Bi Polar Bear >30% ABV

[MobyMD]

Bknifefight, the total cost for this recipe with supplies (minus what I had) and some equipment (jugs for freezing and dry ice) was $80. So the resulting price per bottle ended up being $4 per 7oz bottle!

 

[MobyMD]

I had one of these last night to see how it was coming along. The alcohol burn is starting to mellow some. It is so smooth! The fruitiness from the hops are really coming out. Now I just need to give this the time that it needs to really become great. I need to put it in the back of some closet and just forget about it for like 5-7 years. Cheers!

 

[dbsmith]

Nice. Did you drink it chilled or at room temp?

 

[MobyMD]

I put it in the frig for about 10-15 minutes before I drank it. It was cool but not cold. I sipped it in a whiskey glass.

 

[MobyMD]

My bottles got an honorable mention in the BYO label contest. Also I tasted another one of these after a few months and it has smoothed out and is incredible.

 

[MobyMD]

Well it has been two years since this project started. I have five bottles left. I had one the other day with friends and it was such a special treat. The flavor is about the same but the smoothness has greatly increased. It goes down really nice. Still has a good roasty backbone with hints of fruit and oak. I am getting ready to move to Austin in the next few months so I will wait to brew it again until I settle there. This will be one of the first beers I will brew so I can set it back for aging.

 

[number40fan]

Very interesting thread and congrats on the results.

Next batch are you going to do 1 five gallon again or step up to 2 or 3 five gallon batches?

 

[MobyMD]

Well it would definitely made it more worthwhile to have more than 20 bottles when I was finished so I will consider doing that. That would be an expensive afternoon (but well worth it)!

 

[Hello]

The bottle art is awesome. Not sure of the process but that is because I don't know much about it.

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

Bknifefight, the total cost for this recipe with supplies (minus what I had) and some equipment (jugs for freezing and dry ice) was $80. So the resulting price per bottle ended up being $4 per 7oz bottle!

Honestly if it was made and bottled by Sam Adams it'd probably cost 80 bucks a bottle. So a pretty good deal yo.

Very interesting thread, I'm curious about doing an ice beer(did 1 ice beer that came from an infected batch so I was just experimenting with technique). Did you move the beer into separate jugs then freeze it? It's dead of winter already in Wisconsin here so I have the perfect blast chiller(just wait a couple days and there will probably be -40F wind chill nights). When I thawed my batch out, I wasn't concerned with oxidation as it was just a for funnies experiment, did you ever notice oxidation? Or was the abv so high it dominated the off flavors?

 

[MobyMD]

There was and will always be some oxidation. However, I tried to limit the amount of time it was open to air and avoided all splashing and bubbling when letting it drain off the ice. There is not enough of the oxidized flavor in the end product to be off putting.

 

[MobyMD]

Finished up the last bottle of this recently so brewed up another batch last night. Made a few tweaks after learning from the first time.

1st of all did full grain and used no DME (upgraded the system [emoji57]). This way I had more control of the fermentability of the sugars. Mashed at 148-150. Also used less grain to have a lower OG.

2nd Used Panela instead of cane sugar to add to the depth of flavor.

3rd changed the hops a bit. Kept the Galena but added hop extract for extra clean bittering. Took out the Brambling and changed it to Goldings and a little Chinook. (If you want the specifics just let me know).

4th used a whiskey yeast with glucoamylase so slam the FG down below 1.000.....hopefully. This will help the finished product after freezing to not be so sweet. Remember the remaining sugars concentrate as well as the alcohol.

Fermenting away like mad this morning! Will update as there is progress.

 

[MobyMD]

Finished fermenting! Dang that whiskey yeast was a beast! Finished at a solid 1.001. Transferred to the freezing vessels and put them in the deep freeze. Will take some pictures when it is time to drain.

 

[FatDragon]

I love how you've been keeping this thread up for over three years. I've got a beautiful seven month old, 12.4% barleywine in bottles and I've been thinking about freeze concentrating some of it, probably just 4-5 bottles combined in a water bottle in the freezer for a trial. Any advice before I go for it?

Have you ever considered using the runoff water from the freeze for another brew? It wouldn't make for a very repeatable recipe, but it could probably create an unbelievable one-off.

 

[Paps]

Lovely read.
Wished you had posted some pictures of it in the glass.

 

[MobyMD]

FatDragon: just make sure you don't fill the bottle all the way to the top. The vessel/bottle has to have some space for the runoff to drain well. I have not though about using the runoff for another brew. I am not sure how that would work.

 

[FatDragon]

FatDragon: just make sure you don't fill the bottle all the way to the top. The vessel/bottle has to have some space for the runoff to drain well. I have not though about using the runoff for another brew. I am not sure how that would work.

Four bottles of beer should be a good amount to fill a 1.5L water bottle, then.

The idea of using the runoff (I guess not runoff, but lefotver water) was considering that you said it tasted like stout flavored water (in my case, it would probably taste like light barleywine flavored water). Using that for the base water for another stout/barleywine/whatever style of beer you concentrate it from seems like it should intensify the flavor of the finished beer. That would probably not be a good contribution for an easy-drinking Irish Stout, but for a big complex beer like an RIS or Barleywine, or for another big beer to be freeze-concentrated, it seems like the added complexity and depth might be appreciated. Or it might just throw the final beer way off by overdoing certain flavors. Either way, it would be a fun experiment.

 

[MobyMD]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1466128512.510024.jpg

Here is the draining setup. 2.5 gallon jugs with spouts on the bottom. I froze the beer with the spout facing up so no beer froze inside and stopped it up. It trickles at first and then it becomes more steady. I generally continue to drain until the leftover is white or I feel like it has been long enough that the ice is melting.

 

[MobyMD]

After draining for about 2 hours I ended up with about 1.75 gallons out of the 4.5 gallons of base beer. Back into the freezer it goes for round 2!