In Secondary Fermentation for YEARS

[taylornate]

I doubt a beer in secondary for 8+ years has any fermentables left (whether due to original yeast or any infection organisms that got in through a dry airlock), gushers would only be possible from an infection and bottling above FG.

Organisms cannot get through a dry airlock. Pasteur proved that with his swan neck flask experiment: http://www.pasteurbrewing.com/pasteur-swan-neck-flask-experiment/

 

[brianmef]

I've had barley wine from the store, but it was crap in comparison to home brewed. So far, in my experience in home brewing, all store bought beer is crap, and every single beer I have ever brewed is much better. (?)

 

[Bosh]

I've had barley wine from the store, but it was crap in comparison to home brewed. So far, in my experience in home brewing, all store bought beer is crap, and every single beer I have ever brewed is much better. (?)

I have the exact same experience. Living in Korea does wonders for the relative quality of my beer.

 

[SpoonerandForker]

I forgot about a 3 gal carboy of Mead in a back closet for three years. Out of site out of mind. It was sealed though and tastes great, what a find,,, Just drink it man.

Sounds superb, it is hard to beat a well aged Mead!!!!

(Somehow my Mead bottles tend to get empty before they get old,)

 

[ADDLED]

I speak from experience; dont touch it!
My friend died from drinking aged barley wine. He drank 12 pints a day and cirrhosis killed him.
You have been warned...

 

[Mobstar76]

I'm guessing it will taste horrible.
It would have been fine if the airlock hadn't dried out. Now it will be heavily oxidized, all the hop aromas are pretty much gone and generally beer doesn't age very well. If you're lucky, you might be able to use it on your French fries lol.

 

[ADDLED]

I'm guessing it will taste horrible..... generally beer doesn't age very well. If you're lucky, you might be able to use it on your French fries lol.

Strong beer ages beautifully. Ive a couple of crates of Rochefort 10 that have aged aged for 8 years - date on them is 25 Dec 2008. We open a couple every Christmas and compare them with fresh ones and the aged are superb. At 5 years they were amazing; port wine, dried fruit, delicate spice, and they keep getting better.

 

[Mobstar76]

Strong beer ages beautifully. Ive a couple of crates of Rochefort 10 that have aged aged for 8 years - date on them is 25 Dec 2008. We open a couple every Christmas and compare them with fresh ones and the aged are superb. At 5 years they were amazing; port wine, dried fruit, delicate spice, and they keep getting better.

LOL,
I did say generally.. Rochefort is a premium Belgian beer which is properly stored with live yeast. Belgian beers tend to age well but only for a certain amount of time. I tried a 20 year old corked bottled of Belgian trippel and it was flat and tasted like bile. This was a properly stored bottle. Now imagine this guy's fully exposed barley wine.. eek!

 

[ADDLED]

LOL,
I did say generally.. Rochefort is a premium Belgian beer which is properly stored with live yeast. Belgian beers tend to age well but only for a certain amount of time. I tried a 20 year old corked bottled of Belgian trippel and it was flat and tasted like bile. This was a properly stored bottle. Now imagine this guy's fully exposed barley wine.. eek!

Ha. Mebbe we'll kill them off at 10 years and keep a couple just to see what theyll be like at 15 and 20

 

[tmbrewer]

Its a bit of a stretch to say "fully exposed" as it was in a glass carboy with stopper & airlock (though dry much of the time) in an undisturbed, cool but controlled part of the house. This wasn't a Belgian open fermentation experiment :>

I did drink a bottle of it the other night and could still sense no off-flavors. I have tasted beers with astringent / metallic off-flavors before. Its very malty but dry, alcoholic, and I can clearly taste the dark toasted grains I steeped when it was made. As someone mentioned, however, there is no contribution to aroma from hops, which I would have expected on a "normal" brew. It is quite drinkable.

I also uncovered a few cases of old ale (much more recent than the barleywine, however) -- a sweet stout and a nut brown. The former didn't taste great and I dumped it - the latter had a metallic taste and I dumped it.. I mention this because I would dump the barleywine if I thought I should..

That said, perhaps this thread will be useful to other brewers in the future who have left a brew sitting too long.. Their experience may differ from mine or maybe they will get something out of this thread..

Thanks for all your feedback
Respectfully-
T

 

[ADDLED]

Its a bit of a stretch to say "fully exposed" as it was in a glass carboy with stopper & airlock (though dry much of the time)

A dry airlock is pretty much fully exposed. A moot point though since the beer is ok.

 

[tolkheleknar]

Its a bit of a stretch to say "fully exposed" as it was in a glass carboy with stopper & airlock (though dry much of the time) in an undisturbed, cool but controlled part of the house. This wasn't a Belgian open fermentation experiment :>

I did drink a bottle of it the other night and could still sense no off-flavors. I have tasted beers with astringent / metallic off-flavors before. Its very malty but dry, alcoholic, and I can clearly taste the dark toasted grains I steeped when it was made. As someone mentioned, however, there is no contribution to aroma from hops, which I would have expected on a "normal" brew. It is quite drinkable.

This got me wondering:
After 8 years I would imagine a significant fraction of the ethanol may have evaporated away due to the fact that its vapor pressure is significantly higher than that of water. How detectable would you say the alcohol is in the finished product, if at all?

 

[ADDLED]

This got me wondering:
After 8 years I would imagine a significant fraction of the ethanol may have evaporated away due to the fact that its vapor pressure is significantly higher than that of water. How detectable would you say the alcohol is in the finished product, if at all?

Significant fraction = oxymoron. Im not being rude or obtuse, it made me smile. Jumbo shrimp is one of my favourites.

 

[rusty_tlc]

This thread makes me wonder what stale cardboard taste like? For that matter what does fresh cardboard taste like? I've never tried fresh or stale cardboard. I have the means to taste fresh cardboard, but how does one determine if cardboard has gone stale?

 

[ADDLED]

For those that don't have access to the elusive substances that are cardboard, water and time... Leave a wet, muddy pair of football boots and kit in your bag in a warm place for a few days.

It smells like the kid at school who never washed his rugby kit.

 

[jojacques]

Significant fraction = oxymoron. Im not being rude or obtuse, it made me smile. Jumbo shrimp is one of my favourites.

You're not? Because all your replies here make me think the opposite

 

[sweetcell]

Significant fraction = oxymoron.

no it isn't.

1/10,000,000 might be insignificant, while 1/5 is significant. losing one ten-millionth of the alcohol would not be significant while losing 20% of the alcohol would be significant, noticeable, etc.

or are you stating that only wholes/integers are important? "until all the alcohol is gone, none is gone"?

 

[ADDLED]

no it isn't.

1/10,000,000 might be insignificant, while 1/5 is significant. losing one ten-millionth of the alcohol would not be significant while losing 20% of the alcohol would be significant, noticeable, etc.

or are you stating that only wholes/integers are important? "until all the alcohol is gone, none is gone"?

Jeez people, it was only a joke. Lighten up!

 

[TexasWine]

Edit: finished reading thread and saw other folks had chimed in.

 

[didinho]

I'm guessing it will taste horrible.
It would have been fine if the airlock hadn't dried out. Now it will be heavily oxidized, all the hop aromas are pretty much gone and generally beer doesn't age very well. If you're lucky, you might be able to use it on your French fries lol.

hop aromas are not really required in barleywines, and proper oxidation gives sherry/port tastes that are really good in strong beers.

 

[Dynachrome]

So if it tastes OK,

Add Fresh Yeast and priming sugar and bottle or Keg....

Make sure it is a yeast that can handle the high initial alcohol content....

That should do it....

DPB

...my thoughts here also.

 

[XPLSV]

I agree, that's what I meant by "a few grains of yeast". How much did you add to each bottle?

Sorry...haven't been on in awhile. I almost always force carbonate in a keg.

 

[krebs119]

Soooo, I'm in a similar situation as OP here.... I got my cousin into brewing about 5 years ago. He brewed 2 or 3 beers, but then more or less quit. All of his equipment (extract kits, buckets, plastic carboy, bottling wand, capper, etc) has been stored at my house for this entire time. I see him every now and then, but he never mentions any of it, and hasn't had any real inkling to get back into it.

I, on the other hand, have probably brewed 200 batches since then, gone all grain, competitions, blah blah blah...

He brewed a 5 gal extract batch of a Sierra Nevada clone (NB? Midwest? I can't remember) that has been sitting in my brew closet now for about 5 years. At some point (likely before the airlock dried out) I replaced the airlock with a carboy cap. This carboy hasn't seen oxygen or light in those 5 years, nor has it been moved more than an inch or two. I've debated dumping it, I've debated kegging it, and I've feared both.

I haven't opened it. It's still on the yeast cake and the carboy is plastic - so I fear that enough oxygen has made it through the walls at this point and the yeast might have done weird things to it (I think it's called autolysis?). This thread has made me think about checking that carboy out....

 

[pdxal]

Soooo, I'm in a similar situation as OP here.... I got my cousin into brewing about 5 years ago. He brewed 2 or 3 beers, but then more or less quit. All of his equipment (extract kits, buckets, plastic carboy, bottling wand, capper, etc) has been stored at my house for this entire time. I see him every now and then, but he never mentions any of it, and hasn't had any real inkling to get back into it.

I, on the other hand, have probably brewed 200 batches since then, gone all grain, competitions, blah blah blah...

He brewed a 5 gal extract batch of a Sierra Nevada clone (NB? Midwest? I can't remember) that has been sitting in my brew closet now for about 5 years. At some point (likely before the airlock dried out) I replaced the airlock with a carboy cap. This carboy hasn't seen oxygen or light in those 5 years, nor has it been moved more than an inch or two. I've debated dumping it, I've debated kegging it, and I've feared both.

I haven't opened it. It's still on the yeast cake and the carboy is plastic - so I fear that enough oxygen has made it through the walls at this point and the yeast might have done weird things to it (I think it's called autolysis?). This thread has made me think about checking that carboy out....

Try it!
The worst that can happen is it doesn't taste good. Can't make you sick or harm you, so worth a test.

 

[FatDragon]

Soooo, I'm in a similar situation as OP here.... I got my cousin into brewing about 5 years ago. He brewed 2 or 3 beers, but then more or less quit. All of his equipment (extract kits, buckets, plastic carboy, bottling wand, capper, etc) has been stored at my house for this entire time. I see him every now and then, but he never mentions any of it, and hasn't had any real inkling to get back into it.

I, on the other hand, have probably brewed 200 batches since then, gone all grain, competitions, blah blah blah...

He brewed a 5 gal extract batch of a Sierra Nevada clone (NB? Midwest? I can't remember) that has been sitting in my brew closet now for about 5 years. At some point (likely before the airlock dried out) I replaced the airlock with a carboy cap. This carboy hasn't seen oxygen or light in those 5 years, nor has it been moved more than an inch or two. I've debated dumping it, I've debated kegging it, and I've feared both.

I haven't opened it. It's still on the yeast cake and the carboy is plastic - so I fear that enough oxygen has made it through the walls at this point and the yeast might have done weird things to it (I think it's called autolysis?). This thread has made me think about checking that carboy out....

Take out a little bit for a taste. If it's not completely objectionable, give it a dry hop and keg it up. If it's terrible, dump it.

 

[Dynachrome]

As someone mentioned, however, there is no contribution to aroma from hops, which I would have expected on a "normal" brew.

Hops loose their potency in beer over time.

I also uncovered a few cases of old ale (much more recent than the barleywine, however) -- a sweet stout and a nut brown. The former didn't taste great and I dumped it - the latter had a metallic taste and I dumped it.. I mention this because I would dump the barleywine if I thought I should.

Too bad. I had a friend who accidentally mad e a red. It inspired me to start all-grain.

He didn't like it. he was going to pour it out. He gave me a twelver to take home. My wife and I really enjoyed it and asked for another 12.

We finished that off too.

We gave him back the empty bottles, cleaned.

...somebody may have liked them, just sayin'.

 

[cooperbl7]

He brewed a 5 gal extract batch of a Sierra Nevada clone (NB? Midwest? I can't remember) that has been sitting in my brew closet now for about 5 years. At some point (likely before the airlock dried out) I replaced the airlock with a carboy cap. This carboy hasn't seen oxygen or light in those 5 years, nor has it been moved more than an inch or two. I've debated dumping it, I've debated kegging it, and I've feared both.

The Sierra clone surely won't taste that great at this time -- not a good one to age, in any case. Taste it, and if it hasn't gone completely to Malt Vinegar, I suggest you give it new life by SOURING it! Add some dregs of good sour bottles, and/or Roselare. Add some Brett later on, if desired. Keep it airtight, wait several months (it seems you are able to be patient, anyway) and see what develops!