Year In Review Barley Wine

You all know the method where you gradually add higher and higher fermentable content into a small amount of barleywine in order to keep the yeast in happy wort (around 1.050 or so)... That is, as the yeast consume the sugars, you add more...?

Well, what if you took a portion of the wort from every batch you made and just kept boiling it down and adding it to the fermenter to get the required fermentable content? In other words, you just keep adding a half gallon every time you brew... until, finally, you fill up the fermenter, at which point you rack it off and let it sit, then keep going...

This way, instead of having to "brew" a full batch of beer that you won't get to drink right away, you'll be able to kind of keep it as a little side project... just keep adding to it.

Maybe call it a Year In Review Barleywine, since it would be the beers that you made that year, all thrown together with a different yeast strain. Or maybe call it Kitchen Sink. Or something.

I'm just asking whether there are any technical issues I'm not considering here...

I may be misunderstaning something but when would you be pitching the yeast? If not until you had a full carboy of mixed worts then I'd say keeping unfermented wort around is a bad idea and would probably get infected. I think another issue you may have would be oxygenation.
Considering you pitch the yeast in the first partial pour, I think keeping the yeast healthy for a year would be quite a chore as well and you'd probably end up racking the beer a few times.

I mean you pitch the yeast with the "starter" batch. And then as the alcohol increases and the SG decreases, you add a little more wort from your next batch of beer.

I'm not even sure if you'd really need to aerate on consecutive batches. See? That there is a technical hurdle that hadn't occured to me. I have oxygen, I can aerate in a sanitary environment. Is that what I should do? Or would it be better to just pour the later wort additions without any additional aeration? Anybody have a thought about that?

Sounds like a pretty cool idea, I might consider doing it. At least when it seemed interesting. Start with a pale ale of some sort, then if I brew an IPA throw some of it, skip the stouts, etc.

Very interesting.

Toot said:

I mean you pitch the yeast with the "starter" batch. And then as the alcohol increases and the SG decreases, you add a little more wort from your next batch of beer.

I'm not even sure if you'd really need to aerate on consecutive batches. See? That there is a technical hurdle that hadn't occured to me. I have oxygen, I can aerate in a sanitary environment. Is that what I should do? Or would it be better to just pour the later wort additions without any additional aeration? Anybody have a thought about that?

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This is pretty-much the same situation as when you re-pitch on an existing yeast cake form a previous batch. What I do is aerate the new wort in my bottling bucket while I rack the previous beer to secondary. Then I dump the aerated wort onto the yeast cake left behind by the beer I racked.

You'd be doing essentially the same thing except not racking.

I don't really think this would work, btw--you wouldn't be creating a high alcohol barley wine--the ABV content of the final brew would be the average, not the sum, of all the individual worts that fermented in sequence.

cweston said:

This is pretty-much the same situation as when you re-pitch on an existing yeast cake form a previous batch. What I do is aerate the new wort in my bottling bucket while I rack the previous beer to secondary. Then I dump the aerated wort onto the yeast cake left behind by the beer I racked.

You'd be doing essentially the same thing except not racking.

I don't really think this would work, btw--you wouldn't be creating a high alcohol barley wine--the ABV content of the final brew would be the average, not the sum, of all the individual worts that fermented in sequence.

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No.. you missed a step. You take the last bit of wort from your full batch of beer, and then boil it down further to boost the SG before adding it to the fermenter. It's one extra step, but I'm thinking you could simmer it on the stove as you transfer the rest of the wort to the primary.

Toot said:

No.. you missed a step. You take the last bit of wort from your full batch of beer, and then boil it down further to boost the SG before adding it to the fermenter. It's one extra step, but I'm thinking you could simmer it on the stove as you transfer the rest of the wort to the primary.

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AH--ok.

It still seems like kindof a goofy thing to try, to me, but don't let that deter you.

Once my Maibock is done fermenting, I might take my extra carboy and dedicate it to the project. Try it with the first few batches and if I get tired of it, I will just brew a final large batch to top it off...

I say go for it, it won't hurt to try. As far as aeration goes, I would just shake up the small amount you'll be adding. It's much easier to shake a 1/2 gallon or gallon than it is for 5 or 10.

Anyone ever try this? Seems to be an interesting experiment

I would NOT oxygenate on each successive addition because you'd be potentially oxidizing the beer that's already in there. Just make sure the first starter is really well oxygenated and you should be good to go. If you wanted to recharge the batch with more yeast, you could draw off a layer of yeast from the bottom of the carboy and add some well oxygenated starter wort, let the yeast propagate and then decant the beer off the top, repitch. Bottom line, do not add any oxygen to post fermented beer.

I think this would only work if you added "similar" beer styles. For instance, a couple of stouts later and it won't matter what was in there--the roasted malt will dominate. If you kept it to beers that were amber or lighter--you MIGHT have an interesting experiment.

Solera right? I think the idea is similar if not the same. I believe a solera is done with already fermented beer. This is an interesting idea to say the least. Maybe you could do it as the last runnings of your mash. That way it wouldnt impede on your actual brew and just use a single hop for all of the little partigyle beers. I like it!

I like the idea of just running some more water through your mash after you get your 2nd sparge out (I batch sparge) as long as you are not getting into tannin range you should be fine.

Then you can just boil it on the kitchen stove while you finish up the original batch, always try to boil down to the same gravity on your mini-brew (1.100 ish) that way you will know in the end what your ABV is.

Also I would agree, only through in the lighter ales, no stouts or porters.

You may want to rack off of trub occasionally though. I imagine that if you are doing this for a year that you would get some autolysis even though you are adding new wort once a month (my average for light beers). Thoughts?