Turning 25, can I make a beer that will last 25+ years?

[FiddlersGreen87]

And I think I might try and partigyle it. Is it possible to collect preboil wort to boil another day? If I just toss the second runnings in a sanitized carboy and let it sit a couple days until I can do another boil. Would that work?

Should be fine. You really don't need to even sanitize it. You can if you want to prevent anything, but you're going to boil it anyways. I would think just stir it up and let it go.

 

[Osedax]

Make sure you do a mash out with it. You want everything inactive including the enzymes. Bringing it close to 170F for 10 minutes should be good.

 

[CarbonTom]

Make sure you do a mash out with it. You want everything inactive including the enzymes. Bringing it close to 170F for 10 minutes should be good.

I will. I read that when you are crammed for space you can pull off a liter during vorlauft and boil it and slowly pour back in to hit mash out temps. That was my plan before the whole 2 mash tun thing. I might still do it to not have too many volumes of water to worry about.

 

[jwelch1103]

I brewed 10 gallons of Sour Cherry Stout (not a sour beer though) in June of 1989 and it is still drinkable. I gave some bottles to a couple of Jamaican guys I work with a couple of years ago and they loved it. They still ask me when I am going to bring some more in, one of them just asked me that last week. So, it can be done but its flavor will change.

 

[CarbonTom]

Make sure you do a mash out with it. You want everything inactive including the enzymes. Bringing it close to 170F for 10 minutes should be good.

I will. I read that when you are crammed for space you can pull off a liter during vorlauft and boil it and slowly pour back in to hit mash out temps. That was my plan before the whole 2 mash tun thing. I might still do it to not have too many volumes of water to worry about.

 

[CarbonTom]

If I'm going to partigyle should I not do a mash out?

 

[biochemedic]

I will. I read that when you are crammed for space you can pull off a liter during vorlauft and boil it and slowly pour back in to hit mash out temps. That was my plan before the whole 2 mash tun thing. I might still do it to not have too many volumes of water to worry about.

A liter of boiling wort probably won't raise the mash temp as much as you would want. I usually add my batch sparge water (usually a couple of gallons) at boiling temp and this only raises the mash to mid 170s.

 

[CarbonTom]

I meant a liter at a time and slowly raise it up until you hit it.

 

[JKaranka]

To partigyle you have to blend second boil with first boil at some point. Partigyling is not the practice of producing a strong and a weak beer but a solution to make more variety of beer with less mashes and boils. Say you have three boiled gallons of first runings and another three boiled of second runnings. You can ferment a gallon of the strong first runnings to make a barleywine, then use a gallon of each boil to make two gallons of strong bitter (esb like) and the remaining gallon of first and two gallons of seconds to make three gallons of bitter. Obviously that is an example and you want to work it out to give you probably two gallons plus one or two five gallon fermenters. All out of one mash and two boils.

 

[TNGabe]

No.

 

[max384]

What do hops do for a lambic then?

https://byo.com/stories/item/975-lambic-brewing

I just wouldn't add hop flavor to a mead that I was planning on aging for two and half decades. Wines and meads have been successfully stored for decades for a long time without the addition of hops. And hop flavor is well known to change (generally not for the better) with aging. I just don't think a mead meant to be stored for decades would be a good candidate to experiment with hops. I'd rather experiment with a mead that I was planning on aging for a more normal amount of time.

 

[CarbonTom]

Im ending up using 1/3 mason jar of san diego super yeast slurry that is 2 weeks old, since the wyeast was old and is not doing well in the starter. I figure I should step it up a bit to keep as an emergency pitch if I get stuck ferm. Brew day this Thurs!! Cant wait!

 

[CarbonTom]

Heres an update for those who care: I hit an OG of 1.124 which is great. I did 2 separate mashes staggered a bit. I over calculated the water for both so I ended up with like ~14 gallons that I boiled off to 6ish. She's churning away now after a 2 day lag.

 

[SmCranf]

Sorry I'm a little late, but a mead would hold up way better over 25 years than a big beer!

 

[Weezy]

I'd do a English Barleywine *and* a Gueuze. Imho, to get it to live long you want to bottle these like a Gueuze. bottle them in Belgian corked bottles, with Brett and some young beer blended in with some of the older beer. The young beer, at a low percentage of the overall beer content, gives the Brett something to munch on for a time... and the surviving Brett will consume the miniscule amounts of O2 that infiltrate the bottle. This helps beers keep from oxidizing. say, let the beer age on its own with Brett for a year, to get it completely dried out (so you don't make bottle bombs); brew a one gallon batch of fresh beer fermented on sac yeast, then blend the old (already inoculated with Brett) with the young at bottling time. Cellar the bottles. Profit.

 

[grathan]

Nice, keep us posted on the tastings and FG. I wonder if if it ended up fairly dark colored with all that boiling.

 

[CarbonTom]

Nice, keep us posted on the tastings and FG. I wonder if if it ended up fairly dark colored with all that boiling.

Will do. It looks kind of dark in the carboy, but in the tube for the hydrometer it was nutty brown color if I recall correctly. I hope all the boiling didn't affect the taste too much. When I cleaned everything up, it didn't seem like there was any scorched dme, so who knows. Are there any other dangers for having to boil for so long (240-310 minutes if I remember correctly)?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Long boils are good for Barleywine. Helps form extra malliard compounds and will help the malt perception.

 

[CarbonTom]

Long boils are good for Barleywine. Helps form extra malliard compounds and will help the malt perception.

Sounds like good news to me! Thanks for the reassurance

 

[UncleEddie]

I believe you can - just make sure the bottle or device is completely sealed. That is actually a great idea - I might give my younger brother a bottle of home brewed beer for his 21st & also one as a gift to drink at 50 or so.

 

[sikkingj]

What was the recipe that you came up with?


Sent from the window of an airplane...

 

[CarbonTom]

I have had a couple bottles of the 2008 vintage as well and they held up very nicely (I still have 2 left!), but the hop characteristic has all but gone.

I think I am going to go with a Beefier Bigfoot style barleywine. My current recipe is looking like:



Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 9.54 gal
Boil Time: 120 min
End of Boil Vol: 6.24 gal
Final Bottling Vol: 4.93 gal
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage


Date: 02 Oct 2011
Brewer: Tom
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: Cooktop
Efficiency: 60.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.1 %
Taste Rating: 0.0



20 lbs Pale Malt - 2 Row (Schreier) (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 76.9 %
2 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 7.7 %
1 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 3.8 %
3 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 4 11.5 %
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 120.0 min Hop 5 14.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 120.0 min Hop 6 26.4 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 7 14.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 24.2 IBUs
1.25 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 45.0 min Hop 9 36.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 10 0.6 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 11 1.0 IBUs
0.75 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 12 1.0 IBUs
2.0 pkg San Diego Super Yeast (White Labs #WLP090) Yeast 13 - (really just going to be a 1/2 quart of slurry from an IIPA I racked a week ago)
1.0 pkg Super High Gravity Ale (White Labs #WLP099) [35.49 ml] Yeast 14 - going to do a 2 liter starter with this


Gravity, Alcohol Content and Color

Est Original Gravity: 1.127 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.030 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 13.0 %
Bitterness: 117.9 IBUs
Est Color: 15.7 SRM


Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Sparge Water: 4.80 gal
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: FALSE


Total Grain Weight: 26 lbs
Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Mash PH: 5.20

Only difference was 5 lbs of DME, some rice hulls and I used San Diego super yeast slurry. Also longer boil for aforementioned reasons.

 

[TommyTbar]

I had a Sam Adams triple bock from 1995, 19 years old at this point, honestly wasn't bad, definitely a bit oxidized but not what I was expecting ( I have had some horribly oxidized beers from less than a year old) it was corked and waxed, still have one left, probably gunna drink it sooner than later tho




Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[CarbonTom]

I am actually tackling the task of storage now that the yeast is churning away.

I like the idea of corking, capping, waxing, and then vacuum sealing. Wax and the vacuum sealing are obvious, but how does one find a bottle that they can cork and cap?

I like the idea of these: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/375-ml-belgian-style-beer-bottles-crown-finish.html. I definitely want to go with smaller bottles since I wont be constrained to 1 every year. Since the necks are most likely identical to the ones that are designed to be corked, they probably will not shatter right? I have never corked anything before so I really know nothing of this. Are there different length corks? Or would I have to push them down extra far, or cut off the excess on the top so I can cap?

 

[CarbonTom]

I had a Sam Adams triple bock from 1995, 19 years old at this point, honestly wasn't bad, definitely a bit oxidized but not what I was expecting ( I have had some horribly oxidized beers from less than a year old) it was corked and waxed, still have one left, probably gunna drink it sooner than later tho
View attachment 235166



Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Also that is really cool! How did you store?

 

[TommyTbar]

Also that is really cool! How did you store?

they were apparently found in a basement so they sat in a presumably stable climate and out of the light their whole life until this year.

as for the corking, they shouldn't shatter, i've corked a standard 22 bomber before, but if theres any sort of carbonation going on, you would want to use a belgian wire wrap, not sure if the wax would hold pressure. the triple bock was most definitely flat haha

 

[TommyTbar]

and if there is carbonation those belgian beer bottles will work, dont use a standard wine bootles those will become bottle bombs

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

I am actually tackling the task of storage now that the yeast is churning away.

I like the idea of corking, capping, waxing, and then vacuum sealing. Wax and the vacuum sealing are obvious, but how does one find a bottle that they can cork and cap?

I like the idea of these: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/375-ml-belgian-style-beer-bottles-crown-finish.html. I definitely want to go with smaller bottles since I wont be constrained to 1 every year. Since the necks are most likely identical to the ones that are designed to be corked, they probably will not shatter right? I have never corked anything before so I really know nothing of this. Are there different length corks? Or would I have to push them down extra far, or cut off the excess on the top so I can cap?

So you want to shove a cork down the neck of the bottle (like with wine), AND cap it?
I've never heard of that being done before. Are you planning on storing them on their sides like wine?

 

[biochemedic]

So you want to shove a cork down the neck of the bottle (like with wine), AND cap it?
I've never heard of that being done before. Are you planning on storing them on their sides like wine?

This is indeed possible...I first got the idea from Lindeman lambic, who packages at least some of their product this way. I played around with the idea using some DFH champagne style bombers that I have saved, and I can tell you for sure it works with those. I was thinking about doing this method for some mead that is designed to be aged (but which is currently sleeping in a corney keg).

The bottle that the OP linked looks like it could work...still it might not be a bad idea to call NB and ask them if they could confirm that you can fit a standard wine cork in them before you spring for purchase (and shipping) on 2 cases of them. Or see if you can buy just one to try it out.

 

[Qhrumphf]

Corked and capped isn't all that uncommon, especially amongst sours (i know I've seen Cantillon bottles that way). The cap takes the place of the cage. Most bottles that I've seen have the larger European cap, and I don't know of anyone offhand who sells the bottles but a corker/capper with the appropriate bell and the right bottles, corks and caps should be attainable without too much hassle.