This is my 10th attempt at brewing the English Barleywine style beer. I have brewed one of these every memorial day since 2014. It is a lovely style of beer focused on Malt and Yeast character and sometimes hops. They are strong beers and are typically a bit sweet which are good features for long aging. My intention is to drink half this batch (once it has completed a 4-5 month bulk aging period) in the winter and then to drink the other half over the next 25 years or so (1 beer a year - a gift for future Andrew).
I typically brew a different recipe each year (or at least make some modifications when I choose to re-do a recipe). Read about my previous brews here: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. This year, I was thinking of trying to brew a clone of Goose Island's King Henry (a beer I haven't had). The don't publish a recipe but gave some hints which fed into a recipe from a Seattle Home brew club (see here). This was really more of a jumping off point but I used their malt bill pretty closely.
I'm shooting for a beer at about 10% this year which is strong but not providing a huge challenge for the yeast - a good strength for a Barleywine. I've chosen to go for about 100 IBU of hops here which I'm hoping will keep a good bitterness for several years at least. Finally, I'm using a yeast I hadn't tried yet - WLP 005 British Ale - which will give me another variable to evaluate for future recipe formation.
I've typically aged these beers with a bit of oak. I think I'll leave this one oak-free in the aging.
Vigorous Fermentation Underway |
It has been a fun and rewarding exercise brewing these beers. Very much look forward to drinking this one.
Recipe Details:
- Grain:
- 19 lbs Golden Promise
- 2.5 lbs Munich
- 2 lbs Caramel Wheat
- 4 oz Double Roasted Crystal
- 4 oz Acid Malt
- Hops:
- 4 oz Target (Pellet, 9.6% AA) at 60 min
- 2 oz Styrian Goldings (Pellet, 3.0% AA) at 20 min
- Yeast:
- WLP005 British Ale
- Water:
- 15 gal spring water
- 2 tspCaCl
- 2 tsp Gypsum
- 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min
- Batch Size:
- 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
- Mash:
- 150 F for 60 min
- Boil:
- 120 min
- Fermentation Temperature:
- 70 F (Ambient Basement Temp)
- Primary Duration:
- 4 weeks
- Secondary duration:
- 4 months
- OG:
- 1.100 (Target 1.100)
- Efficiency:
- 69% (Target 69%)
- FG:
- 1.032 (Target 1.025)
- Apparent Attenuation:
- TBD (Target 73%)
- ABV:
- TBD (Target 10%)
- 5/28/23 - Built a yeast starter (100 g of DME and 1 L of water). Set this up to propagate over night
- 5/29/23 - Brew Day - 9:45 AM to 3:15 PM including setup and cleanup
- Heated 10 gal of spring water up to 180 F
- Milled my grain. Added 1 tsp of CaCl and Gypsum to the mash (also added 1 tsp of each to the brew kettle at this time so I wouldn't forget)
Caramel Wheat - a new one for me |
- Moved 8 gal of strike water to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS until the temperature settled to 160 F. Ended up overheating my strike water so I added some cool spring water to get the temperature down
- Stopped the RIMS cycle and added grain to the mash tun. Stirred well to eliminate doughballs. Let this settle for 10 min - ended up at 152
- Cycled the RIMS at 150 F for 60 min
- Heated 7 gal of sparge water to 180 F
- Fly sparged until 10 gal had been collected. Started heating the wort after collecting 3 gal. Had it at a boil shortly after the end of the sparge
- Added bittering hops with 60 min left
- Added Flavoring hops with 20 min left
- Added Irish Moss at 15 min
- With 5 min left I added the wort chiller to sanitize
- Chilled the wort down to 70 F
- Transferred to my fermenter - let the wort fall a couple feet to aerate. Pitched the yeast during this transfer.
- Collected about 6 gal. Measured the gravity as 1.100 which is right on target.
- Set this up to ferment at ambient basement temperatures (mid 60s)
- 5/30/23 - Fermentation has started very strongly - krausen pushed out the airlock (thought that might happen so I put the fermenter on a towel to minimize cleanup)
- 8/6/23 - Transferred to secondary fermenter for aging. The beer is at 1.032 at this point. I'm going to let it age for 4 months or so.
- 4/21/24 - Transferred to a bucket fermenter for a cold crash. The beer is still 1.032. I'll fine with gelatin tomorrow and plan to bottle in a week. It has a nice balance between complex malty flavors and a firm bitterness - also quite boozy.
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