Jester King Brewery: Das Uberkind clone

Jester King Brewery: Das Uberkind clone

(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.038 FG = 0.999
IBU = 12 SRM = 3   ABV = 5%

“Das Uberkind is our most used and versatile barrel-aged beer. We blend it with fresh, hoppy beer to make Das Wunderkind! We use it as the base beer for most of our fruit refermentation beers, and we also package it as a standalone beer.” – Garrett Cromwell,  Head Brewer, Jester King Brewery

Ingredients
6.8 lbs. (3.1 kg) 2-row pale malt or Pilsner malt
0.66 lb. (300 g) unmalted wheat
0.33 lb. (150 g) dark Munich malt
0.33 lb. (150 g) flaked oats
3 AAU Golding hops (60 min.) (0.6 oz./17 g at 5% alpha acids)
Wine-soaked oak staves or cubes (prior use is preferred)
Wyeast 3711 (French Saison) yeast
Wyeast 3724 (Belgian Saison) or White Labs WLP565 (Belgian Saison I) yeast
Wild inoculated bugs from local fruits or flowers
3/4 cup (150 g) dextrose (if priming)

Step by Step
Mash at 154–158 °F (68–70 °C) for 45 minutes using 3 gallons (11 L) strike water. Mash out, vorlauf, and then sparge at 170 °F (77 °C) to collect 6 gallons (23 L). Boil for 60 minutes adding hops at the beginning of the boil. After the boil is finished, chill the wort and oxygenate well. Rack to your fermenter. Pitch the yeast and bacteria and ferment at 78 °F (26 °C) for two weeks. For wood-aging, Jester King generally primary ferments in either stainless or an oak foudre before sending it to smaller, 225-L barrels. Mostly they use neutral wine barrels and find that very subtle oak character complements this delicate beer. You can try to simulate this at home by using oak cubes or staves that have been used once or twice and that have also been soaked in wine. Secondary fermentation takes place at 55–62 °F (13–17 °C). Average fermentation/aging for Das Uberkind is eight to 24 months. Then keg or bottle as you normally would.

Partial mash option:
Reduce the 2-row pale malt in the all-grain recipe to 1 lb. (0.41 kg) and add 3 lbs. (1.36 kg) Pilsen dried malt extract. Mash crushed grains at 154–158 °F (68–70 °C) for 45 minutes using 1 gallon (3.8 L) water. Wash the grains with 1 gallon (3.8 L) hot water. Top off to 6 gallons (23 L) and add the dried malt extract. Stir well then bring to a boil for 60 minutes. Follow the remaining portion of the all-grain recipe.

Tips for Success:
Head Brewer Garrett Cromwell has the following bits of advice to add to the mix: “The specialty malts like Munich, and then flaked oats, rotate based on what we have around the brewery. Sometimes we’ll use spelt, or Maris Otter, or malted wheat etc. For the hops, lately we’ve been adding aged hops for about 30% of our total hop volume with great results. Also we use 100% unaltered well water for all of our beer. It’s pretty high in bicarbonates, but we absolutely love it. For yeast, we use a mixed culture of different yeast and bacteria for all fermentations. These include Dupont yeast, and Thiriez saison yeast, along with a multitude of yeast and bacteria from flowers around our brewery, spontaneous fermentation slurries, etc. These were all blended together one time, and have been evolving as a cohesive culture since being used in our brewery. We maintain this culture in-house. Bottle dregs from any of our beers would be best to approximate the fermentation character we achieve.”