First atempt at Dragon's Milk Clone

[mezhan]

Hey all,

So I've seen a few people talk about their attempts at DM. Last weekend my buddy and I attempted to give it a go. Here is the recipe we used (based on Ohiodad's:

12.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 78.02 %
1.50 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 9.75 %
0.63 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.10 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 3.25 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 3.25 %
0.25 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 1.63 %
0.75 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] (60 min) Hops 29.9 IBU
0.25 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (10 min) Hops 2.2 IBU
2.00 oz Oak Chips (Secondary 14.0 days) Misc
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [Starter 125 ml] Yeast-Ale

A couple changes we made due to lack of exact ingredients and Beermsith calculations (since our mash eff is lower than I would like):

- Upped the 2-row to 12.5 lbs due to mash eff.
- I only had access to Columbus 17%, not 14%. Because of this I added to the boil at 51 minutes since this yielded 32.1 IBUs which was closer to the target.
- I only had access to 9% Northern Brewer hops, but I decided not to make any changes due to this.
-Minor grain differences, but nothing worth mentioning.

I started the soak of the chips in jim beam during the brewing process and set those to the side.

I had my first SNAFU as I forgot the oats and they got added about 8 minutes late. Not sure if that will have an effect.

I mashed with about 26qts of water; we had an early temp issue but we hit 154F dead on pretty quick. Did a 70 min mash then drained.

Did a two stage sparge. First was at 169F and used 6 Qts (1.5 gallons) for 10 min. Second was 4 QT (1 gallons) for 10 minutes. We were going to use 1.5 for both but since we added extra water in the initial mash we cut it back.

Our total pre-boil was a bit much (~7.5 gal, was aiming for 6.4 as beersmith says) but we lengthened the boil to 75 min to try and accommodate. Took a gravity reading at 15 min to find that we were low (1.077 after temp conversion) My buddy recommended adding corn sugar (we ended of adding 2 oz) as he said this would have the least effect on taste (vs some Briess DME we had laying around). Final post-boil gravity hit 1.082 and we think we're a little high at 5.25 gallons.

Buddy did a yeast starter one day in advance (couldn't do two days as we hoped, but the starter looked good after a day so we didn't think it would have an effect.)

Its been in the primary 7 days now with bow off and still getting a decent amount of fermentation (was kicking arse around 48 hrs.) Been sitting at 68F-69F steady. Going to rack this Wednesday (10 days pri) into the secondary with the soaked chips and Jim Beam and let set for 4 weeks. Going to force carb in the keg at the end with 4 gallons and bottle 1 gallon.

Hopefully ends up well! I'll make sure to Update.

 

[craigkelker]

Given you thought you were low at the start of the boil, did you take into account the boil off volume increasing the OG? Is there a way to adjust to preboil OG to the postboil knowing that you'll be going from 7gallons to 5+?

I struggle with my gravity checks.

 

[mezhan]

We took the gravity reading with only about 15 min left in the boil and at that point I kinda of "guestimated" how much more was going to evaporate off. In hindsight maybe I am lucky it came out so close.

I probably could have done so (add the gravity adjustment earlier), but the guy who mentioned to add the corn sugar said if you add too early it may affect the taste of the beer. I can't speak to the accuracy of the statement, but in an effort to reduce the off flavors I did what he said and added at like 15 or 10 min before I finished boiling. I think I've nailed down the mash eff now so that may help me hit my gravities a little easier in the beginning.

I also used a conversion tool to account for temperature when taking my gravity measurement, so assuming I was able to take my reading and temperature at the same time that may also have affected it.

 

[fatnoah]

Be careful with those oak chips. By soaking them in the Jim beam for that long you are going to extract a LOT of oaky flavor out of them. Use sparingly. I soaked some oak chips in makers for about a week before adding to secondary and the oak flavor was WAY too much.

 

[craigkelker]

I've heard that adding DME at the end of boils is better for ensuring lighter SRMs.

 

[mezhan]

Well I racked last night and put all the chips in, before I had a chance to read these comments (now I wish I had waited!) Hopefully the flavor isn't too much.

The color was light vs what I was expecting, but they may have been due to the extra water. I'm still a little high on the volume. The gravities were pretty good at around 1.024. I'm hoping that the secondary gets the fermentation going a bit and I can get to sub 1.020.

 

[ApothecaryBrewing]

I too have been looking to make a clone of dragon's milk. Let us know how this turns out for you.

I found THIS on their website. It is a spec sheet for Dragon's Milk that provides an OG and malts and hops used, but it doesn't include proportions or percentages.

That said I kind of loosely built this recipe based on the spec sheet.