Wee Angel's Share?

greetings once again,

So i brewed a pretty big barleywine about 6 months ago that clocked in at just over 13% abv after a 4 week, rather vigorous primary fermentation, settling at a nice terminal gravity of 1.024.

its been in a 5 gallon better bottle carboy for 5 months now at cellar temp (55-60 degrees, good humidity). As i prepare to bottle it in a few weeks, Im wondering if anyone has ever noticed some volume loss in very big beers left to bulk age in carboys due to ethanol evaporation?

or is 13% still too low to be an issue.

in about 2 weeks or so when i bottle and take another gravity reading, we'll have an answer, but im wondering if anyone else has experienced rage at the loss of the Angel's Share from your precious brew.

Cheers

nope...I've got a bigger barleywine sitting in a tertirary for going on 2 years, and it's still the same volume I began with....

If you have an airlock I doubt any would escape.

5 months is a long time in plastic. I hope it didn't absorb any oxygen. I know they say that better bottles are not oxygen permeable but I don't really believe it.

I do my bulk aging in a ss keg.

and so as Revvy speaketh, so shall it be done.

thanks man, good to know.

as for the O2 pickup, I was a little wary of that myself. I guess we'll see when i start cracking bottles sometime in November.

as, while im a fan of a well aged, and slightly oxidized old ale or barleywine, i'd rather not have this come out tasting like drywall left out in the rain.

Typically the angel's share was a quirk of using wooden barrels and casks. The wood would absorb some of the whisky or beer. Plastic or glass, as long as the seal is air tight, shouldn't have the same problems.