Todays brew

[kev7555]

Hello all! Got a message from the forum saying I haven't logged in for a while (probably mechanically generated) so here I am.

Today the Rat City Brewery is fully engaged in a batch of "Old Rodent" barleywine style ale. Basically it's a clone of Great Divide's "Old Ruffian". Close to 50lbs of pale ale malt, a lb of victory, lb of flaked wheat and 1 1/2 lbs crystal 40.

Shooting for strike temp of about 149-150F and mashing for 90 minutes, boiling for 90 minutes as well.
Bittering with lots of magnum and finishing with fresh hops (Chinook and Centennial) right off my hop vines in the yard.

Hot liquor is just about up to temp so I am outta here...report back on starting gravity later...

-Kev

 

[erikhild59]

Sounds good!

 

[kev7555]

I definitly pushed the capacity of my mash tun to it's limits yestersday. Was only able to fit about 47 lbs of pale malt in there... coupled with the specialty malts, I ended up with a full tun.

All went well until the end when my hop strainer inside the kettle came loose and plugged my brew pot outlet valve with leaf hops. We had to manually strain out all the hops and pour the entire wort into the fermenter. Labor intensive, but santizing hands and strainer first, it was accomplished and the conconction of safeale so4 blended with Belgian Ardennes yeast took off fermenting within about 8 minutes!!

Intitial starting gravity was 1.112!!!! About twelve points over my target but was likely caused by an excessively long boil. Total wort in the fermenter was about 8 gallons.

A second runnings beer was made from the leftover grist netting about 3 1/2 gallons of nice pale ale at 1.048. I pitched two packages of safeale so4 into that brew and it took off almost as quickly as the repitch. That so4 yeast gets it done in a hurry...

-Kev

 

[kev7555]

Let's see... where are we?? Less then 48 hours from the time of pitching the yeast and the so4 and Ardennes yeast have attenuated 62 points as of ten minutes ago. Using the corrective calculations for refractometer and a simple equation to calculate alcohol by volume we are sitting at 8.13%!!!! Keep in mind though, the fermentation has slowed substantially but it is only at 1.049 gravity right now. It should finish somewhere around 1.020 - 1.028. This will be a huge bastard when it's done.

I didn't want to introduce any foreign contaminates into the primary so I just siphoned about a drop or two from a stainless, sanitized tube...not enough for tasting yet. That will come on transfer to secondary in a few days.

Cheers!

-Kev

 

[kev7555]

It is now sitting at 1.030 (10.7% ABV). Still a little sweet, but that's par for the course with b-wine. I thought about pitching another pack of yeast and seeing how far it will really go but I hate to screw with success...does it really need to be more then 10.7%??????

It really seems like time to keg it, lay it down and maybe taste a little of it...

Whaddya think?