Brewing With Oak

I have finally started using a brewing technique that I have wanted to try for years, brewing with oak. It all started for me by listening to an amazing show on the Brewing Network. One of their shows, The Sunday Session, had Shea Comfort on as a guest to talk about wine yeast and oak in beer. Shea is amazing. His knowledge of wine and oak is incredible. He lays out basic flavor and aroma expectations for oaked beers, oaking techniques, and information about the various types and toast levels of oak. Now I am finally putting that information to work. Click here to link to the interview with Shea. (Please note, adult language is used in these podcasts, use headphones if the kids are in the room). Also, do yourself a favor and check out these articles on oak from the Brewing Newtwork's Jason Petros. Jason has also done a lot of work with oak and cacao nibs in beer. Click here to see Jason's oak article and discussion of his oak and dry nibbed oatmeal stout from his blog. There is a ton of great info in these two sources.

You have a couple ways you can use oak in your beers, during fermentation and post fermentation. First, when you utilize oak in the ferment you lose some of the compounds that will be metabolized by the yeast, and oak aromatics will blow off with the vigor of fermentation. So why oak the ferment you ask? For body and structuring tanins. French and Hungarian oak especially lend slight notes of spice, roast coffee, and mild woodsyness, but these oaks in particular will lend a fullness and complexity to the body of the beer. Secondly, you can use oak after fermentation. This is where you will get the fullness of what oak can contribute to a beer: aromatics, flavors, and structuring tannins. You can mix and match these techniques to crate very unique beers.

Before adding oak to beers, this is how I handle it. I use one ounce of oak at a time. I put that ounce into a small microwaveable jar with 1/4 cup of water and microwave it until it just starts to boil, let it sit for a bit, then repeat. Do this with your container covered to effectively steam your cubes (I use cubes for the greater flavor complexity they offer over chips). Then they can be added to your fermenter or keg for aging. This steaming method also helps to extract flavors and aromas from the wood to jumpstart the oaking process, sort of like an instant infusion. You will see what I mean after you smell the container you steamed the oak in. Oak your beers to taste, usually shoot for one to two weeks. Please be patient with your oaked beers, and give them at least a few weeks to put themselves together after packaging. Your patience will be rewarded.

I did my only me second oaked beer just a few weeks ago, a batch of my Old Siberian Winter Warmer.

As brewed for the first time as a pilot batch, it is like a slightly strong malt forward english brown ale featuring American medium toast oak post fermentation. Early tastings of it have encouraged me to make my next two beers oaked as well.

Later this week I will be brewing my Fifth Voyage Coconut Porter.

For this beer I will utilized medium toast Hungarian oak during fermentation. Again, the goal here is to capitalize on the positive structuring tannins that the Hungarian oak is good for, along with very minor flavor and aroma potential. I am using this as a way of fleshing out the complexity of my porter's body, in hopes of an interesting complex beer.

In short order after Fifth Voyage, I will be brewing my Irish Breakfast.

Irish Breakfast is an oatmeal stout that will get fed oak at both stages, fermentation and post ferment. It is a standard oatmeal stout brewed to 4.7%. I like the idea of brewing low gravity, high flavor session ales. The first year of my homebrewing career was spent on these small beers, they can be wonderful. With Irish Breakfast I use a blend of oak, both French and American. I plan on using heavy toast French in the ferment to, again, bolster and add complexity to the body, and American medium toast to drive in some of the vanilla, caramel, and aromatic sweetness notes to the beer.

I will keep you up to date on the progress of these beers, and I hope that you would touch base with me about your own adventures into the world of brewing with oak.

Drink good beer with good people!

Follow me on Twitter: @adammmills

Heretic Review & Yeast Review: White Labs - San Diego Super Yeast WLP090

So here is a compilation of some of the comments I have strewn about the interwebs the past few days in regard to WLP090, and a brand spanking new review of a couple of Heretic beers. Some of it you may have seen in other crannies of the internet that I frequent, but there are some new angles, and other stories as well.

I had the pleasure of being invited over to a fellow BN'ers (Brewing Network listeners) home to try some Heretic beer, both Evil Twin and Evil Cousin, some of my pilot batches, and some other homebrewed beers. The previous week, I met up with another BN listener that lives pretty close by, so our host, in his generosity extended the invitation to him as well.

First let me make note of the Heretic beers. One of my brewing mentors has been Jamil Zainasheff. Recently he opened a new brewery call Heretic Brewing in Pittsburg, CA. The beers we drank from Jamil were nice fresh examples as they were brought home by our host's daughter, as Heretic is not currently distributing to Michigan. (You can buy it online though). The Evil Twin was really a great beer. The hops were expressive, really jumping out of the glass. The hop character was resiny, and green, very fresh dry hoppy goodness. I got a lot of pink grapefruit out of it. The color was is killer red, and the malt (dark caramel and toast) bill was substantial enough to make it a balanced hoppy beer, with a smooth base bitterness. Really well done. The Evil Cousin was good as well. The hop profile was a bit less aggressive than the Twin, and it was more catty, but in a good way. Jamil and his brewer Chris really know what they are doing.

After those beers we moved on to tasting my Torchlight Munich Blonde and Bulldog Irish Red that were both brewed with the San Diego Super Yeast. I have been working with 090 for a few batches now and I am very pleased. Let it be said that it is a very clean clean yeast in the same vein as 001. The advantage to it is speed and floc time. On the homebrew side, if you have the time, feel free to stick with 001. If you need to shave a few days off your process, give 090 a shot.

It starts pretty fast, under 12 hour if I let the starter go for 24 or so hours. It attenuates well. I mashed my helles type beer (no crystal malt) @156 and got 77% attenuation with 090, with the majority of fermentation happening at 60. It does generate more heat than a 001 fermentation, so keep an eye on your temps. I got 70% attenuation when I mashed at 159 for my Irish Red (15% of grist crystal malt). I have a cal common on now @ 63 and I will report back on that beer when it finishes. That was mashed at 155. Thus far, the beer hit high krausen by 12 hours and by 48 hours was beginning to clear. Stay tuned.

I find that it flocs out 33-50% faster than 001. One day on gelatin in a 30 degree finished beer, and it gets bright.

As we were trying my beers at the Heretic tasting, some people tasted a slight berry type ester, raspberry in particular. It had warmed quite a bit by the time we drank it, but it was there nonetheless. I am curious if others have noted this as well. I also got comments that night, and with other tastings, that the 090 does allow the malt to shine through. It really emphasizes the pilsner malt base in Torchlight.

Anyhow, there is the low down on my recent beer adventures. I will be trying the Heretic beers again when I travel to San Diego in May for the Craft Brewers Conference, so I may come back with a follow up to this review.

Drink good beer with good people!

Follow me on Twitter: @adammmills