Swift Currant Clone

[feldmann]

Grabbed the Canada 150 pack on the weekend and I'm about halfway through it. I really enjoyed Yukon Brewing's Swift Currant. So much so that I emailed them and they gave me the recipe! I thought this would be a perfect beer for the warmer months when I crave something a little darker and roasty but still nice and refreshing. The only thing he didn't give me was the yeast. It had decent body but I didn't perceive many esters, it tasted pretty clean. He also said that they used natural black currant concentrate. I haven't started looking for it yet but if anyone has any input on the concentrate, yeast selection or recipe as a whole I would love to hear it!

Batch Size: 5.5 Gal
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.011
Estimated ABV: 5.1%
IBU: 20.4
SRM: 19

3.6 kg Maris Otter
325g Brown Malt
325g Wheat Malt
235g Honey Malt
140g Chocolate Malt

17g El Dorado (15%) @20min

SafAle English Ale S-04

350g Black Currant Concentrate (based on 65 brix, might change depending on what I find) added just before attenuation (probably 3-4 days into primary?)

Mash @65C for 60 mins

[feldmann]

Found some of this stuff at scoop and save. Listed as a black currant concentrate, perfect right?

About ready to mash in when I decide to take a gravity reading of the concentrate for curiosity. Turns out my hydrometer and refractometer only go to 35 brix. Whoops. Looks like I'll just add the 350g and hope I get it right, haha.

[shazapple]

You could dilute it with water to get something that will register on your meter, then back calculate to figure out the gravity of the juice.

[feldmann]

Just kegged it today. Since I've started batch sparging I've been way overshooting my numbers and this was no exception. I got an OG of 1.060 and it finished at an ABV of 6.3%. Because of this its a little boozier and not as light as I would have wanted but I think with some additional aging it will be perfect. Its still pretty close to the mark for what I was going for in terms of flavour profile. Fruity and roasty but not to the point that either overpower the other.

[ECH]

Interesting, this might be good in a saison as well. 

[feldmann]

Interesting, this might be good in a saison as well.

Hmmm...you might be right. I've always wanted to try a dark saison and I still have a big bottle of this stuff to use.

[ECH]

When are you putting this in? Secondary? During fermentation? Or just before kegging?

[feldmann]

I added it around 4 days into primary. The brewer told me they added it just before attenuation and I wasn't really sure how to accurately measure that so I went for when fermentation appeared to slow down.