AG#75 - Dark Knight Porter (oak whisky aged)

[kev]

I've got 2kg of whisky barrel oak cut into 1 inch cubes that'll be going into a brew in the near future. I spoke to a few mates and asked for advice regarding the base beer and a thick chewy porter was the preferred option......so here it is. Dark Knight Porter.

Plan for this one is to ferment it out over a week then transfer to secondary and add 500g of the oak chunks. I'll then sample every couple of days until it's got the flavour I want. Lastly it'll go into a cornie for a month or two.

I've heard that oak has a drying effect to the final product so I deliberately mashed high (68c) to pull out a lot of un-fermentables and also used a yeast that'll get it down to the desired 1020 and a 5.5% ABV finished beer.

The recipe's at the bottom and there's a few pics below.

Grain shot



Underletting



Mash done



Recirculating



Ghetto auto-sparge



First runnings



Spent grains



Boil on



Main addition





Chiller in



Cooling



YEAST!



All tucked up with last weeks Wit




Will post back when the oak goes in, etc.

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Dark Knight Porter
Brewer: Nate B
Asst Brewer:
Style: Robust Porter
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 29.92 l
Post Boil Volume: 23.92 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 20.00 l
Bottling Volume: 18.49 l
Estimated OG: 1.059 SG
Estimated Color: 67.8 EBC
Estimated IBU: 33.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 55.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 63.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
5.78 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) US (3.7 EBC) Grain 1 84.0 %
0.27 kg Vienna Malt (6.9 EBC) Grain 2 3.9 %
0.21 kg Black (Patent) Malt (985.0 EBC) Grain 3 3.0 %
0.21 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (157.6 EBC) Grain 4 3.0 %
0.21 kg Chocolate Malt (689.5 EBC) Grain 5 3.0 %
0.21 kg Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 6 3.0 %
17.98 g Cascade [6.40 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 13.2 IBUs
17.98 g Northern Brewer [9.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 20.2 IBUs
14.98 g Cascade [6.40 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
1.1 pkg California Ale V (White Labs #WLP051) [3 Yeast 10 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 6.88 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 17.94 l of water at 75.7 C 68.9 C 90 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 25.26 l water at 75.6 C
Notes:
------
Add 1 tsp. Irish Moss during last 15 minutes of boil.

Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[abeyptfc]

nice on Kev, this sounds awesome. will need to get my **** over to the Lang toun to try some!

 

[kev]

Wee update on this one. It's down to 1020 as expected so yesterday I moved to secondary and added the oak whisky barrel chunks. The plan is to taste it after a few days and see how it's coming along. I've absolutely no idea how long will be enough but will keg when it becomes ever so slightly too much and then it'll mellow out over a month before being drunk.

Here's how the chunks are stored



Syphoning onto the wood



the finished batch

 

[Steve]

Be interested in how this turns out. I've got a small amount of oak that I'm tempted to split off a DJ of a batch and try it with.

 

[mattyhall22]

I take it the whiskey soaked into the wood acts as a form of inhibitor to any nasties growing? :

 

[kev]

No idea to be honest.

I didn't sanitise the wood at all. Just dumped it in.

K

 

[kev]

Smells f*cking amazing tonight!

K

 

[kev]

This has now had 2 weeks sitting on the oak chunks and today I bottled it. Smells amazing and the taste is exactly what I wanted. Really happy with this brew.

Bottled it with a wee bit of dextrose - aiming for 2.0 vols of C02. Will leave it a couple of weeks then crack one open. If the wee sample I had from the syphon is anything to go by, this will be awesome.

K

Syphoning into keg so I can use my counter pressure filler.



Wee sample



Chunks leftover. Going to let these dry then hang onto them. Will use them to smoke some meat when we're drinking the porter.

 

[clibit]

Is that called dry wooding? Or dry timbering or something? :-)

 

[kev]

Lol. No idea.

I just call it awesome.

K

 

[abeyptfc]

Hope it turns out well Kev. Is my invite in the post to the smoked bourbon meat and porter night?::-P

 

[kev]

You're more than welcome anytime.

Will probably have a gathering of some sort when my Brothers over in May.

K

 

[markm1878]

You're more than welcome anytime.

Will probably have a gathering of some sort when my Brothers over in May.

K

Kev - if you're still with us, how did this turn out? Was the whisky/oak flavours notable enough in it?

I drank a Founders Backwoods ******* the other day and it was fantastic. I really like the subtle whisky note. It's aged in Oak Bourbon barrels which I assume goes towards this, but I wonder if it's any peated malt or something in too?