.27 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 2 weeks
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 1 month
Tasting Notes: I am going for dark fruit, caramel/toffee, and malty boozy-ness

Ingredients
Fermentables
6.00 lb Rye LME
6.00 lb Extra Light DME
2.00 lb Belgian Candi Syrup - D180

Steeping Grains
01.00 lb Flaked Rye
01.50 lb Flaked Wheat
01.00 lb CaraRed
01.00 lb CaraMunich III
01.00 lb Special B
00.50 lb Chocolate Rye
02.00 lb American 2Row

Hops
01.00 oz Magnum (15 AA ) @ 60 min
01.00 oz Warrior (16 AA) @ 30 min
01.00 oz Hallertau (7 AA) @ 5 min

 

[motorneuron]

Only have a second, but--When you say "steeping grains," you actually mean a mini-mash, right? I mean, you know what that entails? Flaked rye, flaked wheat, and 2-row all need to be mashed, and of those, only the 2-row contains enzymes. You'd need more of it in order to convert the flaked (unmalted) grains.

 

[laiced]

Motorneuron - Thank you for the response and the head's up.

The Steeping Grains section is a holdover to the resource that I used to calculate everything. I am taking the initial steps to Partial Mash, and have asked some questions on the process on this thread. I will be making a MLT with a cylindrical cooler and doing a batch sparge of the grain bill listed. From my understanding, the ratio is pretty close in terms of conversion - this is something that I do not know enough about at this point. I can always up my 2Row to augment though, correct?

 

[Calder]

With 3 lbs crystal and and half a pound of chocolate, there is no-way you will get down to 1.026. I think you will find 1.026 too sweet, if by some miracle you get there. You should think about cutting the crystal in half and replacing some of the extract with plain sugar.

 

[wingedcoyote]

If you have trouble finding caramel rye, you could always make some. Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher has instructions for making caramel malt out of anything malted.

 

[laiced]

With 3 lbs crystal and and half a pound of chocolate, there is no-way you will get down to 1.026. I think you will find 1.026 too sweet, if by some miracle you get there. You should think about cutting the crystal in half and replacing some of the extract with plain sugar.

And this is me being new to the whole mashing process. Am I the only one trying to do this much crystal? If I up the amount of 2Row, will I be able to break enough of the crystal down for the yeast to eat?

How do I get down to 1.026 or lower? Those numbers were calculated from the website I built the recipe in, so I just expected to get near that. If I don't, the beer will just be sweeter, correct?

 

[motorneuron]

Crystal doesn't need enzymes to break it down; the carbohydrates are already in simple form for the yeast. But some of the sugars are longer-chain ones that will never be metabolized. That is why crystal leaves a slightly sweeter, fuller bodied beer. When you already have a high starting gravity, using a lot of crystal can leave you with an excessively sweet, thick beer. That is why you are hearing people encourage you to decrease the crystal.

Mashing the unmalted grain is different--that stuff needs malted grain for its enzymes, or else it leaves little that is usable for the yeast at all.

 

[stpug]

Unfortunately, this is going to be one of those "try and find out" situations. Your best tools for achieving the FG you're after is knowledge. Knowledge of the yeast strain, fermentation schedule, ingredients, mashing process, etc. What you're proposing - 1.113 to 1.026 - would equate to 75% apparent attenuation. The yeast you plan on using has a rated value of 75-80% AA. If you provide it the perfect environment for fermentation then your chances will increase for obtaining that FG or lower. Theoretically, the FG you are aiming for is obtainable. Key things to pay attention to in the recipe are unfermentables: LME/DME, crystals, roasted malts. Other key things to pay attention to are: mash temp, osmotic pressure, oxygen, pitching rate

-LME/DME are frequently created with dextrin and crystal malts, particularly the darker they are
---Rye LME probably has some of both of these
---Extra Light DME probably has very little of either of these

-D180 is very highly fermentable with little unfermentables and will aid in bringing the FG lower

-Half your crystal is darker which will be less fermentable
-Half your crystal is lighter which will be more fermentable
-All your crystal should get mashed will aid in its fermentability
-Roasted malts have a decent amount of unfermentables/complex sugars
-Keep your mash temp low (148-150) and you'll increase the fermentability of the resulting wort

-Provide amble initial O2 (120 seconds)
-Give a boost of O2 at 18 hours (90 more seconds)

-Ferment starting cool and allow to rise to to 72F and do not let it drop back down from there

-Prepare a sufficient starter for this beer - probably 2 steps
-Consider making a small beer and using the resulting yeastcake for this beer

-The osmotic pressure on the yeast cells from the gravity of this beer will be stressful to the yeast
-Consider a late sugar addition to the fermenter for this beer (the D180, and maybe 2 lbs DME [boiled in small amount of water first for 5 minutes])
-A late sugar addition to the fermenter will decrease the osmotic pressure on the yeast cells

Personally, I think if you know what you're getting into and have the precautions set in place for a successful fermentation then I would not be worried about reaching a FG of 1.026. I also am partial to making a small beer and using the yeastcake as your pitch for this beer. The small beer could be something as simple as a lighter Belgian Blonde or even Pale Ale - keeping the hop usage low.

Edit: There have been some experiments of the fermentability of crystal malts and the results indicate a much higher fermentability than most people think. My recollection was something like 80% fermentability for light crystals and 60% fermentability for dark crystals. There is a thread on here somewhere with the specifics.

 

[stpug]

Here's the thread on fermentability of crystal malts:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/testing-fermentability-crystal-malt-208361/

Here's the direct link to the results:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/t...-crystal-malt-208361/index11.html#post2721761

 

[dlester]

A friend of mine, which wrote the book "Everything Home Brewing," made a statement regarding a certain beer style, which I use in my recipe designs. When it comes to caramel malts, adjuncts or spices; use them all sparingly.

When you design a beer, I can assure you, unless your lucky, it typically takes several attempts to get what you are looking for. It took me three attempts to make a Helles Bock that I thought was competition worthy, which it did win a 1st and a 2nd in AHA Sanctioned competitions. I recently designed a beer that tastes great, but the chocolate malts came through too strong. So, on my next attempt I'll scale back the chocolate malts.

Your recipe screams "too much" on everything other than base malts. That being said, my humble opinion is that you should start out with only 4 oz (1/4 LB) of each caramel malt and increase the two row or extracts to get your starting gravity. Upon your first brew, taste and see what comes through too much and what doesn't show through enough.

If you want a sweet beer, mash at or near 158°F; avg sweet/dry 154°F and dry around 149°F.

Good Luck,

 

[laiced]

I cannot thank everyone enough for the advice! I'm glad that I haven't purchased the ingredients yet...it will give me time to think through this a bit more.

Everyone says switching to all grain isn't that big of an investment. I would say that monetarily it might not be, but in terms of research and preparation it sure is! Good thing I love research!!!!

I am still very excited by this and look forward to giving it a shot soon.

I am open ears for any other advice that people may want to give.


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