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Barleywine for Aging

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Barleywine Primary Fermentation with Wyeast 1388

When I first started brewing beer it only took 4 or 5 sessions before I was ready to attempt a really big beer. I had been discussing what sort of beer to brew with my brother-in-law and he suggested we brew something big that we could do yearly. We settled on a barleywine, english varient so it wasn’t too hoppy. We’d brew this beer and then age it for a year and crack it open when we brewed it the next year.

In planning for this big beer we also decided that we should run a partigyle session since we’d have so much extra sugar for a big beer. With a recipe in place for both beers, we set out to do an all-grain, brew-in-a-bag, 5 gallons of 1.115 S.G wort and 5 gallons of about 1.040 third-runnings which would be boosted with some Amber Liquid Malt Extract (LME).

On the big day we doughed in as much grain as would fit in the 15.5 gallons keggle we had. After 75 minutes and some seriously heavy lifting of the bag out of the pot we had our 7.5 gallons of wort; only it was massively short on gravity for our 1.115 beer. We had a decision to make… have a less-than-big barleywine and a solid pale or fix the big guy. We decided to ensure the big beer came out big. All 6 pounds of LME when in, along with a couple pounds of sugar. The other slight miscalculation was the hop bill. I had completely forgotten the hops, which were English, Fuggle and Northdown IIRC from the original recipe. We substituted some American hops, whatever we had on hand, Chinook and Cascade. The rest of the brew day went fine. The barleywine fermented out cleaning, tasting of hot booze with some orange in there, sort of like Grand Marnier, which wasn’t a bad place to be. We racked the beer into a 5 gallon corny keg and put it in the closet for a year.

This beer would turn into something spectacular… and I’ve been asked to brew this again many times, but since the time that I brewed this beer my palate has changed enough that I cringe thinking about 5 gallons of barleywine. Young, I can handle a bottle or two, but the aged variety end up being far too malty for me. With pledges of support for drinking the result, and an opening in the 5 gallon whiskey barrel pipeline; I decided that we’d rebrew this recipe, updating it a bit and get to use the proper ingredients. This beer won’t be the same as the original, but hopefully it will be come just as good. First aging in the whiskey barrel for a few months and then beyond that in bottles.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
6 gal 90 min 116.7 IBUs 19.3 SRM 1.099 SG 1.023 SG 10.1 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
English Barleywine 19 B 1.08 - 1.125 1.018 - 1.03 35 - 70 8 - 22 1.6 - 2.5 8 - 12 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pale Moon (Blacklands) 18 lbs 80
Munich Malt 1 lbs 4.44
Victory Malt 1 lbs 4.44
Crystal, Medium (Simpsons) 0.5 lbs 2.22
Pale Chocolate (Crisp) 0.5 lbs 2.22
Special B Malt 0.25 lbs 1.11
Sugar, Table (Sucrose) 1.25 lbs 5.56

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Magnum 1.69 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 14
Comet 2 oz 25 min Boil Pellet 8.6
Comet 1 oz 5 min Aroma Pellet 8.6
Fuggles 3 oz 14 days Dry Hop Pellet 4.5

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 3.70 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 3.50 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 0.70 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Whirlfloc Tablet 1.00 Items 15 min Boil Fining
Coriander Seed 0.75 oz 10 min Boil Spice
Orange Peel, Bitter 0.75 oz 10 min Boil Spice
Orange Peel, Sweet 0.75 oz 10 min Boil Spice
Yeast Nutrient 1.00 tsp 5 min Boil Other

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Belgian Strong Ale (1388) Wyeast Labs 75% 65°F - 75°F

Notes

Mash:

Keep Roast Grains till end of mash:
Pale Chocolate (8 oz)
Special B (4 oz)

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Local Malt Pale Ale

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Pale Moon – Locally malted 2-Row Barley

My local homebrew club does bulk grain buys roughly twice a year. I’ve been participating in these events for the past few years. I learned my lesson about bulk in my first purchase. I still have massive amounts of Thomas Fawcett Medium Crystal and almost a full sack of Thomas Fawcett Chocolate. You just can’t go through that much specialty malt even with close to 25 brews a year. The past few times I’ve focused on getting better base grains; more continental pilsner, higher quality 2-row, etc. I’ve experimented with a number of SMaSH beers using Marris Otter, Munich and Vienna to help go throw the grains.

Last year, the bulk buy started to get really hard. The supplier first quit allowing direct payments from homebrewers so the orders were grouped into larger sets and a handful of folks would pay for multiple homebrewers. Then they would only take a single payer. That was a bit awkward. Who wanted to front 12,000 USD? Luckily we’re all good friends and someone did pay-up and the rest of us paypal’ed our balance. And finally this year, the supplier no longer sells at all to homebrewers, only breweries.

The good news is that a number of the club members have connections with the local breweries and Rogness Brewing right here in Pflugerville agreed to proxy the purchase. While all of this negotiation was going on something great happened. A local malting house opened up in Cedar Park, Texas; Blacklands Malt. The announcement was back in December and all of the inventory was immediately picked up, mostly by local breweries like Jester King, Pinthouse Pizza, Hops and Grain, and Black Star Coop.

Around the end of January when the bulk buy was happening, Blacklands announced they still had Pale Moon, a 2-row pale barley in stock. I jumped at the chance to get a sack. I met Brandon at his malt house and got to see the whole operation. I’m excited to give Pale Moon a go in this lighter Pale Ale/IPA. Next month he’ll have his Pilsner available and I’ll be brewing version 4 of my Rekkae saison with local Pils. Not bad.

For the recipe, I’ve been entirely inspired by the awesomeness of Pinthouse Pizza’s Calma Muerta. Yeah, it’s called a session beer; which it is. And I don’t really care about the “movement” nor if it’s 3.8 or 4.2 or 4.5 ABV to “officially” be call “session”. What matters to me is that it’s easy to drink, flavorful and light. I’ve attempted a number of IPAs, but nothing this light, so I’m looking forward to seeing how to craft a smaller beer, keep it flavorful and not watery.

On top of it all, I’m throwing in an experimental hop, #1210 that I picked up a while back from Farmhouse Brewing Supply. The description sounds full of awesome.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
6 gal 60 min 32.5 IBUs 4.5 SRM 1.037 1.005 4.2 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
American Pale Ale 10 A 1.045 - 1.06 1.01 - 1.015 30 - 45 5 - 14 2.3 - 2.8 4.5 - 6.2 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pale Moon (Blacklands) 7 lbs 84.85
White Wheat Malt 8 oz 6.06
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L 4 oz 3.03
Honey Malt 4 oz 3.03
Oats, Golden Naked (Simpsons) 4 oz 3.03

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
HPC 1210 (Experimental) 0.5 oz 60 min First Wort Pellet 6.4
HPC 1210 (Experimental) 1 oz 15 min Boil Pellet 6.4
HPC 1210 (Experimental) 1.5 oz 20 min Aroma Pellet 6.4
HPC 1210 (Experimental) 1 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 6.4

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 1.70 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 1.60 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 0.30 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Whirlfloc Tablet 1.00 Items 15 min Boil Fining
Yeast Nutrient 1.00 tsp 3 days Primary Other

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois (WLP644) White Labs 88% 70°F - 85°F
Denny's Favorite (1450) Wyeast Labs 75% 60°F - 70°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Protein Rest 131°F 20 min
Saccharification 155°F 45 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

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Milk Stout Time

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Pic Unrelated – My first Woxford Logo on a glass — filled with Momosuppai

Many homebrewers have wanderlust when it comes to recipes. With so many styles around, it’s really hard to just brew the same thing all of the time; though I do want to revisit recipes to improve upon them. I’ve never brewed a milk stout before; but when I decided that I would I knew that I wanted to start with a clone recipe of Left Hand Milk Stout.

After a bit of searching, I found a thread on homebrewtalk with a starting point and then followed up by reading the BYO interview with the Left Hand brewer. After reading those, I pulled together my take on the recipe. The plan is to pull about a gallon of the finished beer and age it with some strawberries to make a Strawberry Milk Stout version that smells and tastes like it has strawberries. Ranger Creek brewstillery produces a wonderful beer in this style, but the presence of strawberry is something under dispute between my friends.

Vacca Forte will have the strawberries one way or another. Enjoy!

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
6 gal 60 min 21.5 IBUs 45.4 SRM 1.062 1.022 5.3 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Sweet Stout 13 B 1.044 - 1.06 1.012 - 1.024 20 - 40 30 - 40 2 - 2.4 4 - 6 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett) 7.83 lbs 55.19
Chocolate Malt (Thomas Fawcett) 1.196 lbs 8.43
Munich Malt 15.68 oz 6.91
Caramel Malt - 60L (Briess) 14.37 oz 6.33
Barley, Flaked 13.08 oz 5.76
Oats, Flaked 10.45 oz 4.61
Roasted Barley 9.57 oz 4.22
Milk Sugar (Lactose) 1.214 lbs 8.55

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Magnum 0.34 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 13.5
Goldings, East Kent 0.59 oz 10 min Boil Pellet 5.6

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Safale American (US-05) DCL/Fermentis 77% 59°F - 75°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Mash In 156°F 45 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

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Attempting a Lambic-style brew

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Filled the barrel with boiling water to prepare the barrel for aging

I’ve been working on sour beers for nearly a year and I’ve only now decided to attempt a Lambic-style beer. I always wanted to use a barrel for aging lambic-style beer but the size that’s available to a homebrewer isn’t practical for long term aging due to high oxygen to volume ratio; something that can spoil this multi-year process. Over this past year I’ve read a number of attempts and various processes employed by crafty homebrewers to minimize oxygen permeability. Plus, my largest barrel (11 gallons) has finally given up the whiskey ghost, so it’s time to make it the home of some sour bugs. A few more things forced my hand. In December, I was able to pick up the coveted ECY 20, Bug Country blend of yeast and bacteria. The list of microbes included is simply stunning.

  • Brettanomyces lambicus
  • Brettanomyces bruxellensis
  • Brettanomyces anomulus
  • Brettanomyces clausenii
  • Brettanomyces custersianus
  • Brettanomyces nanus
  • Brettanomyces naardenensis
  • Various Lactobacilli and Pediococci
  • ECY01 BugFarm
  • ECY02 Flemish Ale
  • ECY03 Farmhouse Brett
  • ECY04 Brett Blend #1
  • ECY05 Brett Blend #9

You can read more about the strains included at East Coast Yeast.
With such a great yeast blend, I needed to brew a beer that would handle such a blend. Empty barrel, great yeast. Lambic-style? Yeah!

Keeping a beer around a long time is challenging. Most of my aged sours are in PET or glass carboys; a few in a stainless corny keg. I agree that lambic-style beers need contact with wood to obtain a good flavor profile, but smaller barrels are going to introduce too much oxygen over a year or more. Over at the Funk Factory, a post about using paraffin wax to seal the barrel caught my eye. In addition to the waxing, a home-made steam wand was also something I needed to make so I could ensure that the bugs in ECY20 take over the barrel, not something else that might be in there.

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Hot water cleaning a freshly dumped barrel

I’ll be following up this post with a few more on both barrel steaming and barrel waxing.

For the recipe, I’m following the traditional 60% barley (pils) and 40% wheat. I’m not performing a turbid mash so I’m attempting to come close to emulating the result which is to have a wort with lots of unconverted starch. The unconverted starches become food for the various microbes over the long haul. Sacchromyces yeast won’t eat those starches, but both Brett and the bacteria (Lacto, Pedio) will. I’m using torrified wheat so I don’t have to do a cereal mash to soften them up. And just to ensure we have some starch, I’m also throwing in some wheat flour. Various homebrewers have had success, but no rule of thumb on the amount, so this is just a guess. We’ll see how well it works.

Another important aspect to lambic-style beer is locality of ingredients. I had planned on getting some wheat and pilsner from our new local micro malster, Blackland Malting up in Ceder Park, but their release in December was picked up by the local scene and they’re completely sold out of what they had. Pils and Wheat won’t make it out again till this summer. Look for v2 of Woxbic to include these malts. Normally I use Reverse Osmosis water to pull all of the elements and nasties out of the water and build a new profile with salts. Instead, I’ll use my local water. This has it’s own challenges since the city water is heavily bicarbonate as well as having lots of chloromines. To combat this, I’m employing a whole-house carbon filter, campden tabs, and lots of phosphoric acid so I can have a low residual alkalinity for mashing with light grains. I’ll follow up with a post on the water process used as well.

Here’s the recipe for Woxbic, the first lambic-style beer I’m attempting.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
12 gal 90 min 8.9 IBUs 3.8 SRM 1.051 1.012 5.0 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Straight (Unblended) Lambic 17 D 1.04 - 1.054 1.001 - 1.01 0 - 10 3 - 7 1.8 - 2.6 5 - 6.5 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Pilsner (2 Row) Bel 16 lbs 61.54
Wheat, Torrified 9 lbs 34.62
Acidulated (Weyermann) 1 lbs 3.85

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Crystal 1.5 oz 60 min Boil Pellet 3

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Wheat Flour 3.00 oz 5 min Boil Other

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Bug Country (20) East Coast Yeast 70% 63°F - 75°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Acid Rest 93°F 15 min
Protein Rest 113°F 15 min
Saccharification 1 131°F 15 min
Saccharification 2 149°F 15 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Notes

After mash-out, drain all liquid into boil kettle, raise temp to 190, pump back to mash for second rinse through grain bed.

Pitching ECY20 Bugcountry in 11G barrel.

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Sour Wit, take 2

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Farmhouse Saison fermenting with lactobacillus

I attempted a sour-worted wit a while back.  The process had a few hiccups and created a tasty beer, but it wasn’t nearly sour enough.  There isn’t any magical formula since we’re at the mercy of the bacteria.  However, I have learned that since I can’t rush it I shouldn’t try to make it fit my schedule.

In the past, I started the souring during the week and then on brewnight, usually Friday night, I would do the boil and then ferment.  This put the bacteria under a timeline: get sour by friday or that’s it!  This time, however, I’ll just be preparing the wort for innoculation and then letting it ride until it smells and tastes right.

Recipe-wise, I’ve been scouring the web for details and discussions of Crooked Stave’s St. Bretta farmhouse wit.  This was my first Crooked Stave beer that I got to try out in San Francisco at the excellent Monk’s Kettle.  It is a really nice beer.  Sour enough in the finish, but not overly aggressive that non-sour beer drinkers would run away.  There are a couple of new items for me, namely using Golden Naked Oats.  Supposedly they have a nice rich and fruity flavor but can contribute enough proteins to enhance mouth feel.

For the yeast, I wasn’t sure what Brett to use.  Various boards have some details of what is used in St. Bretta.  I was tempted to try two Bretts, but I think this time I’ll pitch Brett C.  A number of threads on Homebrewtalk forums mentioned getting a tart, almost sour flavor in beers fermented with Brett C.  This is unique since it is generally accepted that Brett by itself does not produce souring acids, besides Acetic (think vinegar) in the presence of oxygen.  Several homebrewers asserted that their Brett C. beers did have a significant tart, sour note without being acetic.  That’s good enough for me to try.

Here is St. Woxford, version 1.

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
5.3 gal 60 min 9.0 IBUs 4.7 SRM 1.052 1.010 5.5 %
Actuals 1.046 1.01 4.7 %

Style Details

Name Cat. OG Range FG Range IBU SRM Carb ABV
Witbier 16 A 1.044 - 1.052 1.008 - 1.012 10 - 20 2 - 4 2.4 - 2.9 4.5 - 5.5 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Brewer's Malt, 2-Row, Premium (Great Western) 6.5 lbs 59.63
Wheat Malt, Ger 1.5 lbs 13.76
Acidulated (Weyermann) 1 lbs 9.17
Munich Malt 1 lbs 9.17
Oats, Golden Naked (Simpsons) 8 oz 4.59
Barley, Flaked 6.4 oz 3.67

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Mt. Hood (20120604) 0.28 oz 60 min First Wort Pellet 6.1
Styrian Goldings 0.35 oz 10 min Boil Pellet 3
Ahtanum 0.35 oz 7 days Dry Hop Pellet 5.2

Miscs

Name Amount Time Use Type
Calcium Chloride 3.70 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) 3.70 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Epsom Salt (MgSO4) 0.90 g 60 min Mash Water Agent
Coriander Seed 0.17 oz 5 min Boil Spice
Orange Peel, Bitter 0.17 oz 5 min Boil Spice

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Brettanomyces Bruxellensis (WLP650) White Labs 70% 65°F - 72°F
Brettanomyces Claussenii (WLP645) White Labs 70% 65°F - 72°F
Lactobacillus Bacteria (WLP677) White Labs 70% 65°F - 72°F

Mash

Step Temperature Time
Saccharification 147.9°F 90 min
Mash Out 168°F 10 min

Notes

Pitch lacto for up to 5 days to get level of sour needed.

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