biterness slightly high, I want to lager this beer. Styrian goldings' spiciness well accommodated by dubbel and quadrupel.
Should be not too dark, rather deep brown.
huge dark fruits, prunes, raisins, figs, dates, grapes. Slight oakiness.
Focus on the quality of candy sugar! Dark fruits come from there, only followed by caramel from malt.
Perhaps exchange some pale ale to lighten the color and accommodate more specialty malt.
Keep the grain bill simple, most of the color comes from caramelized sugar (but not burnt!). don't be afraid of long boil - 120-150 min to enrich in melanoidins.
Fermentation temp. Start at 14C, increase over 14 days to 25C. Secondary at 10C for 6weeks . Fill the south african rum barrel and age for 9 weeks. Bottle condition for 12 months.
Yielded 30L of wort at 1.084 before candy syrup addition. Efficiency 83%.
Notes after fermentation: After 15 days of primary d = 1.021. Secondary in the room at 16C. Yeast look very healthy.
after additional 10 days(17.10.2015), gravity still 1.021. Racked off to a glass carboy, brandy-oak wood added and 0.5g of potassium metabisulfite.
03.05.2016. Still sitting in the carboy with wood. D = 1.011 (check before bottling). pH 4.4. estimated 11%