Barleywine questions

[MetalMan2004]

I have lots of questions, but they all are dependant on my first question. Allow me to explain myself.

My wife is pregnant and I decided to make a brew in honor of our kid! Then my thought went one step further thinking maybe I could do a barleywine that could condition until my kid is at drinking age (yes I know I am thinking WAY down the road and 21 years of conditioning is a LONG TIME.).

So my first question is how long is too long for conditioning a barleywine. I have read that several months to several years is good, but what does that mean? Is 21 years possible with good conditions to condition in?

Just for a bit of background, I did 1 gallong all grain recipes for a couple of years before moving on to 5 gallon partial recipes. I am going to do 1-2 all grain 5 gallon recipes before brewing this, so I am not too worried with the brewing aspect at this point, just the conditioning part (all though I will have a lot of questions later on the brewing).

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[madcowbrewing]

Some barleywines age really good for a long time. Some Thomas hardy's have been aged 20+ years and have been said to be great. I had a 1993 Bigfoot last year after 20 years an it had some oxidation. If you are serious about attempting. I would go heavy on the hops to help the aging and get special caps to reduce oxidation. Maybe even do a wax seal. In my opinion it can be done with the right precautions


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[jeff13]

It's worth a try. If anything it will be something you can laugh about if it's bad. It should last well if you do what the guy above said as well as keeping it in the dark, at cellar temperatures, and cold crash the hell out if it before bottling to reduce the sediments in the bottle. Oh and hop the hell out of it haha. Good luck

 

[rodwha]

Congratulations!

I think that's a great idea!

British or American?

 

[MetalMan2004]

I think I am going to do a mic of the two styles. I am currently reading "Designing Great Beers" and there is a lot of good info on making your own formulations.

One recipe that caught my eye suggests open fermenting for 5 days. I think that sounds fun but risky for such a big undertaking as this. What do yall think? What effects might it have on the beer (add a bit of sourness?)?

PS I am standing in line at the downtown beer store right now for the release of St Arnold Divine Reserve 14. REALLY EXCITED!

 

[DSorenson]

...I had a 1993 Bigfoot last year after 20 years an it had some oxidation. If you are serious about attempting. I would go heavy on the hops to help the aging ...

^This isn't really true

OP: Your beer is going to oxidize, there is no stopping it. It's just how an aged beer changes. It brings about a whole new bunch of interesting flavors and isn't always a bad thing. Bigfoot is great up to about 10 years, but the high alpha acid hops that are used and the huge amount of IBUs eventually lead to an overwhelming wet cardboard flavor.

Use hops high in beta acids. I like French Strisselspalt, 2.3% alpha acids, 8.8% beta acids. The betas give you a bitterness and flavor compounds that long outlast the alphas.

I strongly suggest you read the very short book "Vintage Beers" by Patrick Dawson. It tells you the desirable traits of a good cellar candidate.

I just brewed a barleywine with a very similar intention after reading that book. I can't stress it enough, it's a great read. It discusses commercial examples and what makes them strong or weak candidates.

 

[DSorenson]

I think I am going to do a mic of the two styles. I am currently reading "Designing Great Beers" and there is a lot of good info on making your own formulations.

One recipe that caught my eye suggests open fermenting for 5 days. I think that sounds fun but risky for such a big undertaking as this. What do yall think? What effects might it have on the beer (add a bit of sourness?)?

I also used this book in my formulation for my barleywine. Excellent source. His suggestion for using DME to help make up a portion of the gravity is key. I used 30% DME in my recipe and I nailed my OG goal. I brewed 6 gallons of 1.070 beer, essentially, and boosted it 30 points with DME. Everything with this barleywine was bigger. Everything. I do not recommend the open fermentation; you might not want to blow this beer taking a chance on a neat technique.

The book "Vintage Beers" mentions that esters associated with english ale yeasts, when oxidized, produce dried fruit equivalents to the fresh flavors. Which are very desirable, from what I understand.

As I mentioned before, the beer oxidizes no matter what. It's how it is oxidized that matters. High ABV, low cellaring temps, oxy-seal caps, waxed tops and vertical storage help to keep all compounds in the beer aging at an appropriate rate so that no one of them out does the other.

 

[DSorenson]

Oh, and one last thing: sorry, I am excited that I just happened to do all this research and you might benefit from it.

As the beer ages the body decreases. Something causes this to happen; I'm not sure what. I don't think Patrick Dawson really understands it either as he claims that yeast keep working during conditioning and eventually consume most of the remaining sugars. We homebrewers know that would lead to bottle bombs or gushers, and that doesn't happen here.

His suggestion is that beer with much more residual sugars seems to maintain the body for much longer. I am currently using the WYeast 1028 London Ale Strain that when fully attenuated in my 1.100 barleywine will still be in the middle to high 1.020's.

Good luck and keep me posted with any questions: My barleywine has only been in the fermenter for a week as of today, but I learned a lot getting to this point.

 

[MetalMan2004]

I went ahead and ordered the book. Thanks to Amazon Prime I should have it Wednesday.

I may start putting ideas to paper this week to start writing a full bill. Originally I was just stuck on NOT using any extract at all. I think my plan may be to write the bill as if I am not going to use it, but keep some on hand for if I have trouble hitting the numbers I want.

Thanks for the initial comments and suggestions. I am interested to hear how yours turns out as well.

 

[MetalMan2004]

The book description mentions lambics and sour beers as being good aging beers as well. I am really tempted to try a lambic... I may have to do one of each.

 

[DSorenson]

Excellent choice! Yeah, he goes really in depth into the sour end of the spectrum. It's really quite interesting.

I'm the kind of brewer that resists using extract at all, because I tend to feel like I'm cheating or that my beer is not going to be genuinely mine. I don't know if you share those types of sentiments or not. If you do feel like I do, here are the reasons why I did a "partial mash".

1) 18 lbs of grain with a ratio of 1.5 quarts per lb of mash water almost completely fills my 10 gallon rubbermaid mash tun. That's just to get the initial 6 gallons at 1.070 with my 65% BHE for a mash of this size.
2) You can add more grain and less mash water but your efficiency will suffer greatly; once because the grain to water mash ratio is now lower, and twice because more mashing grains results in decreased efficiency.
3) Your wife will appreciate the money you save on grain due to maintaining your mash efficiency
4) Boiling the extract for the full time increases the mallaird reactions, which as you will read, make for a better aging beer.
5) As you read in Designing great beers, it will cut down on your energy consumption because the boil will not have to be as long. Another great way to save a little cash in this money pit we call a hobby.

I appreciate your advanced planning. Its something that I consider critical for a project with legs like this one.

Keep us in the loop as you plan this puppy, I'd love to see what you're working on!

 

[MetalMan2004]

Yes I will have to run the numbers to see if I even have the capacity with my current setup. I have the same thoughts as you on all grain brewing.

The book gets here tomorrow and I will probably read it this week. I am gonna do some taste testing of a few commercial beers in the book that I can find to decide what exactly I'm going for.

I have already mentioned this twice, but I have been REALLY interested in lambics for a while so I may try to add that style into this. I know it is a bit risky, but if I brew sooner rather than later I can restart if I get a bad batch. You only make a 21 year old brew once, might as well do it exactly the way I want.

By the way, we found out today its a boy!

 

[rodwha]

 

[DSorenson]

Yeah man, do what moves you. You never know if a hybrid barleywine/lambic would be worth while. Unfortunately I don't know enough about bacteria to help you there: I think I have read lacto doesn't like more than 10 Ibus for instance.

For an authentic touch you could add brettanomisies, as many British ales were likely inoculated with the stuff, historically speaking. And I just had a 100% Brett ipa tonight that was fantastic... so that helps.

Like you said, you can only do this once, might as well make it count.

Also, congrats! I hope he will appreciate beer

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

Another idea to consider is force carbonating in a keg so you can flood the bottles with co2 before filling. That's a lot of work and equipment for somebody just starting out, but maybe a homebrewer in the area can help

 

[DSorenson]

Another idea to consider is force carbonating in a keg so you can flood the bottles with co2 before filling. That's a lot of work and equipment for somebody just starting out, but maybe a homebrewer in the area can help

good idea, but two things;
1) The bottle yeast proves to be an asset in long term beers, so be sure not to filter it.
2) The LHBS probably sells inert argon aresol cans for wine makers. 10 bucks a can around here. If the OP has kegging stuff and a beer gun (or a home-made beer gun), great. If not, this is a relatively inexpensive option.

Not to mention that I'm almost positive that small volume of O2 gets eaten up during bottle conditioning. Patrick Dawson touches on that in his book as well, IIRC. From my rudimentary chemistry understanding, a very teeny tiny amount of O2 sneeks through materials over time. Perhaps someone can confirm that.

Another big issue is the amount of oxygen introduced during the actual brewing process. Without creating the age-ol' hot-side aeration debate in another place, I believe we can all agree that limiting oxygen exposure throughout the process is a good thing. Unless of course you're aerating the wort prior to pitching.

 

[MetalMan2004]

So I read "Vintage Beers" and boy did that open my eyes to a new world! It looks like I will be going with a fairly traditional english style, as it by far ages better for much longer than any other style. Apparently the flavors atteibuted to lambics are only good to age for around 3-5 years so I will try that another time....

At this point my biggest concern is ingredient quality. Apparently this is of the utmost importance when aging for as long as I plan. As far as I can tell, our only local homebrew store has average quality grains and hops. Is there any way to tell if any of their product is above average quality? Are there any online stores people would recomend for buying high quality grains and hops?

 

[mrdauber64]

Very interesting subject. Thanks for the suggestion on the book, I'll definetly be reading that!

In the most recent BYO they discuss Brett. The author mentions that Brett actually prevents oxidation. I know Brett was a common yeast used in English Beeers back in the day. Would adding Brett to an English Barleywine help the aging process?

 

[DSorenson]

Very interesting subject. Thanks for the suggestion on the book, I'll definetly be reading that!

In the most recent BYO they discuss Brett. The author mentions that Brett actually prevents oxidation. I know Brett was a common yeast used in English Beeers back in the day. Would adding Brett to an English Barleywine help the aging process?

Vintage Beers also discusses Orval, and IIRC, the book mentioned that they put in brett just prior to bottling. This makes for a great cellaring beer, but the claim is that past a certain point (measured in years) it becomes too funky for even daring people.

You are correct though, Brett was prevalent in English beer... but more by accident than by choice, as I understand it. This was happening before we had a much clearer understanding of the fermentation process.

Metalman2004: I don't think you'll have to worry about the quality of the ingredients of the LHBS. Brewers can be picky people. I will admit I had the same thought for my barleywine, but I decided big breweries have different quality/cost concerns than we do.

I have the feeling that getting your process down and planning ahead will contribute more to your success than anything else.

 

[Homercidal]

Great thread! I was going to also mention the oxidation problem being natural and not really possible to eliminate completely, but of course keeping EXCESS oxygen out would be a wise thing. I had not thought about late hopped beer causing cardboard flavors. It makes sense. I once brewed a BGSA with double the bitter hops and it was BITTER to start with, but after about 3-5 years the hops mellowed out and it's currently almost void of hop presence. There is one bottle left in my fridge.

I brewed up a Barleywine back in 08 I think. The bottles read bottled 09 and I still have a few of them. They were English Barleywine style I think and aged pretty nicely, but I still enjoy a nice hoppy barleywine that is not aged too long too.

When you get to the part about bottling, consider using corks and cages? They look cool and give a nice flair to a special beer. I *think* some corks are better at keep out oxygen than crown caps. Don't quote me on that.

 

[DSorenson]

When you get to the part about bottling, consider using corks and cages? They look cool and give a nice flair to a special beer. I *think* some corks are better at keep out oxygen than crown caps. Don't quote me on that.

Sorry buddy... gotta quote you on that...

They look cool, but cork is pretty porous stuff. Bottle caps are the best for keeping out oxygen.

 

[Homercidal]

Sorry buddy... gotta quote you on that...

They look cool, but cork is pretty porous stuff. Bottle caps are the best for keeping out oxygen.

Ah, I was thinking of the plastic corks that some highly carbed beers come with. I think wine corks are actually supposed to breathe to some degree (I'm no winemaker.)

 

[MetalMan2004]

In regards to the sealing method I think I will probably use caps (by far the best seal with wax over that just for extra measure. Since this will be sitting multiple decades I don't want to take ANY chances.

Family is in town this weekend, but I am going to try to write some stuff down on paper. Right now all I have written down are the basics:

Medium malts, as high an ABV as possible, lots of residual sugars leftover after fermentation (high final gravity), European hops because of the high beta content compared with alpha (as stated previously the alpha turns cardboardy over time while the beta gets better with time), and alkaline water.

I am contemplating oak aging for some extra flavor. The groceries here sell Wood chips for bbqing that are old Jack Daniels barrels chopped up. Haven't decided on that one yet though.

 

[ajwillys]

I've brewed serveral Barleywine's and have just finished the last few bottles of one that was 4 years old. Four years is a long time and it definitely started to degrade by then. That barleywine was 11.5% and had a fair amount of residual (FG was around 1.026 I think). It was a hop monster (over 100 ibu's) but you can't really overhop a big BW. Other than the recipe, I would recommend a highly controlled primary and secondary fermentation. I keep mine very cool during the most active stage (american ale yeast and around 63 degrees) and then slowly warm it up as it gets lazy to a max of about 73 by the time its completely done. It takes a long time, like 18 days or so. I leave it at 73 for another week and then drop to 55 slowly. I do this to clean as much out as possible without completely dropping all the yeast. After a month from start, I transfer to secondary (5 gallon glass) with an oxygen free process. Basically, its a racking cane with a hose running to the glass in one port and a co2 hose on the other. Leave the cane out of the liquid and turn on the gas. Let it purge out all O2 in the headspace and the new vessel. Opening a window's probably a good idea. Once you feel ok with that, push the racking cane down into the beer and the pressure will build slightly and then beer will flow.

Leave this at 60 for at least another month and then crash cool for a good week and then keg/bottle. I've never bottled a BW straight from the carboy but have bottled from a bottle filler with success. For that I take my sanitized bottles and purge with co2, then cap with aluminum foil until ready to fill.

 

[MetalMan2004]

ajwillys what kind of hops did you use in that 4 year old BW?

 

[MetalMan2004]

It was a hop monster (over 100 ibu's) but you can't really overhop a BW.

While you are probably correct when it comes to your average BW, it seems that (according to "Vintage Beers" that this is not necessarily the case when it comes to long aging times because of the off taste the alpha acids can leave after a few years. In the book he lists several english barletwines that age longterm fairly well, and after some research I found that all but 2 have an IBU between 20 and 40. The other two are 80 IBU and 100.

Unless someone gives me a good case for it I think I am going to go light on the hops.

 

[PLOVE]

Did the same thing shortly before my son was conceived. Barleywine - 60IBU - 11.5% ABV. It's been cellaring on its side in a wine-rack since 2005. Even addressed it to the "little one" since he wasn't even conceived yet. Might suck, might not, but I'm looking forward to the trying it with my son on his 21st birthday. If you don't do it now - you can't. . .

Good luck and enjoy the process. . .
P

 

[ajwillys]

ajwillys what kind of hops did you use in that 4 year old BW?

It was a 9.25 gallon batch:

4.00 oz Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 8 78.7 IBUs
1.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 9 13.4 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min

Also, since I dug up the recipe... OG - 1.109, FG - 1.025, IBU's - 92 (making a liar out of myself on IBU's).

 

[DSorenson]

European hops because of the high beta content compared with alpha (as stated previously the alpha turns cardboardy over time while the beta gets better with time), and alkaline water.

I am contemplating oak aging for some extra flavor. The groceries here sell Wood chips for bbqing that are old Jack Daniels barrels chopped up. Haven't decided on that one yet though.

I am glad that book is really helping you out!

I used French Strisselspalt: 2.3 alpha, 8.8 beta!

A friendly hbt-er once remarked on how oak helps to balance beer with it's tannic qualities. I think this is very true. Brewer beware, it's really easy to over oak. I think the best option there is to use an ounce or less of chips, soak them in whiskey to kill the bugs, and then just add the chips themselves. The amount of time the beer sits on the chips is also a concern too, but I have less ideas about that. I put a beer on an ounce of chips for 3 weeks. It's going to be ready next weekend, but I'm afraid it will be too oak-y.

Also, I can't help but to wonder about the chips you speak of: whiskey oxidizes over time. You might want to shell out for chips at the LHBS.

 

[DSorenson]

It was a 9.25 gallon batch:

4.00 oz Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 8 78.7 IBUs
1.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 9 13.4 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min

Also, since I dug up the recipe... OG - 1.109, FG - 1.025, IBU's - 92 (making a liar out of myself on IBU's).

That sounds like an awesome short term barleywine! As Metalman2004 pointed out, the high IBUs and low betas are what's going to do that beer in over time. 4 years is pretty awesome though! They say that sierra nevada's bigfoot has the same problem over an extended period of time. I mean that as a compliment, of course.

 

[MetalMan2004]

Did the same thing shortly before my son was conceived. Barleywine - 60IBU - 11.5% ABV. It's been cellaring on its side in a wine-rack since 2005. Even addressed it to the "little one" since he wasn't even conceived yet. Might suck, might not, but I'm looking forward to the trying it with my son on his 21st birthday. If you don't do it now - you can't. . .

Good luck and enjoy the process. . .
P

You are very right Plove! I must admit, I do plan on tasting before he's 21 (a little selfish I know). A 5 gallon batch yields about 50 beers, so I plan to drink maybe 1 each year on his birthday and keep a tasting journal of it. That leaves 30 beers for his 21st birthday.

 

[DSorenson]

^^^ I second this notion. 21 years of fatherhood will warrant a beer every year. Consider it payment for all the stuff your son will do that will cause you a headache!

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

I say drink one for every dirty diaper. The batch should last you a week.

Sent from somebody with no kids...

 

[MetalMan2004]

Okay, so I'm crunching numbers and I must be missing something here. I tried to calculate a grain bill using the formulas in "Designing Great Beers." I will explain what I did and you can tell me what I am doing wrong (this should be pretty simple so I don't get what I'm missing.

Step 1:
5.5 gallon final product
1.030 final gravity
Gravity units= 5.5x30=165

Step 2:
90% pale 2 row
10% crystal
GU for pale=165x.9=148.5
GU for crystal=165x.1=16.5

Step 3:
GU per lb of pale= 35
GU per lb of crystal= 33
Efficiancy 70%
lbs of pale = 148.5/35/.7=6.1 lbs
Lbs of crystal= 16.5/33/.7=.7 lbs
Total lbs of grain= 6.8

Predone recipes for barlewines show 20+ lbs of grain for 5 gallons. What am I missing?

 

[DSorenson]

Ah, you used the final gravity to calculate the total amount of gus. You are looking to predict your post boil gravity.

So mine was 6 gallons post boil of 100 gus. That's 600 total. The rest of your calculations were executed correctly.

Also, 70 efficiency is perhaps a little high of an estimation considering the amount of grain you will be mashing. Who knows though, that's your system.if you've gotten 70 percent before with over 18 lbs of grain I would say you have a chance.

Also think about water to grain ratio: if you are doing all grain in a 10 gallon mash tun, you might not even have enough room to get 1 quart per lb grain in.

 

[MetalMan2004]

See I was thinking logically that I should use gravity at the end of the boil as you state, but in both of the examples he does in the book he specifically uses final gravity (I went back and checked like 3 times because it didn't make sense to me. Must be a misprint...).

Regarding your notes on the size of the operation, how do you think it would be affected if I split everything into 2 equal smaller mashes/ boils and then add everything together once it all is boiled down enough to fit into 1 pot?

 

[MetalMan2004]

Using OG of 1.095 I get 19 lbs of pale malt and 2.25 lbs crystal malt. That makes much better since. That is a pretty important misprint in the book....

 

[DSorenson]

Yeah, I agree. He might have actually said final gravity referring to the final gravity of the boil... but I don't know. It's been a while since I've read that part. I think either it's a miss print or he seriously needs to reconsider his word choices, considering how specific they can be for homebrewers.

Also, for my barley wine I used 5 percent caramel/crystal, because in a beer half it's gravity the same amount represents 10% of the fermentables. I believe it can be easy to use too much. For instance:

Say you were making an imperial stout by merely doubling a recipe you have. Say the original recipe calls for 1 lb of roasted barley. That means your imperial stout, for the same volume of beer, will contain 2 lbs of roasted barley. To me that seems like too much, even though technically speaking it's the same percentage of fermentables. I don't feel like flavors in beer increase linearly with the addition of malts.

Just food for thought!

Regarding your notes on the size of the operation, how do you think it would be affected if I split everything into 2 equal smaller mashes/ boils and then add everything together once it all is boiled down enough to fit into 1 pot?

If you have the ability to make two separate batches of beer and combine them after the fact, that's not a bad idea. You would need to run the equivalent amount of water through each mash tun as if you were making a full volume beer... IF you are trying to reach your standard efficiency. This means a longer boil time to get rid of that water.

And here we go: the ol' hot-side aeration bit. I don't intend to start a HSA debate here, but I have strong personal evidence of it, so I take precautions to avoid it.

If you're not familiar with it, it's the idea that oxidation of beer happens faster at high temperatures. This scenario usually occurs during the transferring of hot wort.

I'm not sure how you can combine two volumes of boiling water into the same pot without turbulent mixture. I suppose a silicon hose for a siphon (careful not to scald yourself getting it started) or if you already have a valve on your pots, you could use the silicon tubing with that.

You begin to see why I chose to do partial mash...

 

[MetalMan2004]

Also, for my barley wine I used 5 percent caramel/crystal, because in a beer half it's gravity the same amount represents 10% of the fermentables.

I will probably be leaning more towards 5-6% crystal as well. I just picked 2 quick numbers to play around with the formulas since I have never used them before. It seems most of the recipes like this I see out there are 5-6%.

And here we go: the ol' hot-side aeration bit. I don't intend to start a HSA debate here, but I have strong personal evidence of it, so I take precautions to avoid it.

Maybe instead of combining while hot and continuing to boil, I could do 2 2.5 gallon recipes at the exact same time and take them both all the way to cold crash seperately, then combine in the carboy. I assume this would avoid the HSA problem?

 

[DSorenson]

That would certainly avoid the HSA issue! You're dedicated to the cause: I like that.

Consider what it means to do two 2.5 gallons recipes.

If you are using half the grain per... say... 3.5 preboil volume, you are still using about 11 lbs per batch. What you have done is increased the effective volume in your mash tun so you can have more water in it. and slightly increased your sparging volume. This is a big help.

However, in order to completely treat these batches as you would two normal batches of beer, you would be mashing and sparging both as if you were going to have ~6 pre-boil gallons. The only reason why you would want to do this, of course, is to make sure you hit your typical efficiencies. You would be boiling the wort for about 6 hours before you got rid of all the excess water.

Of course if you are willing to take a hit on efficiency, that's cool too. You just have to do one of two things:
1) incorporate an estimate of your poorer efficiency into your grain calculations, or
2) keep that DME on hand for gravity correction.

In the name of brotherly love, I strongly encourage the partial mash idea once more. However you have my support for an all grain as well!

Just to clarify things a bit: by "cold crash" you meant "chill". Cold crashing refers to dropping the temperature of the post fermentation product to help clear up the beer.

I love your grain bill. It's simple and to the style. I find it personally challenging to avoid tinkering with tried and true, but man does tried and true turn out results!

I'm merely playing devils advocate to make sure you've considered everything!