First Strong ale recipe questions

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dcp27

dcp27

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I've been planning on doing a barleywine/old ale and a club I'm joining has a strong ale competition towards the end of the year so I figure I should get started on this sooner rather than later. This is the recipe I came up with:

OG: 1.100ish
SRM: 18ish
IBU: 68ish
120min boil, 5.25g batch

6# light DME (half late add)
5# marris otter
4# Vienna
0.5# crystal 80
0.5# special B
0.5# honey malt
1oz each Nugget, Goldings, Williamette (FWH, dry hop final 10 days)

primary 1 month 68Fish, secondary 2 months 60Fish, bottle condition 3+ months

Now for the questions:
1) Which hop, Nugget or chinook?
2) What mash temp? I'm thinking 149-151F
3) Which yeast? I'm not sure which direction I want to go and am torn amongst S-04, S-05, WLP530 (abbey ale), or WLP028 (scottish ale) so any suggestions would be great.
4) When racking it, I'm considering splitting off 1-2g and adding brett B to it. Good or bad idea?
5) I have 0.5-1oz american med oak chips leftover, which half would you add it or is it not worth adding?

TIA for the help and any other suggestions are welcome as well
 
1) I would bitter with Nugget, it is smoother than Chinook which cna get annoying in large quantities.

2) SOunds like a fine range, you'll get plenty of sweetness from the extract.

3) Scottish does great in strong beers, but 04 or 05 would be fine as well (especially if you aren't interested in making a starter). I'd skip the Belgian strain on this one, although I do like 530.

4) Brett may or may not do much on such a high gravity beer, but it is certainly worth a try. I tend to go with Brett C for beers like this since it is English in oragin and has a mellower flavor that I think goes better in non-Belgian beers.

5) Oak would be fine in either one, but I'd probably go with the Brett half since oak and Brett go so well together.

I might dial back the honey malt and special B, you'll have plenty of character from the vienna/MO without being too heavy handed with the specialty malts. Good luck.
 
Thanks for the help. I'm still torn on the yeast, but I have an american amber with 05 finishing in 2 weeks so I guess I could just pitch onto that. good call on the brett c, that seems like a better fitting brett for what I'd want.

As for the honey malt and special B, I was considering it, but I thought with all the character from the vienna/mo a lower amount wouldn't show at all. I don't want heavy handed from them, just some notes from them. How much would you recommend to cut back to to achieve that?
 
.25 lbs each? They both show through in pretty low levels even in a big beer.
 
OK, I'll keep that in mind.

Since this type of beer isn't exactly one I'll be doing often and get to experiment with much thanks to how long it takes, what do you think about scaling this up to 6 or 7 gallons, and splitting it among 4 yeasts ( 1) WLP028, 2) S-05, 3/4) S-05/Brett C?, S-04?, WLP530?, other?) ?

By the way, which of the 3 strong ales would you call this? Is it an English barleywine as is and a borderline old ale without the dry hop?
 
Old ales are generally darker, English Barleywine is probably the closest. Splitting is great fun, but it can be a hassle. You'd also need secondary fermenters that could hold all of the batches without too much extra headspace.
 
Damn forgot about secondary. I got three 6 gallon carboys, three 6 gallon pails, one 5 gallon carboy, two 3 gallon jugs, four 1 gallon jugs, and of course only one 20L kettle. If I really wanted to do 4 yeasts, I guess I could scale it down slightly and use the four 1g jugs. Maybe I'll just do two and secondary in the 3g jugs ... and maybe split some off and brett it in a 1g. Being the Mad fermentationist that you are, what would you do?

edit: btw, great blog
 
You could always do an uneven split, say 4 gallons of you first choice (split 1 gallon off after primary and add Brett) and then a couple 1 gallon batches of experimental with say the Belgian and something else.

Glad you like the blog.
 
1) Which hop, Nugget or chinook? Nugget for bittering. I would just bitter it and not add any other additions. Maybe a 15min as well, but you are going to age this so long that a lot of the hops are going to be gone by the time you get to drinking it.

2) What mash temp? I'm thinking 149-151F. Sounds good, just watch out for losing too much temperature. Try to maintain as much as you can.

3) Which yeast? I would go with US-05 so that you can get full attenuation. Maybe S-04, but since you are going to add DME, I would stick with US-05

4) When racking it, I'm considering splitting off 1-2g and adding brett B to it. Good or bad idea? I wouldn't go with any Brett at all. It wouldn't really do you too much more good unless you hit it with it during primary. I am having a devil of a time getting my beer from 1.016 down to 1.010 and I fermented with Brett, Lacto and Pedio. Brett alone will take forever!

5) I have 0.5-1oz american med oak chips leftover, which half would you add it or is it not worth adding? I would add it all to half and then you can blend the two halves together. If not, then keep it seperate.

I would really ask why you are thinking of fermenting so long in primary before moving to secondary? You could easily just go two weeks in a well maintained primary before going to secondary. It should be finished fermenting in that time. Since it will clarify in secondary you don't have to worry about that. Personally, I went with three weeks in primary and then into a barrel for a three weeks and I am about to bottle in the next couple of days. Also, unless you are going to top it up completely in secondary with no headspace, you are going to hit problems. I find that after I do my oaking in the first couple of weeks, I bottle and let it age there. Less oxidation problems, chance for infection and then I can taste it until I think it tastes right and then enjoy it!
 
Matt Up North said:
1) Which hop, Nugget or chinook? Nugget for bittering. I would just bitter it and not add any other additions. Maybe a 15min as well, but you are going to age this so long that a lot of the hops are going to be gone by the time you get to drinking it.

2) What mash temp? I'm thinking 149-151F. Sounds good, just watch out for losing too much temperature. Try to maintain as much as you can.

3) Which yeast? I would go with US-05 so that you can get full attenuation. Maybe S-04, but since you are going to add DME, I would stick with US-05

4) When racking it, I'm considering splitting off 1-2g and adding brett B to it. Good or bad idea? I wouldn't go with any Brett at all. It wouldn't really do you too much more good unless you hit it with it during primary. I am having a devil of a time getting my beer from 1.016 down to 1.010 and I fermented with Brett, Lacto and Pedio. Brett alone will take forever!

5) I have 0.5-1oz american med oak chips leftover, which half would you add it or is it not worth adding? I would add it all to half and then you can blend the two halves together. If not, then keep it seperate.

I would really ask why you are thinking of fermenting so long in primary before moving to secondary? You could easily just go two weeks in a well maintained primary before going to secondary. It should be finished fermenting in that time. Since it will clarify in secondary you don't have to worry about that. Personally, I went with three weeks in primary and then into a barrel for a three weeks and I am about to bottle in the next couple of days. Also, unless you are going to top it up completely in secondary with no headspace, you are going to hit problems. I find that after I do my oaking in the first couple of weeks, I bottle and let it age there. Less oxidation problems, chance for infection and then I can taste it until I think it tastes right and then enjoy it!
Click to expand...

1) OK, I'll stick with nugget. I figured little aroma/flavor from the hops would stick around from the boil, thats why I was thinking just doing a FWH and dry hop with everything.

3) Unfortunately, this recipe has about as much grains as I can fit, so if I want to go 5g, I need some extract to get me there. I'll probably just end up sticking with the S-05, but I am tempted to experiment with the WLP028, brett, or WLP530 too

4) Seriously? Damn, thats no fun. Would the initial idea of 2 month secondary not even be enough time?

The 1 month primary was just kinda an arbitrary time. I was just gunna rack it a few days after it was done fermenting and figured it'd take upwards of a month. Thanks for the tip on the secondary, I guess I'll just base bulk conditioning vs bottle conditioning on how much headspace I have left.
 
It depends, I did an Imperial Stout with Brett A and it only took 2 months for it to drop the gravity .008 and give me a nice leathery flavor. Brett C did its work on an old ale in about 6 months. Both times I added them to secondary, the key is to make sure the culture is healthy and numerous enough (Brett like any yeast needs oxygen to reproduce, so make at least a small starter). 2 months would be very optimistic, but it would certainly be ready to bottle/carb by next fall.
 
Oh wow that long? Well if it'll work, I have no problem sticking a gallon of it in the corner and checking on it monthly until its done.

BTW, I saw the brett C old ale in your recipe list, but the link routes to the foreign export stout. How did it come out for you?
 
also, like yeast, brett likes a constant temperature in the 60's. Less and it takes even longer, warmer and you can get really pronounced flavors (amazing, just like yeast!). OldSock has the experience to speak more on the subject, but a first time brett beer is going to be tough. Something will not go right and you are going to put a lot of time into it to find out that it isn't going quite so right. Good Luck and keep us informed
 
Sorry, fixed it ( http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2007/08/funky-old-ale-1st-tasting.html ), I really should go back and check the rest of them (I normally put together repeditive stuff like that as I drink homebrew...).

It came out alright, but I thought it was too thin for a long time. With additional age it seems better, but i still use it mostly as a stock ale for blending.

Agree on the temp stuff, moderate/steady temps are best for aging sour/funky beers of any sort (in general). I really don't think they are harder than clean beers, they just take more time.
 
Oldsock said:
Sorry, fixed it ( http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2007/08/funky-old-ale-1st-tasting.html ), I really should go back and check the rest of them (I normally put together repeditive stuff like that as I drink homebrew...).

It came out alright, but I thought it was too thin for a long time. With additional age it seems better, but i still use it mostly as a stock ale for blending.

Agree on the temp stuff, moderate/steady temps are best for aging sour/funky beers of any sort (in general). I really don't think they are harder than clean beers, they just take more time.
Click to expand...

sweet, thanks for the corrected link. and is there really any other way to do repetitive stuff? :tank:

I don't have any controlled fermentation chambers, but currently my room is pretty consistently at 68F (+/- 2F) and my basement is about 54F (+/- 2F). By May it should be around 72 (+/-5F) and 62F (+/- 3F) til October respectively. That should be stable enough right? I'm thinking around May to move everything but the brett to the basement.
 
the fermentation will continue for quite some time and you will get a pellicle if the brett is doing anything. I find that the warmer the funkier, so if you are going to get about 3 months from now to have coolish temps, then you are going to get very little funk comparatively. It is going to take time, so be patient and try not to move it till bottling. Truly, try not to move it.
 
OK, so I think I might actually go with the multiple yeast strains on this one. I'm thinking 3g of S-05, 1.5g of WLP028, 1.5g of WLP530, and 1g of S-05/Brett C. Now I got 2 more questions.
1) Would you dry hop any besides the S-05?
2) There will probably be some excess that won't fit into the secondaries. Should I just bottle them as is or blend them and then age/bottle that mixture?

edit: and 3) what about taking .5g or so of wort pre-hopped and concentrating that down and mixing that into the 1.5g for the WLP028? Would that work to make it an old ale instead of english barleywine?
 
ugh just finished this up. final recipe
batch 6gal
OG: 1.113 (86% eff!)
IBU: around 78
3# light DME
10.5# Marris Otter malt
5# Vienna malt
0.6# Aromatic malt
0.6# Special B malt
0.6# Crystal 80 malt
0.3# Honey malt
0.55oz Nugget, Williamette, US goldings (FWH, dry hop)
sprinkled in some of each hop at flameout
1.5gal pitched with WLP028 (Scottish Ale)
1.5gal pitched with WLP530 (Abbey Ale)
3gal pitched with US-05 (American Ale)
1Lsaved to be pitched with WLP645 (brett C) and later topped to 1gal with fermented US-05 batch
 
just in case anyone is still paying attention to this, it ended up pretty good.

the S-05 batch didnt really taste like a barleywine, but still came out pretty good
WLP028 was a bit closer to what I wanted, but WLP530 batch is the tops.
I ended up mixing the remnants of each batch with the Brett C and it also came out quite well. a little sour/funky, but not overpowering.
 
At 7 months old I won our in-house club competition (average score of 40) with the abbey yeast. Everyone was shocked when I told them how young/strong it was. Unfortunately, I only scored a 34 in the national strong ale competition as an English Barleywine, but that was partly thanks to some poor shipping. Not bad for my first barleywine :rockin:
 

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