Wood Aged Beer Experiment

I've done many brews in the past and saved the recipes in written form, or using an app... now I think I'll start recording in blog form as well. Why not? I'll also include tasting notes and whatever else I find interesting. 

On to the brew. I'm a member of the Nordeast Brewer's Alliance and for the April meeting we're doing a mini-experiment: Wood Aged Beer. I chose white oak: Vanilla, toasted coconut, cinnamon, pepper, sweet baked bread, caramel. 

I've gone back and forth on what exactly to brew for the oak - oak aged stout? Oak aged rye? Oaked mild? Oak pretty much goes with anything, right? Ultimately I decided on an IPA. I was thinking about Florida and Cigar City and the Jai Alai aged on white oak. So I'm going to very loosely base my recipe on that.

• 90% 2-Row
• 4.5% Munich Light
• 4.5% Victory
• 1% Crystal 60

Mash at 150F for 60 minutes

• .75oz El Dorado @ 60 minutes (~47ibu)
• 1.25oz El Dorado @ 1 minute (~2.5ibu)

After fermentation completes - transfer to secondary

• 2oz El Dorado Dry Hop 10 days
• White Oak Honeycomb 10 days, 1/2 WOH for 10 more days. 

Wyeast 1469 (West Yorkshire) fermenting @ 68F, 1.5L starter (stir plate)

OG 1.071
FG 1.018
IBU 49
SRM 8.8
ABV 7%

Grain bill is pretty much exactly what Jai Alai uses. Should be a beautiful bright orangey color with some light malt backbone - but not too much. I considered adding Maris Otter to beef it up and bit, but this is a wood experiment and I want the oak to come through. The hop schedule is completely different than Jai Alai - for two reasons: 

1. It's a wood experiment. I don't want the hop character to drown out the oak.
2. I have a ton of El Dorado.

At 49 IBUs, it's on the low-end of the IPA spectrum. I'm not really interested in making a hop bitter bomb - I want the aroma instead, hence the 1.25oz at knockout and the 2oz dry hop. El Dorado is supposed to impart bright tropical fruit, pear, watermelon, and stone fruit aromas. So that's neat.

I picked West Yorkshire for two reasons:

1. decent attenuation with awesome flocculation. I want a bright beer - no cloudiness!
2. dry finish with moderate nut and fruit esters. I think it'll pair well with El Dorado.

If I don't get the the FG I want, I might finish with a neutral yeast like US-05. I tried US-05 for the first time a few months ago and I was pleasantly surprised.

I'm going to do a split experiment with the oak. The honeycomb I have is good for a five gallon batch, so I'm going to cut in half. After dry hopping, I'll toss the two halves into the secondary and wait ten days. Then I'll pull half the beer and one of the oak halves. Then let it go another ten days. I'll end up with two nice dry hopped IPAs - one aged for 10 days on oak, the other aged for 20 days. Or that's the idea anyway.

So there it is - the first batch of beer for Jumping Cat.