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Sunday, July 14, 2024

English Barleywine XI

This will be my eleventh version of English Barleywine.  I have brewed one every Memorial Day since 2014 - read about the previous versions here: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.  This are high alcohol, sweet, and malty beers which continue to develop flavors as they age.  I typically brew a different version of the beer every year for the sake of variety.

For the beer this year, I have decided to revisit version 1 which was a recipe I came up with.  It is intended to be a fairly light colored barleywine with just a small amount of light crystal for accent malts.  This time I've switched base malt from Marris Otter to Golden Promise.

For hops, I'm going with a large charge of bittering hops in hopes of keeping a reasonable hop presence for the first couple years of drinking it.  I hopped at this level in the 2023 batch and it didn't create that strong a bitter profile but I'm hoping for more this time.  May have to increase the hopping in the next batch

The original beer used S04 and Nottingham yeast which produced a yeast character I've enjoyed in that 2014 batch.  It also ended up fermenting down to 1.016.  I am very curious to see if it manages the feat again.

I intend to let this beer ferment in primary for about a month and then let it bulk age in secondary for another 6-8 months.  I will age this batch with red wine soaked oak for some extra flavor.

Recipe Details:

  • Grain:
    • 20 lb Golden Promise
    • 2 lb Crystal 10L
    • 1 lb Crystal 20L
    • 5 oz Acid Malt
  • Hops:
    • 4 oz Target (Pellet, 9.6% AA) at 60 min
    • 2 oz Goldings (Pellet, 5.4% AA) at 20 min
  • Yeast:
    • S-04
    • Nottingham
  • Water:
    • 20 gal of Spring Water
    • 2 tsp Gypsum
    • 2 tsp CaCl
    • Irish Moss
  • Extras:
    • Red Wine Soaked Oak (6 sticks)

Process Details:
  • Batch Size:
    • 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
  • Mash:
    • 155F for 60 min
  • Boil:
    • 2 hrs
  • Fermentation Temperature:
    • Ambient Basement Temps
  • Primary Duration:
    • 6 weeks
  • Secondary Duration:
    • 6 months

Results:
  • OG:
    • 1.106 (Target 1.10)
  • Efficiency:
    • 75% (Target 71%)
  • FG:
    • TBD (Target 1.030)
  • Apparent Attenuation:
    • TBD (Target 68%)
  • ABV:
    • TBD (Target 10%)

Brewing Notes:
  •     5/27/24 - Brewday - from 10 AM to 5 PM- including setup and cleanup (+ 1 hr for lunch and working out issue with propane tank hose)
    • Heated 10 gal of spring water to 175 F
    • Milled my grain.  Added half the CaCl and Gypsum to the grain
    • Moved 8 gal of the strike water to the mash tun and cycled through teh RIMS until the system had equalized to about 165 F
    • Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate dough balls.  Let this sit for 10 minutes before cycling.  The temperature settled to 156 F
    • Cycled the RI(MS at 156 F for 60 minutes
    • Brought 10 gal of spring water up to 195 F for the sparge
    • Did a slow fly sparge until 10 gal of wort had been collected.  Started heating the kettle after collecting 3 gal and had the beer to a boil by the end of the sparge
    • Added the other half of brewing salts to the kettle during the sparge
    • Boiled for 2 hrs (stopped boil at 1 hr to change propane tanks and couldn't get valve to re-open at first)
    • At 60 min hops.  The hops smell very nice.  Grassy and herbal.
    • Rehydrated my yeast in room temp spring water
    • Added the 20 min hops
    • Added Irish Moss at 15 min
    • Added the wort chiller to sanitize with 5 min left
    • Chilled down to ground water temperature (~70 F)
    • Transferred to fermenter.  Pitched  yeast during this
    • Measured gravity as 1.106.  Collected just about 6 gal of wort.  So, pretty close to target.  I'm happy with this
    • Set this up in the corner of the basement to ferment - it is in the high 60s
  • 5/28/24 - The beer is off to a very strong fermentation.  I moved the fermenter to my utility sink as krausen is being pushed out the airlock
  • 7/14/24 - Transferred the beer to secondary.  I measured the gravity as 1.036.  The beer is a bit sweet but not sweet.  It's also got a really nice ester, malt, bitter balance.  Added 6 sticks of red wine soaked oak

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