Help with a Big Barleywine based off my Ipswich Ale recipe

Hi all,

I'm considering brewing up and putting away a big barleywine for wintertime drinking before the temps heat up too much and confuse my brewing.

I currently have a batch of my Refugee Ale* in the primary, and it's ready for either a secondary, or bottling (about 3 weeks in primary). It'll probably go to the secondary for a nice dry hopping prior to bottling. But... I have a big cake of yeast, that would work just fine to start off a Barleywine version.

Help me scale this up! I know it'll change the tastes away from the traditional brew, and I've brewed an 8% version of this, which pretty damn good... needs more time in the bottles (if there is any left). It's been tough to keep my hands off of them.

Help me go BIG. Help me go hoppy!

I don't mind doing loads of grains (towards PM), but my equipment is simple (5gal kettle, with chiller once I actually put the parts together)

I'd certainly consider any wild ideas here as well... adding a load of wheat to this, etc...

* Standard Refugee Ale recipe. This is a clone of "Ipswich Ale," and it pretty close, I'm still tweaking details.

6.6 lb light LME
.5 lbs 40 L Crystal
.25 lb Munich
.75 oz Galena (boil)
1 oz Willamette (finish)
Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast (This time, I'm using easYeast American Ale yeast, a local NH based yeast)
O.G 1.052
FG 1.013 ABV 5.2%
(Qbrew gives 38 Bitterness. Not sure how to calculate IBU, or standard readings)

How big of a mash can you do? I've been thinking about something a little out of the ordinary that you might appreciate...

I have a 5 gallon (20 quart) kettle.

I have strainers... I have no tuns, sparge plumbing, nor interest in building a large kit.

I also know nothing about PM, but always have some steeped grains in my recipes.

Can you aerate your wort? Do you have access to O2?

Will you be pitching on a yeast cake, or making a starter?

Would you be willing/able to spend $25 on a small partial mash set up that isn't much larger than a shoebox? What about $10 for something that will fit inside your tennis shoe? If you own a cooler, you can mash in it with no modification to the cooler and probably less than $10 in parts. Or you could use a bucket and achieve the same... For $25 you could build this... Mini 2 gallon MLT. For $10, you could just buy the hardware (plus some extra tubing) and if you aren't too fussy about temps, do a mash in a plastic bucket that you already have.

Give us some examples of other beers you like...

I usually aerate with a vigorous pour from the kettle to carboy, then add tap water to bring to 5 gal. I also generally give a VERY vigorous whisk to the wort pre-pour into the carboy. No O2... yet (see next line)

I'm not sure I can get any more equipment at this point, SWMBO may not like that, regardless of expense. But, I might be able to sneak the cooler/mini MLT into the setup.

I'm a fan of pretty much every beer I've had, though stouts/porters are not my favorites, Guiness is good, but many that I've had aren't to my liking.. I'm also not a big fan of nut-browns, as I find them too sweet. I like my beer big, bold, hoppy, and on the bitter side.

For this brew, if I can figure out a recipe/process by Friday or so, it'd be pitched onto a yeast cake that'll be 3 weeks in primary on Saturday (perhaps 4, can't remember exactly). I was thinking of somehow just scaling up the recipe in the OP to take advantage of this.

Ok, for your methods, forget much over 9%ABV and you'd better have a good yeast cake built up or you can forget about this... Here's my suggestion, very much in the British (bitter) style of barleywine... How does 11 ounces of hops sound?

9 pounds Light LME (added at the last 10 minutes of boil, if you can manage it)
2.0 lbs Pale Maris Otter
0.5 lbs Carapils
2 lbs crystal 40
0.5 lb clear candy sugar

1 oz EKG @60
1 oz Fuggles @60
1 oz EKG @ 45
1 oz EKG @ 30
1 oz Fuggles @ 20
1 oz EKG @ 15
1 oz Fuggles @10
1 oz EKG @ 5
1 oz Fuggles @ 0
2 oz Fuggles Dryhop

OG 1.089
FG 1.020
70.8 IBU's
9.0% ABV

Other Notes:
Re-Aerate the wort after 24-48 hours. Without using pure O2, you're really going to be challenging the yeast.
Dry hop in secondary.
Age in bottles for at least 6-8 months


Feel free to substitute Willamette for Fuggles. I would avoid the Galena at such high bitterness levels as I understand that it tends to start tasting a little bit off at high IBU's.

I'd like to do a barleywine as well and much prefer the english style, so your recipe looks attractive toot. What kind of boil size is that recipe for? I normally do partial boils...

With 11oz. hops, I'd assume its for a partial boil, but what do I know? And I still don't know if its 1.5g, 2g, 3g, or more...

*Aside* - This is the one thing that always seems to bother me when people post recipes with no boil volumes, etc. I'm sure I could figure out the boil volume by plugging the recipe into my beersmith software and messing with boil volume until I hit that IBU (although that is difficult, if not nearly impossible due to the late addition of extract and no way to compensate in beersmith for it), but just curious why noone ever posts the boil volumes for their recipes as it greatly effects hop utilization, etc. Or is it just assumed to be a full boil unless noted otherwise? I can see some recipes turning out veryyyy bad if you brewed something meant for a partial boil as full or vice versa. For example, I needed to use about 7oz. of hops or so for an IPA I made using partial boil, however if I used the same amount in a full boil it would have been very excessively bitter and out of balance.

Toot said:

9 pounds Light LME (added at the last 10 minutes of boil, if you can manage it)
2.0 lbs Pale Maris Otter
0.5 lbs Carapils
2 lbs crystal 40
0.5 lb clear candy sugar

Click to expand...

If you're going to use the Maris Otter, I think you'll have to mash it. I only say this b/c it's listed as Mash Required on the malts chart (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Malts_Chart).

Moon

I assumed it would be a partial mash. That's a mash as far as the grains are concerned. I guess I'm trying to push the OP towards that mini-MLT.

As for the batch size, it's 5 gallons. And I figured the IBU's for a full boil Note the 70-something IBU's. Hey. He said he likes it hoppy.


With that said, I never brewed the recipe... just worked it up over about 10 minutes in brewsmith.

Cheers!

Toot said:

I assumed it would be a partial mash. That's a mash as far as the grains are concerned. I guess I'm trying to push the OP towards that mini-MLT.

As for the batch size, it's 5 gallons. And I figured the IBU's for a full boil Note the 70-something IBU's. Hey. He said he likes it hoppy.

<snip>
Cheers!

Click to expand...

5gal batch, or 5 gal boil? Not much room to maneuver with regard to boilover in my 5 gal kettle.

I'm assuming 5 gal batch, with no comment on boil size (usually I'm doing 2-3gal).

Otherwise, the recipe looks interesting... And the mini-MLT is alos a possibility. (Can you provide the instructions on use as they regard to this recipe as well? I'm completely new to PM)

"As for the batch size, it's 5 gallons. And I figured the IBU's for a *full boil*"

My kettle holds 5.5 gallons. I do 5 gallon batches, but I cheat a little. I hold back about a gallon of the wort. With 30 minutes left, I add it. Sure, that wort doesn't get the full 1 hour boil, but it's a somewhat small percentage of the wort and it does boil for 30 minutes which, though not ideal, is perfectly adequate. I'm doing all grain here, but there would be nothing keeping a Partial Masher from just adding a gallon of water at the end. Sure, it will reduce your hops utilization a little, but not as much as if you were only boiling 2 gallons or something.

Sorry I didn't give the "full" details of my recipe. I was pressed for time. Remember, that recipe is just something I threw together based on my meager experience, which I thought would fit the bill. It's based upon my knowledge of british beers in general and barleywines, mostly gleaned from BarleyWine by Fal Allen, and Designing Great Beers, as well as my taste tests. I think it would make a unique and pleasing beer.

SilkkyBrew said:

I'd like to do a barleywine as well and much prefer the english style, so your recipe looks attractive toot. What kind of boil size is that recipe for? I normally do partial boils...

With 11oz. hops, I'd assume its for a partial boil, but what do I know? And I still don't know if its 1.5g, 2g, 3g, or more...

Click to expand...

High gravity reduces the perceived bitterness. There's a lot of malty sweetness to fight through. So 70-some IBU's in a barleywine isn't too insane. Besides, this beer will be aged and hops bitterness diminishes substantially with age, so that needs to be taken into account. The beer you bottle will not be the beer you drink in 6 months. Also, the OP stated he like hoppy beers. I would personally place the bar to the definition of hoppy somewhere around 35-40 IBU's. This is more intense, but not out of line given the higher strength and longer aging.

Remember too, these hops are all fairly low alpha acid. It's not like I'm loading it up with Northern Brewer and Amarillo or something. So the beer should get a nice good hop flavor that 2 or 3 ounces of any variety just wouldn't provide. I'm thinking it's not all just about bitterness. Flavor means something too.

*Aside* - This is the one thing that always seems to bother me when people post recipes with no boil volumes, etc. I'm sure I could figure out the boil volume by plugging the recipe into my beersmith software and messing with boil volume until I hit that IBU (although that is difficult, if not nearly impossible due to the late addition of extract and no way to compensate in beersmith for it), but just curious why noone ever posts the boil volumes for their recipes as it greatly effects hop utilization, etc. Or is it just assumed to be a full boil unless noted otherwise? I can see some recipes turning out veryyyy bad if you brewed something meant for a partial boil as full or vice versa. For example, I needed to use about 7oz. of hops or so for an IPA I made using partial boil, however if I used the same amount in a full boil it would have been very excessively bitter and out of balance.

Click to expand...

11 ounces in a full boil. Personally, I figure people will interpret their recipe with their own tastes in mind. Hop heads will assume a full boil, malt lovers will assume a 1 gallon boil or something. Personally, I intended a full boil, but when it comes right down to it, what do I know? I've never brewed that recipe. If the hops seem too much for you, tone them down a little...

^ I understand the concept of "matching" IBU levels to malty-sweetness levels (i.e. perceived bitterness). 70 actually doesn't seem that bad to me for a 8-9-10% brew. I really didn't take the time to figure it out based on the alpha levels of those hops, etc. 11oz. just looked like a big number, so I assumed it was to compensate for a partial boil. If it's for full boil, that's all good as well. I wasn't meaning to attack you or anything, it's just my pet peeve when people seem to never mention boil volume even though it's one of the most important aspects of a recipe. No offense bro. I plan to brew that recipe up when I get a free weekend (man does brewing become hard in summer when I have vacations, day-trips, car-meets, and tons of other stuff going on. Boo!). Thanks for posting it up!

Damn Squirrels said:

For $25 you could build this... Mini 2 gallon MLT.

Click to expand...

Well,

I bought the cooler, I've printed a photo of the parts along with the parts list. Looks like this'll be in construction soon, and in use after the next brew. I picked up the North American "CloneBrews" book, and his recipes there are all in PM, so this became the time to upgrade.

$15 for a 3gallon cooler with the same dimensions as the one you linked to...

The recipe you provided will probably be brewed this fall.

Thanks,

-Butler

Awesome!!! I'm glad to hear you're going forward with it!!!!!!

And I suppose now is a good time to discuss my fee.......

My understanding is that Barleywine and imperial stout lend themselve more to an all extract recipe due the high gravity desired and the amount you would have to reduce grain wort to get the desired concentration. I have made several imperial stouts but never a barley wine. The hops sound good to me though.

Extract makes it easier.. but AG is possible too...

It's like saying you can't make Root Beer from extract... well yeah that's sorta true, but you really can... it just takes a bit more effort... but that's always true of AG

I said that they lend themselves to extract, not that it was impossible to go AG. Anything is possible, but the guy mentioned only having 1 - 5 gallon pot. My understanding of AG is that you would need a lot more than that reduced down to 5 gallons. It could be done, but it would require doing at least 2 seperate batches and combining them after they had both reduced over a fairly long time. A fun project if you have 12 hours or so. I unfortunately do not, (Ihave 2 small childeren) so my mind works towards a more timely end. Not usually the absolute best method to be sure! But at least I get to brew!

My choice for high gravity beers is a large partial mash. I've got a 5gal cooler and 7.5gal turkey fryer which allow ~1.050 AG beers. To do my 1.096 Belgian I plan on adding 4-5# of extract and sugar.

The one problem with doing a big extract beer is that you will usually end up with a high FG unless you add sugar. With AG you can mash at a lower temp to get a more fermentable wort that should finish lower. I'm hoping by getting better than half of my fermentables from a mash I can keep my FG at a reasonable level.
Craig

cheezydemon said:

I said that they lend themselves to extract, not that it was impossible to go AG. Anything is possible, but the guy mentioned only having 1 - 5 gallon pot. My understanding of AG is that you would need a lot more than that reduced down to 5 gallons. It could be done, but it would require doing at least 2 seperate batches and combining them after they had both reduced over a fairly long time. A fun project if you have 12 hours or so.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. Another option is to use more grain, collect the mash and use that without the sparge runnings.

A normal 12 pounds of grain will get you an OG of around 1.075 or so with the mash. Usually, this is then combined with the second runnings from the sparge which dilutes it. The answer? Don't sparge.

So maybe instead of 12 pounds, you do 16 pounds of grain to get you to 1.09X or something. You don't need to collect a lot more wort. Just collect 6 gallons or so. And if your pot is 5 gallons, then boil 5 gallons down to 4, then add the last gallon of wort. It won't boil for the full hour, but I have been doing batches this way and it works well enough so long as you get a 30 minute or so boil out of it and get rid of the second hot break.



Also, if you want, (and I would strongly recommend this) you can then sparge all that grain and use the second runnings to make another, lighter, beer. That is, if you have 10 hours to make 2 batches.

I had heard of not spargeing, and it is interesting given how cheap grain is!

Could somone theoretically do AG with a large boiling bag and a huge pot? I am sure there are threads in AG but people here would like to know. Maybe I will post a new thread, but for somone to try AG cheap as possible, what are the bare bones?

Barebones would be two 5-7 gallon plastic buckets with small holes drilled in the bottom of the inner bucket.

Heat your water, add your grain, let it sit for an hour, stirring occasionally, then lift the inner bucket out and you have your wort.


Of course, there are numerous improvements to this process, but that's the barebones....

Much thanks! I think that your info is good but few extract brewers will see it here! If you don't mind I will start a new thread. PS what is with the squirrels? You don't grow peppers do you?

Nah... it's just something my mom always used to say. To this day, it gives me a chuckle.

Definitely funny!