Monster Mash

Gents,

A small dilemma to solve...

I plan on doing a monster USA Barleywine this weekend similar to the awesome Bigfoot Brew. It calls for 22lbs grain bill, and by my calculations (22lbs x 1.3 qt water) approximately 7.15 gallons of water. The problem is, my converted cooler mash tun is 99% not going to fit all that material. My buddy suggested I split the batches and do two 11lbs mashes and divide the water to still get the target 6.5 gallons out of the combined 22lbs. The idea seemed to logical to be right. I was looking for advice from someone who has tried this idea before.

Thoughts?

I've never tried it, but splitting the mash would work. It would double your mash time though. Another option would be to mash as much as you can and add malt extract to make up what's left. Or you could mash as much as you can and just boil down until you get to your OG. That might darken your final product though.

Well, not too much input from the group. I plan on trying this method today and I'll let you know how it comes out.

Is there any reason you need that much Barleywine? I would just scale back to the 4-5 gallon range for batch size until it fit in my mash tun. Could also adjust to like 1.2 Qt/lb and still be OK.

karzak said:

Is there any reason you need that much Barleywine? I would just scale back to the 4-5 gallon range for batch size until it fit in my mash tun. Could also adjust to like 1.2 Qt/lb and still be OK.

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both really good ideas. I was thinking a thicker mash also. make it up on the sparge

I agree with thicker mash or smaller volume. Are you doing a single infusion mash I assume?

I just did a doppelbock and kept it at 1.5 qt/lb, with a single decoction. The dough in was awful, as my tun was too full and made a mess just trying to stir it. The decoction really boosted my extraction efficiency by a good 7 points, so if you want a big gravity, you could consider that (decoction), and or possible double crush of the malt. Best off going thicker and doing a big sparge. I would never do another mash without at least 1 gallon free space in the tun.

TD

Mash your base malt and steep your specialty grains on the stove. It might save a little room

avm221 said:

Mash your base malt and steep your specialty grains on the stove. It might save a little room

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This might not be a great option, depending on what specialty malts you have. Sometimes the enzymes from the base malt are needed to work on some specialty malts.

So I did it. And I probably could have fit it all in my cooler, but it was too late once I started. The final product was the right color and seemed to work. I broke my hygrometer the other day and the new one hasn't arrived yet, so I was unable to take a measurement. I added to packs of Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) and the air lock looked like it was going to shoot throught the roof for three solid days. I will primary for about three weeks and then add a pack of champagne yeast during the rack to secondary. I will add a half batch of American Oak chips for the long year aging process. Come back for next year's installment to see how things turned out.

ShermanTank said:

then add a pack of champagne yeast during the rack to secondary. I will add a half batch of American Oak chips for the long year aging process.

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Why would you add champagne yeast to the secondary? The only time I would ever use champagne yeast is if I was making champagne. You should probably add yeast when you bottle it in a year, and then you could use champagne yeast if you wanted, but if I were doing it I would just use a neutral beer yeast. If you add yeast to the secondary and then age it for a year, all of that yeast will either go dormant or die and potentially give you some off flavors.

I would add champagne yeast if the alcohol content exceeded 10% since American Ale Yeast, according to Wyeast's website, are at best, capable of tolerating an alcohol content of 11%. I'm looking for a dryer, hoppier, barleywine without residual sweetness or maltiness. I'd rather be safe than sorry and this worked well for me in the past with a giant IIPA I did last year.

a lot of the people that i know that make barley wines do it this way it helps dry it out but also ups the abv

Champagne yeast won't dry it out. Champagne yeast strains have been bred to consume very simple sugars found in wine must, and they're not very good at processing the more complex sugars found in barley based wort. A very attenuative beer yeast would be a much better option for drying out a beer. But 1056 is already one of the most attenuative strains, so I don't think you'll get much more attenuation than what that yeast is already giving you. And at just 3 weeks, there should be plenty of yeast still in suspension so there's no need to add more. Champagne yeast is slightly more alcohol tolerant I suppose, but most beer yeast is fine up to about 12%-15%.

I've never used, but I hear Nottingham yeast is supposed to very attenuative strain. Possibly also the CBC yeast for bottle conditioning might be more alcohol tolerant than 1056.


By the way, next time you have a broken hydrometer, you can always reserve a small sample, 8 oz usually plenty, and freeze it, then thaw it (let it thaw naturally in the container it was frozen in so as not to add/detract from the volume, to take a gravity measurement. Unfortunately, at this point you are not going to be certain of your OG, and thus the ABV.
Also, if you then boil that reserved sample, you could use it for bottle conditioning (obviously youd need more fermenatbles as well, but i mention so as not to waste it) or do a fast ferment test with it. At least that way you'd know where you will end up.

TD