Bottling and Blending Woxbic

Have barrel, will age beer

DIY Barrel Transfer tool from Milk the Funk Wiki

After four long years, it’s time to blend and package my first Woxbic beer.
I struggled quite a bit on the blending ratio. Too many variables to take
into account: the volume of beer I could produce to replace what goes into the
blend, the number and size of the barrels I already have, the volume to package,
and ultimately, how the blend would taste.

where did you get that shed? what have you got in your shed?

Transferring Year 1 Woxbic from barrel into a keg

In order to ensure I did have some of year 2 blend left, I needed to limit the
total volume I packaged. The result was that I was going to have quite a bit of
year 3 left over and that I’d need a new barrel to fill for going forward since
I was not also ready to package what would be left in year 3 barrel. Eventually
I settled on a 60/30/10 of Year1/Year2/Year3 ratio, similar to what Jester King
did with their recently released lambic-inspired, Méthode Gueuze beers. I
packaged approximately 10 gallons of blended beer. That works out direclty to 1
gallon of three year old, three gallons of two year and six gallons of one year.

Don't mind the fancy photos

Year 3 and Year 2 barrels transferring into keg for blending.

Year two and year one blends will remain in-barrel (without a top off) for next
year’s blend, and year 3 will have 9 gallons left to package separately. I’m
planning on blending that with some fruits for a cuvee style release as well.

For the actual transfer of the beer, I was excited to use a constructed barrel
transfer tool fashioned after the industry tools, like a Bulldog or
Rack-It-Teer, this was put together by some homebrewers on Milk-the-Funk
community.

The transfers from barrel to keg went flawlessly. A bit of CO2 to push and the
beer flowed quickly into the keg. After collecting all of the volumes, each was
pushed via CO2 into the Chronical where it was recirculated with some bottling
sugar.

Shiny!

Recirculating the blend in the Chronical

Bottling with the Last Straw was nice. The ergonomics of holding the Last Straw
are very nice in comparision to the Blichmann Beergun. I do wish the Last Straw
had a larger diameter for beer. It was designed for already carbonated beer, so
I can understand why the line is small. But for uncarbonated beer, it would be
nice to fill faster.

Gonna need a new table son!

The weight of the line let the bottle fit itself slowly; that was handy for a single person operation.

With the bottling complete, I now have 6 to 9 months to wait to see how the beer
changes in the bottle. I’ll post some pictures and tasting notes later this
year.

And some fantastic beer to celebrate the occasion.

Blueberries!

Dat Crooked Stave!

Some like it hot!

parafin_waxed_barrel_side-1024x768

Quite a departure from what we normally do but my good friend Mark Hamzy has been playing with using Jester King’s mixed culture in many places, including making hot sauce!  Mark shared with me his first small batch and it was a resounding success. Full of hatch and smokey flavor, noticeable sour bite; oh and hot!  Mark asked me, how can we make it bigger this time?

Why not do 5 gallons and age it in a whiskey barrel?  Neither of us had done this before and we didn’t exactly have a recipe.  Our best guess was to come up with a ratio of hatch roasted chilis to beer and yeast.  We brewed up a smoked-malt base beer, about 4 gallons, unhopped and targeting 1.040.  While the wort was boiling we worked on de-skinning and blending up roughly two cases of freshly roasted hatch chilis.

pot_filled_with_hatch_chilis-1024x768

After we’d collected enough chili we would mix in a couple ounces of fresh wort, some of the mixed culture and then pour into the barrel via a funnel.   We’ll age this combination for many months, checking on it as we go, topping it off with both fresh mixed culture and wort to ensure we get it sour enough.

barrel_with_hatch_chilis-1024x768

Wunder Hatch

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
4 gal 90 min 0.0 IBUs 7.0 SRM 1.045 1.009 4.6 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Wild Specialty Beer 28 C 1.02 - 1.09 1 - 1.016 5 - 50 2 - 50 2 - 3 2 - 10 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsen (BestMälz) 3.5 lbs 50
Smoked Malt 3.5 lbs 50

Miscs

Name Amount min Type
Phosphoric Acid 6.50 ml 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 1.30 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Calcium Chloride 0.90 g 60 min Mash Water Agent

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Jester King Mixed Culture (0001) Jester King 83% 65°F - 77°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Saccharification 156°F 40 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Barrel Fermented Woxford’s Revenge

Dat Glycol Loop!

Jester King uses shipping containers to bottle condition upcoming beer.

Now that the Battle Shed is up, it’s time to brew a beer and ferment it within with only ambient temperate to control it. I’ve had three beers age in one of my 5 gallon Balcones Whiskey barrel and have been waiting to have the shed ready to bottle the previous batch (Quad Damage) and then brew and prepare a Boxer’s Revenge inspired clone.

I brewed a test-batch earlier this year and the Boxer’s clone came out very nice. Slightly under carbed due to testing out new bottling method (pre-packaging yeast in gelatin caps) which worked well but needed a bit more sugar to get the right level. The taste and aroma were spot on. The only real concern was that it needed quite a bit more oak to make it more like Boxer’s. For this batch I’ll ferment it and again it entirely in the oak barrel.

Nothing special in the recipe besides using the Jester King mixed culture. Note: Mash @ 150F for 75 minutes. Enjoy!

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
6 gal 90 min 22.4 IBUs 7.5 SRM 1.089 SG 1.009 SG 10.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Wild Specialty Beer 28 C 1.02 - 1.09 1 - 1.016 5 - 50 2 - 50 2 - 3 2 - 10 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsen (BestMälz) 16 lbs 71.11
Wheat Malt, Ger 5 lbs 22.22
Pale Moon (Blacklands) 1 lbs 4.44
Caramunich Malt 0.5 lbs 2.22

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Styrian Goldings 2.12 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 3
Cascade 1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 5.9
Centennial 1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 11.4

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Jester King Culture (0001) Jester King 86% 50°F - 90°F