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

[solbes]

Yeah I wouldn't aerate the starter, except prior to dumping in the yeast slurry. Once you dump in the slurry, just let the starter sit for 12 hours or so. Then carefully dump this into your main batch of beer (all in - krausen, fermenting starter, and sediment). In theory, the energized yeast eat not only the sugars in the starter wort, but also some of the residual sugars in your main batch. I got this to work with Bells yeast in my 12% RIS.

Make sure you are using an alcohol tolerant yeast, as its already at 12%.

 

[traveligion]

OP how you ended up bottling this beer? And do you have any tips/comments as I just made big RIS meant to age for 18 years, up to my kids 18th birthday! I'm planning to bottle in champagne bottles but cant decide whether to cap and wax or cork (plastic) and wax? Maybe your way with cork/cap/wax is the best?-should you sanitize cork somehow before (soaking in starsan or boiling?)

 

[CarbonTom]

OP how you ended up bottling this beer? And do you have any tips/comments as I just made big RIS meant to age for 18 years, up to my kids 18th birthday! I'm planning to bottle in champagne bottles but cant decide whether to cap and wax or cork (plastic) and wax? Maybe your way with cork/cap/wax is the best?-should you sanitize cork somehow before (soaking in starsan or boiling?)

Thats awesome. I think the cork cap is definitely the way to go, Cantillon has the right idea, and their beers last forever more or less. The wax I just saw as an added protection in my mind, also an excuse to make it look awesome.

If you buy corks prepackaged (usually in bags of 25 or 100) they are sanitary. The bag will be kind of inflated. I did test corkings with mine months before bottling so I needed to sanitize them, so I put them in a collander in a pot and steamed them with a sulfate solution per the recommendation of Yooper: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=120865

I will highlight what everyone says about this stuff: DO NOT SMELL OR INHALE THESE VAPORS. It hurts, and I am sure is hazardous, and I did by accident. I am fine, but could not smell for like a day after.

It worked well for me though, and the waxed bottles look awesome. I mixed rehydrated champagne yeast in at bottling, and only got a slight carb, but I think that was mostly because the abv was so high and it had sat so long that there was no oxygen left to metabolize with the priming sugar. Still I've opened 2 bottles and its pretty damn good. I cant wait for it to thin out over the years a bit.

Good luck!

 

[jiMithing83]

This is a really cool idea. I have to say, reading through this thread and seeing all the aging advice has put my mind at ease about the bottle of 2014 BCBS I'm saving for the next 20 years to give my son on his 21st. Now all I have to do is find the willpower to not open it for myself in the meantime.

 

[CarbonTom]

This is a really cool idea. I have to say, reading through this thread and seeing all the aging advice has put my mind at ease about the bottle of 2014 BCBS I'm saving for the next 20 years to give my son on his 21st. Now all I have to do is find the willpower to not open it for myself in the meantime.

Yes the willpower is the hard part haha. Over Christmas I was going to open a bottle with everyone, but my gf set my mind straight since I opened 2 this year that were not on my bday haha. I still have 38 but no need to rush through them.