New Holland Dragon's Milk Clone Recipe

[bobgoats]

formula2fast, I was wondering how you would adjusted your oak cubes and chocolate for a future batch?

 

[formula2fast]

I have not done it yet, but I think I am going to double the chocolate malt, add 1lb of lactose, and drop to 2.5 oz of oak cubes for 60 days instead of the 3oz for 90 days.

I am hoping to do this over the winter time, but lately I have not had a chance to brew in about 3 months

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

I must have gotten a terrible bottle of this stuff....there used to be a local bar that had a beer challenge.. drink all of the beers they had and win a t shirt... I ordered a dragons milk and the waitress said she could climb a ladder and pour it and it still wouldn't get much of a head....I opened the bottle and started to pour it and it foamed over and ran all over the table.. It was so nasty I literally had to chase it with soda and even with that I could not choke it all down. I have been scared to ever try it again.... I am gonna have to find one and give it another chance.

 

[formula2fast]

You must have had a bad bottle...Give it another chance. It is a fantastic well balanced barrel aged beer. It is one of my favorites only to be rivaled by Bourbon County Stout.

 

[koshari]

The recipe worked well with an initial batch. Only criticisms were the sticky result and under carbonation.

It appeared the fermentation halted after 4 days in the fermenter. Considering the required pitch rate of 526 billion cells (Using the excellent BrewersFriend calculator) needed for a 5 gal batch, evidently the single pack of 100 billion cells Wyeast is insufficient.

526 billion cells is available from 15 Liters of starter (4 gal). How can a 5 gal batch of beer need 4 gal of starter? Seems like nonsense.

Can a batch be produced with less starter that is more reasonable?

Thank you for your feedback.

 

[formula2fast]

Yes.

First of all, if you are making a starter, use the freshest yeast available as that will increase your pitch rate.

Also, i always cold crash my starters, siphon off almost all of the liquid, and then just pitch the slurry. That reduces the dilution of your good wort with the plain starter wort.

The best way to gain cell count is also to use a stir plate. Those pitching rates are easily obtainable with a 4 liter starter doing those steps.

 

[koshari]

Thank you for the quick response to my question!

My thought was make the necessary 15 L of starter in a 5 gal food container from a single smack pack, and use an aquarium aerator to both circulate the starter and aerate it. Is this approach reasonable?

 

[Dinomyte]

I've brewed this clone several times with great results. You will need to pitch about 330-340 billion cells which you can get from a 2 liter starter with a stir plate at an og of 1.036-1.040. 14 liter starter is way, way, way too much. Brewers friend site is good but I think you might have some settings that are a bit off.

If you don't have a stir plate you can agitate frequently to help boost your cell count. If you can't do that, just buy an extra vile and pitch 2-3 of them. This should get you closer.

 

[formula2fast]

Thank you for the quick response to my question!

My thought was make the necessary 15 L of starter in a 5 gal food container from a single smack pack, and use an aquarium aerator to both circulate the starter and aerate it. Is this approach reasonable?

You will waste so much DME to make a starter that big...You may as well add some hops to it and make a beer, then rack onto the cake if you are going to do a starter that big.

A stir plate ($40-50 from stirstarters.com) and a good pack of yeast and you can get the cell counts you need. I have brewed 14% beers with no problem even using yeast that is a few months old. Best money you can spend is on a stir plate.

I use this calculator for my starters http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/

 

[GhengisT]

I stopped using DME for my starters now that I culture/save the yeast strains. On mash out, I collect about a liter or two of wort to boil seperately, since the full batch boil takes a lot longer. I have a jam-sized mason jar of the yeast I'll be using, and once the liter or two is cooled, I pitch the yeast.

This makes the starter near identical to the full batch. Also, if you time it right, the starter yeast will be approaching full krausen just as you're hitting pitching temps post-boiling of the full batch. Forgot where I read it, but full krausen in the starter is the ideal time to pitch as the yeast are highly active and no longer dormant.

 

[ramdisk]

What temp are you guys mashing out at?

 

[formula2fast]

I mash out at about 165-170. It ranges because I don't have a heated mash tun, so I just sparge with 180* water and it falls in that range through the lautering process.

I am brewing it again next weekend with a few tweaks from my last one that was very close to DM. I will post results in a few months once it goes to bottling.

 

[Bigarcherynut]

Any new news on this?

 

[SGTSparty]

Quick Newb question, When aging on booze soaked oak chips, do you transfer JUST the chips to secondary or the booze they were soaking in as well?

 

[formula2fast]

Update: At bottling it was almost a dead on dragon's milk. With some age, the vanilla flavor started to take over and is more vanilla-y than dragons milk. I think I also picked up some oxidation over the few months, not bad, but enough to make me say that at this point it is not a dragon's milk clone.

The tweaks I made this time was adding 3 vanilla beans and 4 oz of cocoa nibs to the secondary that had been soaking in bourbon as well. Just to make it special, I used new holland beer barrel bourbon on this batch. Next time, I will not add these as I think they were a bit too extreme for a dragons milk clone. It made a great beer, but not one that could be confused with DM.

 

[formula2fast]

Quick Newb question, When aging on booze soaked oak chips, do you transfer JUST the chips to secondary or the booze they were soaking in as well?

I always add the wood to the secondary, but save the bourbon they were soaking in and then add it to taste at bottling. The bourbon the wood was soaking in will have a very sharp wood flavor and can be too much in many beers. I did add all the booze once and it tasted like drinking a table leg, so now I add until I get the profile I am looking for in each beer.

 

[Brewmeister10]

I was going to brew a clone of Prairie Bomb until I recently tasted Dragon's Milk! I think Dragon's Milk is the perfect Imperial Stout, great for sipping on a cold evening in front of a fire! Prairie Bomb is aged over chile beans among other flavoring ingredients and is a bit too spicy for me. Thanks for this clone recipe!

 

[pockets121]

Picked up the materials to brew a second time. First batch was incredible.