Barley Wine from Spares

[Dutto]

I'm looking to brew this recipe.

It ticks all the Barley Wine boxes on Brewers Friend and it uses up stuff I have on hand and don't want to leave in the cupboard any longer than I have to.

3kg Dark LME
0.5kg Candi Syrup
50gram AA 4% hops

Boil Size 10 litres
Boil for 45 minutes

Batch size 9 litres

German Ale (by Muntons) GV-12 Two packets = 22 grams)
Pitch & ferment at 20 degrees

The recipe calculates:

OG 1.112
FG 1.032
ABV 10.56%
IBU +/-35

Here's the unusual bit.

I plan to start the brew tomorrow and ferment in 3 DJ's at 20 degrees for ten days.

At the end of ten days (hopefully when the fermentation has calmed down a bit) I intend to rack the brew into two clean DJ's and leave them tucked away in a corner of the garage.

We then leave for a break so for 12 weeks the brew will be left to its own devices to ferment out at ambient temperatures in the garage.

When we get back I will then bottle & carbonate it in small bottles on the basis that no-one I know would want to drink a pint of Barley Wine at +/-11%!

Do you reckon it will work? :hmm::hmm:

 

[didinho]

Do you reckon it will work? :hmm::hmm:

for me, it will work.
it will be a bit plain, I usually put lots of specialty grains from munich to crystal, black, cara... to have complex malty flavors. but it will be a nice barley wine

 

[Dutto]

This is definitely going to be a step into the unknown!!

Got out to the garage and realised that I had actually used the LME for the partial mash I was moaning about last week so I had to come back in and revise the recipe!!

I finished up with:

1 kg Black Malt
0.8kg Chocolate Malt
0.8kg Crystal Malt
0.7kg Candi Syrup
0.8kg DME
0.8kg Brewing Sugar

60gm 4% hops boiled for 45 minutes.

I mashed at a fairly high temperature (72 degrees) for 90 minutes (it fell back to 65 degrees by the end of the 90 minutes) with the full 14 litres of water and no sparging. The wort was almost as black as paint which isn't really surprising with the 1kg of Black Malt in the blend!

At the mash stage I went to rehydrate the yeast ready for later and again discovered that I had used it!! No problem, I nipped down to Wilco's where I discovered that they didn't have ANY ale yeast!! I picked up three packets of Universal Wine Yeast on the basis that it is supposed to Barley Wine any way!

From then on it all went as if it was on rails right up until I ran out of propane as the wort reached the boil! Luckily I had a spare cylinder in the motorhome so after a 15 minute delay to change cylinders I was back on track.

The expected OG from the recipe was 1.12 and the actual OG was 1.20 so feeling pretty good with the result.

After cooling the wort down to 21 degrees in a water bath, I syphoned the 10 litres of wort into three DJ's, pitched the yeast at 20 degrees, cleaned up the gear and came in out of the cold for a well earned pint.

Here's hoping for a high ABV Barley Wine in about three months! :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Slid]

This is definitely going to be a step into the unknown!!

Got out to the garage and realised that I had actually used the LME for the partial mash I was moaning about last week so I had to come back in and revise the recipe!!

I finished up with:

1 kg Black Malt
0.8kg Chocolate Malt
0.8kg Crystal Malt
0.7kg Candi Syrup
0.8kg DME
0.8kg Brewing Sugar

60gm 4% hops boiled for 45 minutes.

I mashed at a fairly high temperature (72 degrees) for 90 minutes (it fell back to 65 degrees by the end of the 90 minutes) with the full 14 litres of water and no sparging. The wort was almost as black as paint which isn't really surprising with the 1kg of Black Malt in the blend!

At the mash stage I went to rehydrate the yeast ready for later and again discovered that I had used it!! No problem, I nipped down to Wilco's where I discovered that they didn't have ANY ale yeast!! I picked up three packets of Universal Wine Yeast on the basis that it is supposed to Barley Wine any way!

From then on it all went as if it was on rails right up until I ran out of propane as the wort reached the boil! Luckily I had a spare cylinder in the motorhome so after a 15 minute delay to change cylinders I was back on track.

The expected OG from the recipe was 1.12 and the actual OG was 1.20 so feeling pretty good with the result.

After cooling the wort down to 21 degrees in a water bath, I syphoned the 10 litres of wort into three DJ's, pitched the yeast at 20 degrees, cleaned up the gear and came in out of the cold for a well earned pint.

Here's hoping for a high ABV Barley Wine in about three months! :thumb: :thumb:

This will be something at the end of it. No doubt it will ferment, but how far it will ferment, is not exactly clear.

None of the grains you steeped have any diastatic qualities, but I just don't know whether that will make much difference. Wine yeast is likely to convert a lot of sugars that beer yeasts don't convert, but there will be a lot of sugars from this wort that a beer yeast would not be able to convert.

I, for one, would be interested to know how this experiment goes. Since there is unlikely to be anything conclusive for some time, enjoy the 3 months sojurn :thumb:

 

[Smileyr8]

1 kg Black Malt
0.8kg Chocolate Malt
0.8kg Crystal Malt
0.7kg Candi Syrup
0.8kg DME
0.8kg Brewing Sugar

60gm 4% hops boiled for 45 minutes.

I mashed at a fairly high temperature (72 degrees) for 90 minutes

Not sure how this is going to turn out, seems like a lot of highly roasted dark malts and no base malt, I have stopped mashing (switched to over night steeping) the highly roasted dark malts as a few previous ones of mine had a astringent taste. If I was to guess I would expect the FG will be quite high.

Either way the journey has begun and let us know how it turns out.

 

[Dutto]

Whatever happens to this brew it will definitely be unique!

For a kick-off, last night was so darned cold that:

o The water I chilled the wort in was left outside and had a layer of ice on it that didn't melt all day!

o The "warm cupboard" was struggling along at 13 degrees this morning with the 45W heater going full out.

o As a result there was no sign of any fermentation at all before the afternoon.

This evening, I could hear the odd "gloop" from inside the cabinet but as the temperature in the cupboard only made it up to 16.5 degrees (the garage only rose to a high of 8 degrees today) I just daren't open the flap to see what was happening.

Not to worry, it was done to use up some spares that I had kicking around so if it is drinkable it will be a bonus. (Actually, I have only ever had two brews that were totally undrinkable. Both infected, both like bad vinegar and the main reason I gave up brewing many years ago before I got hooked on sterilising everything!!!)

If it is drinkable it will be stored in 330ml bottles and be dedicated to all the little old ladies that used to sit at the back of the pubs when I was a lot younger.

These ladies would be horrified had anyone offered them a pint of beer ("Disgusting stuff. I'll have a small glass of Barley Wine please.") but nonetheless they sat there sipping their way through bottle after bottle of Barley Wine with an ABV of up to 12% before staggering off home!

Here's a great link in support of Barley Wine and a great read for anyone new to brewing.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/british-breaks/champion-beer-britain-cbob-camra-1227856

Enjoy.

 

[Smileyr8]

The expected OG from the recipe was 1.12 and the actual OG was 1.20 so feeling pretty good with the result.

Have you got the OG correct? 1.200 seems to be bonkers high for a beer and .080 points higher than expected, personally I have never seen.

 

[Dutto]

Thanks for that! :thumb:

Bugger!! I was pretty sure that the OG was accurate and logged it without thinking. I was fairly sober at the time and although the weather was cold the sample was near enough 20 degrees ...

... but fermenting 1.2 down to 1.01 will give about 25% ABV so now I'm pretty sure I've severely misread the hydrometer!!

As the name implies, Barley Wine can have an insanely high ABV for a beer but even on ...

http://www.ratebeer.com/beerstyles/barley-wine/11/

... where the highest ABV is at a staggering 27%; but there is no way the brew out there in the garage could be anywhere near this!

At the moment the brew is sat in three DJ's for primary fermentation with the intention of racking them into two DJ's when I lay them down for three months to finish off the fermentation.

I'll take the opportunity to get an intermediate gravity reading.

If it's above 1.12 then I will assume that the OG was somewhere near reality ...

... but i dearly hope that it isn't!!

Thanks again for the heads up. I had missed that! :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Smileyr8]

No worries dude, I was sat reading through this post again and wondering what the OG was, then when reading it I thought something has to be a miss here, an Original Gravity (OG):1.120 to Final Gravity (FG):1.040 will give you 10.5% abv but I doubt its going to get anywhere near as low as that (my gut feeling is saying its going to finish above 1.060) with all the dark/highly roasted malt.

I am sure you will get beer, I expect it will be drinkable, and can't wait to here your thoughts on it.

 

[Dutto]

I've just racked the three DJ's down to two, re-fitted the air-locks and put them on the floor of the garage where I intend they will stay for the next three months.

I took the SG of the three DJ's and the average SG was 1.068 after six days of fermentation in the Warm Cupboard.

I'm beginning to wonder if the OG of 1.2 was somewhere near because I deliberately mashed the grains at a high temperature (68-72 degrees as per a link seen somewhere on the Forum :thumb:) to produce more non-fermentable sugars and give a sweeter tasting end product.

Needless to say, I tasted every sample! The taste is heavy on chocolate and caramel and it's still very sweet so I may have a really good Barley Wine come this Autumn.

Here's back to hoping again!! :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Smileyr8]

I've just racked the three DJ's down to two, re-fitted the air-locks and put them on the floor of the garage where I intend they will stay for the next three months.

I took the SG of the three DJ's and the average SG was 1.068 after six days of fermentation in the Warm Cupboard.

I'm beginning to wonder if the OG of 1.2 was somewhere near because I deliberately mashed the grains at a high temperature (68-72 degrees as per a link seen somewhere on the Forum :thumb:) to produce more non-fermentable sugars and give a sweeter tasting end product.

Needless to say, I tasted every sample! The taste is heavy on chocolate and caramel and it's still very sweet so I may have a really good Barley Wine come this Autumn.

Here's back to hoping again!! :thumb: :thumb:

1.200 to 1.068 would give you 17.32% I would be most surprised if that was the case
1.120 to 1.068 gives you 6.83% this seems a lot more likely, and it's my bet its not far off done, maybe another 5 points.

Although I have just run the ingredients through brewtarget and that suggests you could expect to get down to 1.030 giving you 11.7%.

I am intrigued to find out how this turns out.

 

[Dutto]

1.200 to 1.068 would give you 17.32% I would be most surprised if that was the case
1.120 to 1.068 gives you 6.83% this seems a lot more likely, and it's my bet its not far off done, maybe another 5 points.

Agreed, and with a predicted OG of 1.12 my mis-reading of 1.2 seems a lot more feasible!

Also, a finish even as low as +/-1.05 (ABV 9.19%) should retain most of the sweetness that is there at the moment.

Racking it into the new DJ's has resulted in more fermentation even at +/-12 degrees so I will be happy to just leave it until June.

I will keep you posted on final results.
:thumb:
Ian

 

[AdrianTrace]

Does your hydrometer read up to 1.200? none of mine go that high.

1.120 seems more likely, and Brewtarget gives those ingredients in 9L as predicted OG of 1.121 - it needs to be 5.5L to get to 1.200

My barleywine did 1.103 to 1.027 (9.98%) in under 48 hours, as I (slightly over)pitched the yeastcake from an IPA, which was repitched from an ale - about a pint of yeastcake.

The foam was the same height as the beer in the FV!

 

[Dutto]

Does your hydrometer read up to 1.200? none of mine go that high.

.............

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:​

Great detective work there and another problem solved!!

The hydrometer only goes up to 1.160 ...​

...so I MUST have been reading the 20 above the 1.1 mark as 1.2 instead of the predicted (and absolutely accurate) 1.12!

Went out to the garage to check the above in my PJ's and it's definitely brass monkey weather out there!!

MANY THANKS
REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THE END PRODUCT!!

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:​

 

[Smileyr8]

Agreed, and with a predicted OG of 1.12 my mis-reading of 1.2 seems a lot more feasible!

Also, a finish even as low as +/-1.05 (ABV 9.19%) should retain most of the sweetness that is there at the moment.

Racking it into the new DJ's has resulted in more fermentation even at +/-12 degrees so I will be happy to just leave it until June.

I will keep you posted on final results.
:thumb:
Ian

Has this finished Dutto? If so how low did it go?

 

[Notlaw]

Has this finished Dutto? If so how low did it go?

He's off to France for 3 months. We'll find out in June.!

 

[Dutto]

Okay, done the deed and now all decanted into 30 x 250ml bottles.

There was a reasonably thick bed of yeast sat on the bottom of the DJ's so I think the original gravity must have been near the 1.120 that we managed to calculate.

With a Final Gravity of 1.038 (it's was a bit cooler than 15 degrees when I took the photo) the ABV will be somewhere around 10.3%. Add a couple of points for a bit of "in bottle fermentation" and anABV of 10.5% seems perfect.

At the moment the main taste is that of a rather sweet dark chocolate with a bit of bitterness. A few months on the shelf should moderate that quite a bit so I am optimistic that it will be a nice drink down the line.

Many thanks for all the input. :thumb: :thumb:

I will now photograph EVERY SG I take to prevent what happened at the start of this little project.

"Live and Learn" is a great motto! :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Smileyr8]

Keep us posted it will be nice to see how this turns out... I would like to do a double figure brew at some time, only problems is drinking it.

 

[Dutto]

Keep us posted it will be nice to see how this turns out... I would like to do a double figure brew at some time, only problems is drinking it.

That's why I bottled it in 250ml bottles! :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Dutto]

Tried a bottle today after less than two weeks on the shelf and - - - - - - I should have known better!

The smell is chocolate but the taste is very much "bitter black chocolate".

Methinks another month on the shelf before trying it again! :thumb: :thumb: