Yet to be named Barley Wine, by this handsome devil !!!
(Grain/Hop bill at bottom)
My first all grain brew!! So, yes I was pretty pumped doing this, tome all of my experiences so far making first extract batches, then moving to extract/partial mash batches, and finally graduating to all grain batches has been very fulfilling and educational to say the least, and I have so much more to learn! After pulling out all of my grain (22 lbs of it!) And going over my recipe and process (mash schedule etc) one last time early Sunday morning I took an extra moment to reflect upon what I was about to do-take nothing but grain, fresh hops, yeast, and water then somehow turn all of that natural goodness into a barley wine, loving it! After prepping my water the night before (5.5 gallons) I was ready to go right out of the gates. I conducted a 90 minute mash in my new mashtun, including the false bottom supplies by Northern Brewer, moved onto a 90 minute boil which I was able to bring roughly 5.75 gallons down to 5 between using two pots, all the while adding ridiculous amounts of high IBU Simcoe hop pellets in to bring my up to my targeted IBU's and start off with my original gravity right on target-1.12..fantastic.
Another big improvement I made to my system this time around was the addition of a proper chilling coil (previously I had tried with 8 feet of copper tubing..which was a huge waste of time), by picking up 25 feet of the stuff and running cold water through it for one full hour-this brought me down to a pitching temp of 73 degrees.
The yeast strain I used was a basic American Ale (smack pack) yeast cake which had been used to ferment out a Hoppy Pale Ale which I threw together a few weeks back, this brew was bottled while the Barley Wine was being cooled and once cooled was pitched directly upon the yeast cake...this is all thanks to Teds recommendation a while back, much appreciated since this bad mother started fermenting within the hour..and was almost completely done within 2.5 days, which brought it down to 1.010...
So now this guy is sitting in primary, to be moved to secondary this weekend (that's 2 weeks in primary...and up to 8.5 months in secondary (that's April..when we will be moving from Chicago..I should name it in respect to this event..hmmmm). Then its to be bottled with the top waxed and stored for much much longer..
Also making a special appearance with this brew is our my assistant brewer-3.5 month old Higgins..the super pup and my beard, which I'm glad to say is now one full month old (in this pic it was 2.5 weeks old)...and when I place this sucker in secondary the beard also goes away..mostly for job security :)
Thanks for reading, and as always please leave comments, threats, donations, and or beer at your convenience.
Thanks!
Hop/Grain Bill & schedule..
Mash: 90 Minute-batch sparged with 2.5 gallons
Grains: 18 lbs UK 2 Row
1 lb Aromatic
1 lb Flaked Barley
1 lb Biscuit Malt
.50 lb Caramel Malt-120 SRM
1 lb Table Suger
Boil: 90 Minue-5.5 gallons
Hop Additions: 60 minute-Simcoe (11.9% AA)-2 oz of Pellets
30 Minute-Simcoe (11.9%)-1 oz of Pellets
20 Minute-Centennial 1.75 (9.5%)-1.75 oz Whole Hops
10 Minute-Centennial .25 oz Whole Hops
5 Minute-Amarillo .5oz pellets
Irish Moss at flame out
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6 comments:
Congratulations!
Hope it exceeds your expectations. It has for me. Let us know how it tastes at racking or at some point down the road if you feel like sampling it. I like how you used a good deal of hops, cause you'll probably need it in the end.
I'll be racking my "Ancient Ale" old ale soon, after bulk aging for 10 months and resting on lambic blend yeast in tertiary for over 7 months. It sure has changed a lot!
My recommendation is to put it somewhere totally out of sight, so you don't have to think about it at all.
Congrats on the fist all-grain! Did you batch sparge or fly sparge?
I just racked over my barley wine. It's going to be a long wait, but I am pretty excited. I might break some of it out in February to warm me up. Otherwise I want to let it age.
Good luck with your all-grain brewing in the future.
Travis
Hey guys, thanks for the positive feedback. Ted-that "Ancient Ale" sounds awesome, I think that is a style I will be brewing within the near future.
Travis, I batch sparged this batch, worked out really well. I actually ran out of time this weekend (got to be an extra in the next Batman film) so I didnt get to rack over to secondary just yet, that will be happening tonight.
By the way I'm with ya on busting some out in Feb. I was thinking I would bottle a few and that would give me a good indication of where the brew was at that point (would still have 3 months to age it in secondary (maybe tertiary?) at that point before I absolutely had to bottle.
Brian
All this talk about barley wines has caused me to go ahead and brew one of my own. Over lunch at Goose Island on Friday, my brother and I decided to brew on Sunday. We picked up the ingredients at the brew store. Its now fermenting. I'll get around to posting about it later. Now we three just need to find a way to have a barley wine/old ale tasting in about 6 months or so.
Thats great! Yes-lets definetly set up a 6 month testing!
I still have not moved mine from primary to secondary..better get on that soon, I would hate to have it botched up by the yeast falling apart on me...
Hi Brian,
In reply to your comment on my blog about learning Japanese, I started off using Japanese For Busy People, which I liked, and my boyfriend had good luck with Japanese the Manga Way. We didn't use many CDs, being surrounded by native speakers, but definitely listen to as much spoken Japanese as you can. Once you're past the beginner stage start working towards the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 4 - there are some good resources here .
Hope that helps, Cassie
Also, the Barley Wine looks cool :) Good work
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