Servings
Font
Back
5.0 from 21 votes

Juniper Wild Ale

This is a red ale with moderate carbonation, a slight bit of tartness -- but not enough to make it a true sour -- and with strong aromas of juniper, with a backnote of pine. I am still primarily an extract brewer, but feel free to modify this to be an all-grain ale if you want to. One alternative in terms of malt is to use Munich instead of Maris Otter, which I did in the first incarnation of this beer. Note that the yeast on my juniper berries is slow and steady, so you should not need a blow-off tube.

Prep Time
1 hr
Cook Time
1 hr
Total Time
2 hrs
Servings: 3 gallons
Course: Drinks
Cuisine: American

Ingredients

  • 3.15 pounds Maris Otter extract (56%)
  • 1.25 pounds rye malt extract (22%)
  • 1 pound dry light extract (17.7%)
  • 4 ounces Special B malt (4.5%)
  • 28 grams Fuggles hops, added at 60 minutes to go in the boil
  • 1 Whirlfloc tablet, added at 10 minutes to go (helps clarify beer)
  • 60 grams juniper berries, half added with 5 minutes to go, half added at knockout
  • 58 grams chopped pine needles, added at knockout
  • 1 quart juniper starter
  • 1 ounce oak chips, boiled for 1 minute first
  • 6 teaspoons 88% Lactic acid (optional)

Instructions

    Cup of Yum
  1. Steep the Special B malt. Put the malt into a grain bag or tie it up loosely in cheesecloth and cover it with 3 quarts of water. Bring this to 155°F to 165°F over medium heat and hold it at this temperature for 1 hour. Remove the bag and set it over the pot in a strainer. Pour 2 quarts of water heated to 170°F over it to rinse the grain. Let the bag drain for 10 minutes, then remove. Discard the grain or feed it to animals.
  2. Start the boil. Add 2 more gallons of water to the pot and bring this to a boil. Add the hops and set the timer for 1 hour.
  3. With 30 minutes to go, add all the extracts and stir well.
  4. If you are using it, add the Whirlfloc to the boil along with the wort chiller, if you have one. This will sanitize the chiller.
  5. With 5 minutes to go, add half the juniper berries.
  6. Knockout. Turn off the heat and add the final addition of juniper berries along with the chopped pine needles.
  7. Crash chill the wort. Use your wort chiller to chill the wort back to 75°F or cooler, depending on how warm your tap water is. Or, put the pot in a cooler with lots of ice water in it. Use a clean spoon to create a whirlpool in the wort, which will help it chill faster. Hopefully you will see gnarly bits in the wort that look like egg drop soup, or separating miso in soup: That's cold crash trub, and seeing it means you will have a clearer beer.
  8. Move the wort to the fermentor. Add the juniper yeast starter to the fermentor; I use a glass carboy. Pour the contents of the pot through a sanitized strainer into the fermentor. If the strainer gets all gunked up with trub, remove it before continuing. Put a sanitized airlock on the fermentor and put the beer in a place where it can ferment cool, ideally 66°F to 69°F. Leave it there for 2 weeks.
  9. Add the boiled oak chips to a new sanitized carboy and rack the beer into it. I do this only if there is a lot of crud in the fermentor. If it's OK, I just add the oak chips to the primary fermentor. Either way, let the beer finish fermenting for 10 more days.
  10. Bottle or keg the beer. If you are bottling, you want to add enough priming sugar to the batch to get about 2 volumes of CO2, about 1.8 ounces or 51 grams for 3 gallons. Add the lactic acid to the bottling bucket. Bottle condition the ale 2 weeks before opening the first bottle. This beer ages well.