A smoked beer for Thanksgiving

Brewer’s Notes

Trying to keep the momentum moving, and now using filtered water, I thought I’d put together a smoked version of Otter Creek Copper. I forgot that the last time I brewed this recipe I thought it was only so-so. Maybe this will be better.

Brew went smoothly, reasonably. Had to use the large pot for the sparge water, meaning wort was transferred quite a bit to manage sparge. Added a pinch of campden (KSO2) to try and de-chlorinate the water, then used bottled water to top it off. Mash was +/- 4F. Sample was poured out of carboy and was very light, ~1.020, this can’t be correct, guessing we got just the unmixed water from the top. Could not get a good read on OG as a result.

Fermenter target was 68F.

FG: 1.014 @ 54F, target 1.013

Fermenting Notes

Smelled chlorinated, but no taste. A bit overdone on the smoke, but that may come out with age. Not as much body as I’d like, either. Flavors are a bit muddied. Will carbonate and cool, hopefully they will sharpen up. Not getting the same roasted barley as last time, due to smoke? Does not seem to have fermented as far as necessary, either.

Primary

smoked_copper_ale_primary

Secondary

smoked_copper_ale_secondary

Tasting Notes

10.29.17 1.020 @ 68F
Smelled chlorinated, but no taste. A bit overdone on the smoke, but that may come out with age. Not as much body as I’d like, either. Flavors are a bit muddied. Will carbonate and cool, hopefully they will sharpen up. not getting the same roasted barley as last time, due to smoke? Does not seem to have fermented as far as we want as well.

We emptied the keg around new year’s. It was well-received at parties, but was a bit hard to distinguish from the Simple Cascade IPA, oddly. Don’t think we’ll do this again.

Recipe