Keith Bachman on February 12, 2015 11 Comments As a club, we purchased a 55-gallon bourbon barrel from a local distillery. 11 people made 5-gallon batches to add to the barrel. Your numbers may be significantly different on an individual basis than those listed below. The numbers below represent an average of the 11 batches. This was a great club project because it gets people to brew together in a large setting. If you want to do this solo, soak 1 oz. of oak cubes in your favorite bourbon for 2-3 weeks while your beer is fermenting. Add the cubes to your secondary vessel and age at room temp (67-72°F) for approximately 8-10 weeks. Although depending on your taste preferences, you may want to consider shortening or lengthening the amount of time the cubes are in secondary. Recipe Specs Batch Size: 5.5 gallons Boil Time: 120 minutes Original Gravity: 1.129 Final Gravity: 1.022 SRM: 45 IBUs: 59.7 ABV: 14.3% Apparent Attenuation: 81.2% Ingredients 18.0 lbs. Pale 2-Row (U.S.) 3.0 lbs. Munich Malt (20L) 1.0 lb. Crystal Malt (60L) 1.0 lbs. Chocolate Malt (350 SRM) 8.0 oz. Roasted Barley (300 SRM) 4.0 oz. Black Patent (500 SRM) 2.0 lbs. Light Dry Malt Extract 1.5 oz. Nugget (13.0% AA) @ 90 minutes 1.0 oz. Willamette (5.5% AA) @ 30 minutes 1.0 oz. Willamette (5.5% AA) @ 15 minutes 2 packages of Safale American (US-05) Dry Yeast Procedure Mash Schedule: Saccharification Rest: 150°F for 75 minutes Do not mash out (chances are, you won’t have much space to work with). NOTE: This is a lot of malt for a 10 gallon mash/lauter tun. Don’t worry about hitting volume of strike water. Add as much water as your mash tun will hold while still being able to close your lid. If you miss your preboil gravity, compensate by adding more light dry malt extract. Sparge with 170°F water to achieve a pre-boil volume of 7.5 gallons. Boil: Follow the hop/fining schedule outlined above for a 120-minute boil. Add the light malt extract before you start the boil. Be extra careful for the hot break. There are a lot of sugars in the wort and will try to boil over. Once the hot break subsides, start your boil counter for 120 minutes. Cool wort down to 70 degrees. While wort is cooling, rehydrate dry yeast. Once you have reached 70 degrees either aerate or oxygenate your wort. Pitch the rehydrated yeast. Ferment at 65-67° for 21-28 days. Collect all of the beer from the primary fermenters. Sample each batch to ensure that no contaminated batches are transferred to the barrel. After all have been sampled, transfer all the beer to the barrel of your choosing. Let sit in the barrel for a minimum of 6 months. Do periodic sampling to check how the flavor develops over time. You may need to purge oxygen from the barrel with a couple quick bursts of CO2. Once the desired level of wood/spirit flavor is achieved, siphon the beer into kegs and enjoy!
Scott says February 19, 2015 at 11:05 am Thank you so much for this posting. This is my favorite beer and I can’t wait to brew it. Reply
Brian says May 18, 2015 at 6:38 am You have tasting notes? Would like to know how it turned out. Reply
Michael Cotti says November 24, 2015 at 7:29 am Hi Keith, I plan to brew your bourbon county clone in a couple weeks. Just wondering how your turned out and if you recommend any adjustments. Bourbon. County is a swsweet, so I was thinking of adding a touch of lactose. What do you think? Thank you for your post Mike Reply
Kevin says March 25, 2016 at 9:48 pm Brewer this recipe a month ago (going the solo road with oak cubes) my secondary Gravity is not where I thought it should be (1.05). Anybody think it will drop out that much more (I doubt it) or have ideas to help reach the fg from above? Reply
Graciany Miranda says March 30, 2016 at 5:18 am I made this, aged it for 3 months with oak cubes. It’s good but great, not sure if its worth the effort. Taste notes from the author would be nice… Reply
Bob C says May 1, 2016 at 11:04 am I had a similar problem with finish gravity. After advice from Northern Brewer I repitch with rapid ferment yest and yeast energizer. That brought it down around 1.030 after another few weeks. I upped temp from 68f to 72f at the same time. Acording to NB the 11%-12% threshold is a yeast buster. Next time I’ll use a ton more oxygen and yeast nutrient in boil. Maybe even pitch with yeast energizer. Generally I only use yeast nutrients in my starter. I bottled with dark brown sugar, with good carbonation. So far these have a bitter (like unsweetened dark chocolate) finish. I’m hoping after a year in the bottle the sweet in looking for will come out. My first try at a stout, was really hoping for the super sweet of the Goose BCS Reply
Paul says August 9, 2016 at 11:21 am I am getting ready to do a barrel and was wondering if you need to brew more than the barrel size due to evaporation? Reply
msas says October 21, 2017 at 5:22 pm I hit the original gravity of 1.130 but my final gravity after three weeks fermenting got just to 1.045. I added a packet of hydrated champagne yeast and it got only to 1.040, which is much higher than the expected 1.022. It tastes good but it is very sweet. It is a bit like a desert wine such as port. It is “interesting” but not exactly, what I expected. Let’s see what aging then carbonation does to it. As a bonus I sparged more water on the remaining husks, added another package of US-05 and made an excellent four gallon batch of stout that went from 1.057 to 1.009. Reply
Trevor says March 27, 2019 at 11:20 am I’ve brewed this recipe twice. The first time I forgot to add the DME but it still turned out great. Aged in a 5 gallon oak barrel for a couple of months. The 2nd time I doubled the batch size. Had to convert some of the grain to extract to get everything to fit. I had a hard time getting the fermentation started but it took off once I did a starter with the dry yeast. Turned out amazing. Reply
Kegerator.com says January 17, 2020 at 4:11 pm Thanks for the comment Trevor, Glad to hear that it worked out well for you. Keep on brewing! Cheers! Reply
