Rye Wine

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whatsleftofyou

Third Eye Pried Wide
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This is more of a concept than anything at this point but I'd like some feedback. We've all heard of barleywine and wheatwine, but what about ryewine? I looked on BeerAdvocate and found that it's been done by three different breweries, but all were one-offs. I'm thinking along the lines of a hybrid imperial roggenbier/english barleywine. Here's what I have at the moment:

10lb Rye Malt (45.5%)
7lb Munich (31.8%)
4lb Pilsner (18.2%)
1lb CaraMunich (4.5%)
1lb Rice Hulls

1.5oz Nugget @60min
1oz Fuggle @30min
1oz Fuggle @15min
1oz Fuggle @10min

OG: 1.102
FG: 1.026
IBU: 67.5

I'm definitely going to do a protein rest, then a sacch rest at 150 maybe? I'm assuming 70% efficiency but I've never done a beer this big before so I might bump everything a bit. For yeast I'm thinking of pitching on a cake of US-04. Thoughts???
 
I've done a wheatwine and a roggenbier. I'm working on a Rye & Wheatwine myself. Yours looks good. I would do an acid rest and use lots of rice hulls. It's a nasty sparge!
 
I've never done an acid rest before, or even tested the pH of my mash. From what I've read on this previously this is only for under-modified malts. Are you saying I should do one because my mash pH will be too high or because of all the rye? Thanks for the input.
 
Did you actually make it a year ago or it fell to the side?

I have a ton of rye that I never really ended up using. I was actually considering giving it to my friend, but I think I'll do this with you instead. What do you think of these changes:

10lb Rye Malt
8lb Vienna
.5lb C60
1lb Rice Hulls

For hops, I'm going to use glacier at 60min and 15min. Gonna shoot for 40 IBU's.

(I don't have my BeerAlchemy to punch this in for numbers right now).

What you think?
 
Sounds good. With that much rye I would like to age it for at least 3-4 months. I have other grains on hand, I just think the pilsner would be overpowered and not worth using. Do you have anything else in mind?
 
Just noticed this thread and thought I'd throw in my 2 cents about the Roggenwein I made last year:

NZ Pilsner Malt (45%)
Weyermann Rye Malt (45%)
Baird's Dark Caramalt [90EBC] (5%)
Baird's Dark Crystal [230EBC] (2.5%)
Weyermann Melanoiden (2.5%)

Mash Schedule:
30 mins @ 42.0C Beta Glucanase rest
60 mins @ 66.5C Saccharification

Boil for 120 mins
50IBU Chinook @ 60
0.4g/L each Chinook and Fuggles @ 20 and 5

O.G. = 1.100, F.G = 1.015
11.1%ABV
60IBU

Fermented with US05

The brew was very difficult and very messy.
Even with the beta glucan rest, even though I do BIAB, lautering was hellish. Forewarned as I was, I still couldn't believe how gummy and syrupy the wort was. I ended up basically wringing it out of the grain bag by hand.

I also had to used so much water to sparge that I collected a ton of runnings and had to boil for two hours to get back down to the volume I was looking for. There was a tiny bit of scorching on the bottom of the pot, presumably having something to do with the viscosity.

The mash and sweet wort had a very interesting spicy/grainy/porridge-y aroma. The hopped wort tasted sweet, nutty, grainy and smooth. The taste and aroma of the hop combo were promising too.

The wort going into the fermenter more or less retained the syrupy nature of what went into the kettle. I hit my gravity spot on if I believe the hydrometer, but given the texture of the liquid, I'm not sure I should.

Some 6 months on I tried the first bottle: Still incredibly viscous. Bubbles struggled to make their way to the top of the glass. Alcohol-y, grainy, dusty nose. Little sign of the hops (not enough effervescence to lift their aromas out perhaps?)

Very pronounced nutty, grainy, rye-flake porridge flavour.
Super-chewy mouthfeel. Made my 1.040 FG black barleywine seem light-bodied.

Seemed oddly dry. Probably because any other beer I've ever had with anything approaching this viscosity has been a very sweet Barleywine or Imperial Stout.

Would I make it again? Probably not. Am I glad I made it this once? Yes.
 
Some 6 months on I tried the first bottle: Still incredibly viscous. Bubbles struggled to make their way to the top of the glass. Alcohol-y, grainy, dusty nose. Little sign of the hops (not enough effervescence to lift their aromas out perhaps?)

Very pronounced nutty, grainy, rye-flake porridge flavour.
Super-chewy mouthfeel. Made my 1.040 FG black barleywine seem light-bodied.

Seemed oddly dry. Probably because any other beer I've ever had with anything approaching this viscosity has been a very sweet Barleywine or Imperial Stout.

Would I make it again? Probably not. Am I glad I made it this once? Yes.

Maybe it just needs more aging. Did you repitch? I always repitch with 1118 when I want to carb up a barley wine.
 
Maybe it just needs more aging. Did you repitch? I always repitch with 1118 when I want to carb up a barley wine.

It had actually carbed fine... the issue with the bubbles, effervescence etc., was just that it was SO viscous that the ~2 volumes of CO2 it had didn't provide the same "sprightlyness" that they would in a normal beer.

As I say, there isn't anything actually wrong with it. Indeed, it's a very interesting beer. Just that for the amount of trouble involved I wouldn't be keen to do it again.
 
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