Barleywine 2014 #1

[Chadwick]

I'm a high-gravity nut. I love my barleywines. Here is what I did yesterday evening. I like keeping logs of some of my beers here on this website. This is one of those logs. Comments are welcome, as always. I brewed something close to this last year and it was one of the three best brews I made all year. I'll post updates as this progresses.

12lbs 2-row pale
6lbs German Munich
1lb malted wheat
1lb carapils
1lb 60L crystal
1lb homemade crystal (100L?)
0.5lb chocolate malt
1lb cane sugar

90 min mash at 145F then raised to 160 and mashed for an additional 30 min.

120 min boil
2 oz Chinook 60 min
2 oz Centenial 30 min
2 oz Cascade 10 min

1 whirlfloc tab 15 min

OG 1.115

Yeast: 2 liter starter of WLP001 (18hrs) + 1 pack US-05 (rehydrated)

 

[adamranders]

This sounds like a great barleywine.

I just put my first custom recipe together for a barleywine yesterday after 6 months of extract and par-mash kits, and reading "designing great beers".

BIAB mini mash:
3 lb marris otter
1.5 lb briess caramel 90
60 min at 150 then mashout at 165

60 min boil w/
6 lb amber malt extract (60min)
1 oz Chinook (60min)
9 lb amber malt extract (15min)
1.5 oz Willamette (15min)

Wyeast 1945 2.5 liter starter then us-05 to finish

Dryhopping 1oz cascade (last 2 months) also 3oz medium American oak (2 months)

Target OG 1.131
53 IBU

Picking up supplies today, hopefully will brew first week of the new year

 

[Chadwick]

Update:
Added dry hops.
3/4 oz Chinook
3/4 oz Cascade
1/2 oz Columbus

Gravity reading 1.020

Final ABV is going to be about 12.5%. This one will be another "one will do ya" brew. Damn, I love making these monsters.

 

[Chadwick]

This sounds like a great barleywine.

I just put my first custom recipe together for a barleywine yesterday after 6 months of extract and par-mash kits, and reading "designing great beers".

BIAB mini mash:
3 lb marris otter
1.5 lb briess caramel 90
60 min at 150 then mashout at 165

60 min boil w/
6 lb amber malt extract (60min)
1 oz Chinook (60min)
9 lb amber malt extract (15min)
1.5 oz Willamette (15min)

Wyeast 1945 2.5 liter starter then us-05 to finish

Dryhopping 1oz cascade (last 2 months) also 3oz medium American oak (2 months)

Target OG 1.131
53 IBU

Picking up supplies today, hopefully will brew first week of the new year

I see you are not going for the hop forward flavor I'm after. Yet, this is a mighty ambitious brew as well. I don't have an avatar of a black hole for no reason. I love my high-gravity. Getting them to turn out well and enjoyable is the challenge. Let me know how yours turns out. I love a good barleywine better than anything. Well, almost anything.

 

[adamranders]

yeah, I as well love to push the gravities, my second brew ever was a belgian triple at 11.5 abv.

I wanted to try to make a barleywine that is big and modern but still carries the flavor character of the traditional english ones. as such a thought a mid range IBU was more fitting and i also am going to try to use some oak in secondary/aging to emulate the flavor quality of the "cask aged barlywines of olde", so to speak. my aim is really to take the big malty heavy barlywine and make it clean, smooth, and just a bit over the top of ABV. brewing today (mashing atm) after several days of stepping up my yeast to target 430 billion cells. will keep updating.

 

[adamranders]

brew day done. unfortunately my boil off eff. was less than expected so i now have 6 gal of O.G. 1.102 barleywine instead of 5 gal O.G. 1.131. I guess I can still hope that it ferments down to 1.01 and I get a 12 %er. lesson learned though.

 

[Chadwick]

It will still be good stuff. Besides, a 10% ABV beer is no slouch of a beer. My supplies should be in tomorrow for my brew day. I'm going to do a Belgium Dubble or maybe a nice dark English stout. Haven't decided for sure which just yet.

 

[Eddiemk4VW]

Vote for Dark English Stout !
Thanks for the recipes, I am going to shrink them down to make 1 gallon sizes.

 

[adamranders]

Fermentation went well, very intense initially followed by a smooth tapering off.

Had a crazy coincidental "AHA!" moment while reading more brewing books. Was reading about some of the lesser seen nowadays styles specifically about Weizen-Eisbock. I think I am going to try the methodology used there on this barleywine to bring it closer to the original target, i.e. controlled freezing to remove only h2o (hopefully a gallon of it). will try it near the end of aging but before dryhopping and repitching bottling yeast. Only time will tell if it works, will keep updating.

 

[Chadwick]

I have this barleywine in the bottles. The aging and conditioning process is happening. It'll be a while before I get to try one. This is the hardest part of brewing barleywines. That long long wait for them to condition properly.

 

[adamranders]

The day finally came that I could wait no more. After several months aging, 2 of which on light French oak, and the last with dry hops. And several more months bottle conditioning, I finally put a few in the fridge for a few days, and tried one today.
Great nose, silky body, a bit green still and the dry hops and oak haven't mellowed yet. Overall though a great beer. Will hold onto them, maybe throw one or two in the fridge every few months or so, at least untill the next batch is done....