ISO Hog Heaven Clone

[roggae]

i had this beer out in San Diego:

http://www.averybrewing.com/BigBeers/docs/hogHeaven

anyone got a nice clone?

[danno]

that page gives you just about everything you need to know, but if you'd like help formulating a recipe, are you brewing extract or AG?

[roggae]

Originally posted by danno
that page gives you just about everything you need to know, but if you'd like help formulating a recipe, are you brewing extract or AG?

AG. i thought it was pretty much all in front of me, but i have never done a barleywine and am not so up on the science of all this. would love to 'learn' how to formulate a recipe.

[danno]

here's my steps for creating recipes, and i'll walk through this one here. would love others comments, too...

couple of my caveats first and foremost. first, I try to brew to the BJCP style guidelines. you can make fabulous beer otherwise, but since I'm posting, I'll do it my way. :D second, when it comes to ingredients, I believe simpler is better. yes, you can make an imperial stout with 17 different specialty grains, but IMO 14 of those are unneccesary. see caveat #1 above. third, I brew ten gallon batches and do all my calculating in that size. you can scale any of my recipes up and down simply by dividing and multiplying. I know that scaling recipes isn't going to work going from 5 gallons to five barrels, but if you're a pro brewer trolling for recipes, you should know that already. (and what are you doing here? we're amateurs!) fourth, I strongly recommend getting some brewing software. I'm a fan of ProMash, but it's the only one I've ever tried.

first, I have a copy of "Designing Great Beers" by Ray Daniels. I'll read (re-read) through the appropriate section to gain some understanding of the style, and how NHC brewers made theirs. Then, I'll remember that his data is now 12 years old, so we'll think about this some more. (anyways, there isn't a barleywine section, so we'll leave that aside for now...)

second, I go to the BJCP style guidelines (http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/) and read through the section. American Barleywines are in category 19, Strong Ales. I'm not just skipping down to 19c, I'm reading 19a and particularily 19b also. anyways, under ingredients, here's what it says:

"Well-modified pale malt should form the backbone of the grist. Some specialty or character malts may be used. Dark malts should be used with great restraint, if at all, as most of the color arises from a lengthy boil. Citrusy American hops are common, although any varieties can be used in quantity. Generally uses an attenuative American yeast."

now, let's combine that with Avery's info:

Beer Style: American Barleywine Ale
Hop Variety: Columbus
Malt Variety: Two-row barley, caramel 75L
OG: 1.085
Alcohol By Volume: 9.2%
IBU's: 104
Color: Deep Garnet

so, let's figure out which malts we're gonna use. I'm gonna pick two row pale malt from Great Britain, and 28 pounds of it gets me to 1.080. I'm then going to add my crystal 75L (since that's what Avery uses), and two more pounds gets me to 1.085, which is our goal. (this is all at 75% efficiency...) now since simplicity is my goal, and 1.085 is our recipe goal, that's pretty much it.

now, onto hops. Avery says they only use Columbus hops, so that's what we'll use here. we're going to need a big bit of them for bittering, so i'm going to dump two ounces in a FWH. for a 90 minute boil, and 15.00%AA, that gives me 66 IBU's. so, we need some more. how about another ounce at 90 minutes? that's another 31 IBU's. now, we're going to want some flavoring too, not just bitterness, so we're gonna need some more additions. how about another ounce each at 20 and 10 minutes? sure, why not. whoops, now we're at 110.5 IBU's, over our 104 goal. let's cut back our 90 minute addition and see where that gets us. I'm going to go to .75 oz, and 80 minutes. a little closer, let's also cut back our 20 minute addition to .75 oz. that gets us down to 102 IBU's. so, let's toss in that half an ounce of hops we pulled out back in at 5 minutes, which voilá, gets us to the magical 104.2 IBU's. it also gives us 5 ounces of hops in total. I buy whole hops, which come in 2 oz packages, so we're going to have an extra ounce of hops laying around. hey, how about a 0 minute addition? no bitterness, but a bunch of aroma, which the style asks for, so cool!

now, onto our mash schedule. this recipe doesn't have a lot of adjuncts, so I think we can get away with just a single infusion mash. now with a 1.085 FG and 9.2% ABV, we're going to need a pretty high level of attenuation, like 80%. that's gonna be tough without a huge starter, and the right yeast. so, we're going to need to adjust our mash schedule to help out. using the easy acronym MALT (More Alcohol, Lower Temp), I think we'll mash this a bit cooler, say 149º. and do it for a full hour... then, we're going to want to get every last bit of sugars out of our mash, so I think we'll add a 10 minute mashout at 168º...

for our yeast, we'll need a higher attenuative yeast, with american origins (see the style guidelines...), and hey, I see a couple of options, in the White Labs line (http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/homebrew_strains.html). WLP001 and WLP060 seem to fit the bill, but I'm not that excited about the line "This blend tastes more lager like than WLP001." so, I'm gonna skip that and go with WLP001. and a HUGE starter. I'll buy one tube and because I have 1L and 2L flasks, along with stir plates, I can step this up three times...

I believe that the key to any barleywine is the caramelization that occurs from a long boil, so I'm also going to help it out to get more flavor out of this. after an extended vorlaufing, I'm going to take the first half gallon of my runnings in a separate pot, and slowly boil them down until they are syrup-like. that caramelization and melanoidin formation that occurs will add a huge amount of flavor to this...

I think that's about it, any questions? comments?

(oh yeah, here's the ProMash data. and I honestly don't think you're gonna get 80% attenuation, I'll be happy with a 1.020 finish, which will end up at 8.6% ABV, and 75% attenuation...)

A ProMash Brewing Session Report
--------------------------------

Brewing Date: Monday November 06, 2006
Head Brewer: danno
Asst Brewer:
Recipe: roggae am bw

BJCP Style and Style Guidelines
-------------------------------

19-C Strong Ale, American Barleywine

Min OG: 1.080 Max OG: 1.144
Min IBU: 50 Max IBU: 100
Min Clr: 10 Max Clr: 19 Color in SRM, Lovibond

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (Gal): 10.00 Wort Size (Gal): 10.00
Total Grain (Lbs): 30.00
Anticipated OG: 1.085 Plato: 20.43
Anticipated SRM: 13.0
Anticipated IBU: 104.2
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Actual OG: 1.085 Plato: 20.43
Actual FG: 1.020 Plato: 5.08

Alc by Weight: 6.69 by Volume: 8.63 From Measured Gravities.

Actual Mash System Efficiency: 75 %
Anticipated Points From Mash: 84.90
Actual Points From Mash: 84.90


Pre-Boil Amounts
----------------

Evaporation Rate: 10.00 Percent Per Hour

Raw Pre-Boil Amounts - only targeted volume/gravity and evaporation
rate taken into account:

Pre-Boil Wort Size: 11.76 Gal
Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.072 SG 17.55 Plato

With sparge water, mash water, additional infusions, vessel losses, top-up
water and evaporation rate recorded in the Water Needed Calculator:

Water Needed Pre-Boil Wort Size: 13.15 Gal
Water Needed Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.065 SG 15.80 Plato


Formulas Used
-------------

Additional Utilization Used For First Wort Hops: 5 %


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.7 2.00 lbs. Crystal 75L Great Britian 1.034 75
93.3 28.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) Great Britain 1.038 3

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.00 oz. Columbus Whole 15.00 66.0 First WH
0.75 oz. Columbus Whole 15.00 22.9 80 min.
0.75 oz. Columbus Whole 15.00 7.2 20 min.
1.00 oz. Columbus Whole 15.00 5.7 10 min.
0.50 oz. Columbus Whole 15.00 2.4 5 min.
1.00 oz. Columbus Whole 15.00 0.0 0 min.

Yeast
-----

WYeast 1056 Amercan Ale/Chico
Mash Schedule
-------------

Mash Type: Single Step
Heat Type: Direct

Grain Lbs: 30.00
Water Qts: 30.00 - Before Additional Infusions
Water Gal: 7.50 - Before Additional Infusions

Qts Water Per Lbs Grain: 1.00

Mash-out Rest Temp: 149 Time: 60
Sparge Temp: 168 Time: 10

Runnings Stopped At: 1.010 SG 2.56 Plato

[roggae]

w0w...danno...thanks so much. a lesson and a recipe. to be honest all the science of brewing has escaped me thus far (MALT is great though thanks for that). its obvious that i need a lot more on the science side. thanks again for the lesson....

[Mill Rat]

Danno, you ask for others to comment, and you then proceed to cover damn near everything. So I'll just chime in and second the use of the brewing software. It takes a lot of the sweat out of hand-figuring a recipe, and you'll get closer to your goal faster than you will just brewing by the seat of your lederhosen. It is important to figure your malts before your hops, since your OG will significantly affect your hop utilization.

[danno]

Originally posted by Mill Rat
Danno, you ask for others to comment, and you then proceed to cover damn near everything. i thought perhaps I may have misspoken somewhere, or left something out... :D

[Mad Scientist]

Danno,

That was probably one of the most incredible posts I have read here. You managed to sum up everything we do to formulate a recipe, or clone one (not my thing really). Kudos bud.

Here is some info specific to Avery:
I emailed Avery brewing in the past, and got my email answered by Adam Avery himself. While he did not shut me down, he was kind enough to tell me that there is nothing left out of the ingredients on the info for the particular ale. He declined being specific as to amount, saying it was hard to go from 40 bbls to 5 gallons, and I did not press the issue either. He was kind enough to give me the yeast strain, which is wyeast 1028 for their IIPA. Quite potentially, they may use the same strain for many of their high gravity ales. As a last note, I have an empty bottle of the Hog Heaven, and on the bottle, it states that they use 2 1/2 lbs of Columbus per barrel to dry hop. And while that may sound like a lot, it is...figures out to 1.3 oz per GALLON!

[danno]

the part I left out is the ongoing evaluation after it's done fermenting. you'll need to sit down and review your beer (and since this is a clone, do a side by side comparison). and then modify your next recipe. does it need more/less crystal? more/less malt profile? does it need more aroma hops? does it need more bitterness?

1.3 oz per gallon? I think above I'm at 1.2 oz/gal, so if you really wanted to be accurate, another half oz of hops either at flameout or a dry hop would get you to 1.3 oz/gal...

[Mad Scientist]

The bottle was clear at 2.5 pounds per barrel....

[Mad Scientist]

Next time you drink a homebrew, raise your glass to Jimmy Carter, who on October 14, 1978 signed the bill legalizing home brewing.

Was this so that we would have an alternative to the wildly successful Billy Beer?:D