Jmac
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- Joined
- Oct 13, 2008
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First time posting but have and learned from many of you but still have lots to learn. I hope you can give me some advice..
Between a month or two ago I decided to do an all grain Barleywine.. It was about my 2nd or 3rd all grain recipe but I had never done a Barleywine before and thought it would be cool.
This brew was the brew from HELL. Everything that could have went wrong did!! I went to the brew store about 2:00 in the afternoon on Sunday... bought the recipe from the LHBS and then got home around 3:30. Propane tank ran out... had to go get some more propane.. Boiled the mash water.. Mixed all the grain and let sit for the hour... drained the wort into brew kettle.. Did the sparge for the first runnings and thought I needed more to get a higher gravity so added some more water. Added the second running to the boil kettle and began the boil. I must have ended up with 12 gallons of wort that needed to be boiled down to a 6.5 gallon carboy. I was not able to get enough vaporated the first night and it got to late so I had to rack to the carboy and pick up the boil the next night. I finally got the wort down to where it would go in the carboy.... The original gravity was around 1.120 when going into the primary... I had cleaned some yeast from one of my previous batches and saved to mason jars... Pitched in the cleaned wyeast 1056 to the fermenter and gave it a good shaking... Everything seems fine now and I was happy that this brew from hell was over. It fermented for quite a few days till all activity sloooowed and then I let it sit awhile longer... I racked it to secondary and it continued to barely bubble for probably another week or so. I checked the final gravity and it was 1.050 with no activity what so ever. The LHBS suggessted for me to add some dry wine yeast to it even though I had read on here to use champagne yeast. I took there word and went with the wine yeast...
Pitched this about a week ago and just took a gravity reading and tasted the brew. Gravity reading is at 1.040 and it tasted ok but had a very noticible sweetness to it.
I do need to start taking notes so I cant go into some of the specifics of the brew.. exact ingredients etc I dont have.. I do have a reciept for the grain bill and hops but the LHBS had to make substitutions and I dont remember the exact substitutions.. Note to self... TAKE NOTES!!!!!!!!!!!!
So after all this my question is should I go ahead and bottle this? Leave it alone? Get the champagne yeast and pitch that? Give up brewing?
Please advise!!
Between a month or two ago I decided to do an all grain Barleywine.. It was about my 2nd or 3rd all grain recipe but I had never done a Barleywine before and thought it would be cool.
This brew was the brew from HELL. Everything that could have went wrong did!! I went to the brew store about 2:00 in the afternoon on Sunday... bought the recipe from the LHBS and then got home around 3:30. Propane tank ran out... had to go get some more propane.. Boiled the mash water.. Mixed all the grain and let sit for the hour... drained the wort into brew kettle.. Did the sparge for the first runnings and thought I needed more to get a higher gravity so added some more water. Added the second running to the boil kettle and began the boil. I must have ended up with 12 gallons of wort that needed to be boiled down to a 6.5 gallon carboy. I was not able to get enough vaporated the first night and it got to late so I had to rack to the carboy and pick up the boil the next night. I finally got the wort down to where it would go in the carboy.... The original gravity was around 1.120 when going into the primary... I had cleaned some yeast from one of my previous batches and saved to mason jars... Pitched in the cleaned wyeast 1056 to the fermenter and gave it a good shaking... Everything seems fine now and I was happy that this brew from hell was over. It fermented for quite a few days till all activity sloooowed and then I let it sit awhile longer... I racked it to secondary and it continued to barely bubble for probably another week or so. I checked the final gravity and it was 1.050 with no activity what so ever. The LHBS suggessted for me to add some dry wine yeast to it even though I had read on here to use champagne yeast. I took there word and went with the wine yeast...
Pitched this about a week ago and just took a gravity reading and tasted the brew. Gravity reading is at 1.040 and it tasted ok but had a very noticible sweetness to it.
I do need to start taking notes so I cant go into some of the specifics of the brew.. exact ingredients etc I dont have.. I do have a reciept for the grain bill and hops but the LHBS had to make substitutions and I dont remember the exact substitutions.. Note to self... TAKE NOTES!!!!!!!!!!!!
So after all this my question is should I go ahead and bottle this? Leave it alone? Get the champagne yeast and pitch that? Give up brewing?
Please advise!!