THANKYOU from a NEWB

[Tunes]

This is a BIG BIG thank you to my brewing friends here that encouraged me and my son past our first personal recipe. You may remember we took a belgium triple, added some dark aromatic grains, soaked dark oak chips in captain Morgan, and later added this to the mash. We replace the candy sugar with sugar in the raw. Added some cinnamon, vanilla, allspice, and nutmeg and ....believe it or not....maple syrup.

When we were done the gravity was completely off the charts and I really really thought we had a MAJOR screw up on our hands. Then it fermented like gangbusters for two days and stopped abruptly and we thought the fermentation was stalled. That was when we were completely convinced we screwed up immensely. All of you said, and I quote "step back from the beer". We did and WOW!!!!!! This stuff is just sooooooo incredibly tasty!!!

Its got a real good amber head, and really really tasty. I really think we "lucked out" but we wouldnt have if you hadnt encouraged us to just be patient. The only complaint I MAY have is this stuff is stronger than anything I ever drank in the form of beer.

Next time, ill still be more carefull but this stuff is not going to friends, this is now something we will hold onto as our personal stock to sip from. This is just too good to explain!

THANX ALL!!!!!!!!

 

[scrambledegg81]

Oak chips + Cap'n = oh mah gawd I need to try this.

 

[Tunes]

Well, if you really want to know that part, here is what we did. I took the dark roasted oak chips and covered them in cap morgan and left it in a closed bowl for a week while I went to Florida on vacation. When I got back I tasted the cap morgan, which picked up the dark roasted look of the chips by then. I felt it was not exactly the flavor I wanted and added 1/2 cup of this high grade pure maple syrup to the rum and let that sit a few days more. When we made the mash I drained the liquid and put it in the boil and took the chips and put them in the steeping bag with the grains. Like I said, I probably did everything imaginable wrong but this stuff is great, I am so wonderfully surprised.

I thought between the maple syrup, sugar in the raw replacement and the cap that we had gone too far over the edge , especially when we read the gravity. Then when the fermentation was so violent but violently seemed to stop after only two days, we thought it was stalled. Thanx all!

 

[D0ug]

The alcohol taste will blend in and mellow with time.

You might want to consider hiding a six pack or two of this from yourself for a year or so.

Sounds like it turned out great, congrats!

 

[Tunes]

Thats a great idea , I think we will take your advice. As far as the alcohol , it was not the "taste" it was the strength as in getting pulled over after having two ;+)

 

[ahaley]

Sounds fantastic, out of curiosity what's the abv%? Man everyone is doing oak chips an captain morg. Lol what ever works!
Did you write down what you did when you did it?

 

[Tunes]

Ahaley, if our calculations were correct it was 9.3

 

[ahaley]

Nice, I want to make something high like that, my first beer was like 2.5 / 3%max lol