Rye wine partigyle

I'm in the mood to do something a little wierd. I'm doing a rye-heavy barleywine/saison partigyle.
63% 17.75 lbs 2 row
32% 9 lbs Rye Malt
5% 1.25 lbs Crystal 20 (Any thoughts on the need for crystal? The rye malt I will be using is 4L)
Bittered to ~60 IBU with american goldings.
I'll throw some rice hulls in the mash tun and I'll also probably throw a lb of demerera sugar into the boil.
The mash schedule will be modeled after Bobby M's barleywine, found here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f74/her-majestys-pleasure-fusion-barleywine-awards-123451/
I'll pitch onto a cake of US-05.

Should I cap the mash with something for the small beer (ry-heavy saison, bittered with hallertauer or saaz)? I was thinking perhaps a pound of special b.

I would highly recommend a beta glucan rest. Without one, you may end up with syrup. The mouth feel will be so big as to be difficult to drink.

cool, I'll let you guys know how it turns out then.

Thats alot of malt. I'm curious about your mashing and sparging schedule.

gxm said:

Thats alot of malt. I'm curious about your mashing and sparging schedule.

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nm, I missed your link to Bobby M's recipe.
According to my spreadsheet, a pound of specialty malt will get your small beer ~1.050 with a color of ~18 srm.
Special B sounds good, though that seems alot of it with the C120 in a small beer.

I capped the mash with a half pound of special b and a quarter pound of carafa II.
The first runnings went well, got about 5.5 gallons of 1.116 after adding 1.5 lbs of demerera to the boil. Pitched it a cake of US-05, and it was blowing off in less than 2 hours. Solid, crazy, violent fermentation.
Small beer came out kind of ****ty. The mash stuck like a son of a *****. After about 45 minutes of stirring, I had only gotten about 3.5 gallons of 1.050sh out before the braid in my MLT tore and the mash just completely stuck up. It was almost midnight at this point, so I just topped the kettle off to 6 gallons, added a pound and a half of sage honey and started the boil. Got 5 gallons of 1.038, first-wort (second wort?) hopped with 2oz perle. Pitched WL565 at 1:20am, no starter. Krausen by morning. May add some DME to the fermentor in a few days, depending on how I feel.

Long, long day. My advice is to think long and hard about starting a partigyle after lunchtime. Set your alarm and start the strike water at 6am.
Also, making a barleywine-strength beer with a 6.25 gallon brew kettle is a pain in the ass like nothing I've experienced, and a flat out impossibility without foam control drops. My girlfriend manned the stove inside, with 2/3 of a gallon on each burner for about 45 minutes to an hour.

maskednegator said:

I capped the mash with a half pound of special b and a quarter pound of carafa II.
The first runnings went well, got about 5.5 gallons of 1.116 after adding 1.5 lbs of demerera to the boil. Pitched it a cake of US-05, and it was blowing off in less than 2 hours. Solid, crazy, violent fermentation.

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What temperature was the wort when you racked onto the yeast cake?

A little under 80F. The carboy was put immediately into a bath of sub 50F tap water.

Might want to dry hop that with some aspirin

Fusel alcohol levels will be high

Thanks for the snide remark. Thermometer read 65 when it was blowing off. I'm not worried.

maskednegator said:

Thanks for the snide remark. Thermometer read 65 when it was blowing off. I'm not worried.

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You should be

Most esters are produced VERY early on in fermentation.

http://www.fermentis.com/FO/pdf/HB/EN/Safale_US-05_HB.pdf
Safale recomends 59 to 75 Farenheit. I pitched on the high end and it came to an equilibrium on the mid-low end in less than an hour.
Do you understand that the 65 F temp wasn't the ambient temp of the room, but the measured temp of the fermenting beer?

maskednegator said:

http://www.fermentis.com/FO/pdf/HB/EN/Safale_US-05_HB.pdf
Safale recomends 59 to 75 Farenheit. I pitched on the high end and it came to an equilibrium on the mid-low end in less than an hour.
Do you understand that the 65 F temp wasn't the ambient temp of the room, but the measured temp of the fermenting beer?

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Yes but I also understand that with 80 degree wort you probably gained 5-6 degrees before the wort got back down to 65.

So your basic theory is that, in the 5 minutes it took me to put 5.5 gallons of ~75 degree wort into an 11 gallon, 50 degree water bath, the temperature rocketed to 85F and ruined my beer, before dropping down to 65 degrees 30 to 40 minutes later. Furthermore, esters and fusels are the same thing, and they both cause hangovers.

What were you measuring the wort temperature with?

maskednegator said:

So your basic theory is that, in the 5 minutes it took me to put 5.5 gallons of ~75 degree wort into an 11 gallon, 50 degree water bath, the temperature rocketed to 85F and ruined my beer, before dropping down to 65 degrees 30 to 40 minutes later. Furthermore, esters and fusels are the same thing, and they both cause hangovers.

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You should be fine.
Worrying about fusels, etc after the fact isn't going to do a thing. Either you have them or you don't. Either way you'll want to age a big beer like this.

babalu87 said:

What were you measuring the wort temperature with?

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A calibrated thermometer. Go **** on someone else's thread.

gxm said:

You should be fine.
Worrying about fusels, etc after the fact isn't going to do a thing. Either you have them or you don't. Either way you'll want to age a big beer like this.

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Agreed. The first bottle will be opened on my birthday, in late June. The second will be opened on Thanksgiving.

maskednegator said:

A calibrated thermometer. Go **** on someone else's thread.

Agreed. The first bottle will be opened on my birthday, in late June. The second will be opened on Thanksgiving.

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Was the calibrated thermometer in the wort itself?

I often chill to 75 or so and then rack from the kettle to a carboy
I then put the carboy into a swamp cooler to get to pitching temperatures
This takes at least an hour and my water temp in the swamp cooler is in the 30's.

I guess the asprin comment was too much, for that I apologize but I am trying to help you here also.

I'm pretty sure I would have noticed high fusels on the other beers that I've brewed in identical fashion. There are so many different variables between your system and mine that it is not worth comparing.
When you say "Fusels will be high, wait no esters will be high, wait how did you measure your temperature?" you aren't helping, you're trying to be a snarky know it all.

The rye wine finished at 1.020 for 12.6% abv. Thief sample was not estery, not cloying, and hid the booze really well, but the mouthfeel was a lot thicker than 1.020 would indicate. It drinks like a 1.035, 6-7% beer.
Next time:
Protien rest. This was solid advice that I should not have ignored.
Change up yeast. It's still young, but I like a small element of dark fruit in my barleywines, and I think overpitching on a clean American yeast wasn't the best idea. Very few fruity esters. Oxidation from the extended aging may turn this around though.

Added 3 lbs of light DME to the saison and it is doing the "stuck" at 1.020 thing. I'm giving it time and heat, now that the rye wine is out of my water bath.