Brexit Old Ale and EU Bitter

[Joker_on_Jack]

I have been wanting to brew up something to age till my 6 month old can drink for some time now. I just got a new SS brewtech 15 kettle and I have a 3 day weekend so now is the time. To reference the time it was made I thought I would do a Brexit Old Ale with an EU bitter partigyle.

OG - 1.130 (about)
FG - 1.030 (about)
Eff - 65%
ABV - 12.53%
IBU 61.19
SRM - 30.14
Batch - 5gal
Boil - 120 min + 2 gal at first wort

Grain Bill:
22# Canada Pale
1.38# Special B
1.38# Biscuit
0.25# Pale Chocolate
1# Black Treacle
2# Corn Sugar (added at max ferm)

Mash 154F for 1.5hr

60min 2oz Challenger
15min 1oz Challenger

4L starter of 007

Secondary:
medium french oak cubes for approx 1 month

Secondary Split:
2gal as is
2gal Brett age
1gal Freeze concentrate

Partigyle

OG (whatever I get)
IBU 40
5 gal

60min 1oz Northern Brewer
15min 1oz Northern Brewer
0min 2oz Northern Brewer

2L starter Essex Ale 022

Its quite an ambitious brew but I'e excited to get see how it turns out. I'll keep this posted if anyone wants to see how it goes.

 

[catdaddy66]

Love the names!

Isn't Special B a very strong grain? 1.38# sounds like a lot... I wouldn't know though, just recall reading that it's used in small amounts but a partigyle would dilute it some, wouldn't it? Brew on.

 

[Joker_on_Jack]

Special B is pretty potent grain. However, at 1.38 it is still less then 5% of the total grist. 22lbs of base malt helps dilute it.

 

[JKaranka]

I'd remove the Special B and the Biscuit malt. Can you make some invert #4 with cane sugar and the molasses? Shouldn't take long. Pale chocolate seems good for colour (you could up it a bit). A small amount of Amber malt would be great.

Just for reference, I made a really good old ale with ~10% invert sugar syrup and less than 5% Amber malt as the only non-pale-malt ingredients. Gravity was quite a lot lower, so I'd reduce the proportion of Amber to ~3% for such a big beer. Brett C keeps it nice and dry without much of a flavour contribution. Father in law was very keen on it.

 

[Joker_on_Jack]

Brew day was largely a success. I hit 1.113 OG from the grain and treacle putting me at about 66% Eff. With the sugar added at high krausen I should get to 1.129.

The partigyle came out at a very low 1.018 OG. This is my second partigyle and I had the same issue with the last. This may have had more to do with my long boil (120 min with first 2 gal bail till sparge was done). Would stirring the grain to get some of the sugars loose then vorlauf again have helped? I am going to stick with the low OG and see what happens, it may turn into an interesting small beer.

To the recipe. I did want all the flavors associated with my grain bill so it stayed they way it was, complex sugars, and caramel in abundance making it nice and chewy (My Barley Wine is 98% Canada Pale and 2% Crystal, I didn't want the same thing). I could use some advice on the Brett however. I have never used Brett and don't want it to be a dominant flavor in the beer, though I do want to taste some of it. However, I do want it to actually ferment when I drop it in 6 months down the road. Is Brett C the right choice, or should I be looking for something more aggressive?

 

[catdaddy66]

Stir the grain like it stole something! Seriously, the agitation will 'knock' more sugar off of the grain. I dont know what your efficiency will improve to but it should improve.

 

[TheHairyHop]

I'm dying at the names

 

[Joker_on_Jack]

It has been a week since brew day and my 007 is stalling out and sitting at 1.052. I had the carboy in the basement as the yeast had been keeping the temp at 68F nicely. Then on Friday I went down in the morning to check in and the blowoff tube is going really slow and we are sitting at 62F. Moved it up to the upstairs and it is now sitting at 72F with minimal airlock activity with some good shakings every couple of days. I will let it sit till the 007 is used up. But should it not reach the lower 1.030s does anyone have any suggestion of what yeast to start up, get acclimated to high grave and finish out? 099 may work but I do want to leave something for the brett to do.

I added some sugar into the 1.018OG partigyle and brought it up to 1.022. The essex chewed it up in a couple days and finished at 1.012. I tasted the gravity sample and I think it will turn out to be a really nice table beer at about 1.13%.

 

[Joker_on_Jack]

It has been another week and the old ale has finished off at 1.050. I did not want to brett all of this beer so I am going to try an intermediate champagne yeast add. I have started a 2L starter with WLP715 with 1.040 wort. After it has gone a couple days I will decant and put it on some 1.080 or 1.090 wort. I am not sure if I want to do any more alcohol to the starter to get the yeast used to 12% prior to pitching it. In this case is beano recommended to kick-start this fermentation.

 

[Joker_on_Jack]

Overdue update... After doing some more research I decided against using champagne yeast at this stage, given that it won't do so great with the more complex sugars that are left. I racked the beer into a secondary for now until I get some more yeast ready for the task.

I am going to assume that the beer has no oxygen in it any longer, and that yeast won't be able to reproduce in it. Thus, I will need a large amount of healthy yeast to try and push from 1.050 to somewhere in the 1.030s. I am planning on brewing another beer to get a nice yeast cake, and then racking onto it with some yeast sustaining nutrient. I see this as an opportunity to get some different yeast character into the beer. I was thinking of making a porter with London ale yeast and wondering if I would get be able to use London to finish this beer that is already 10% abv 58% attention down to 65-70% attenuation. Or should I stick with a strain like dry English ale or even more alcohol tolerant strains for this kick-start?