It's a story of an American Barleywine. In a previous post, I told of my reason why I wanted to create a giant hoppy Barleywine. The Thames Valley II  yeast inspired me. I formulated this based on the amount of malt I thought I wanted to cram into my mashtun. I scaled back my hop addtions down to 4 in the kettle, plus dryhopping I'll do in secondary. I ended up with about 8 gallons in the kettle and 7 in the fermenters.

Ken

31# mix of Great Western 2-row & Gambrinus Pale Malt

1# Weyermann Carafoam

1# Simpson's Extra Dark Crystal (160L)

90 min: 2 oz. Nugget 12.1% aa, 2 oz. Soriachi Ace 10.9% aa (80 ibus)

30 min: 1 oz. Styrians 5.2% aa (6.5 ibus)

5 min: 1 oz. Styrians 5.2% aa, 1 oz. Cascade 5.4% aa

K.O.: 1 oz. each Styrians, Cascade, Citra @ 11.1% aa, and Soriachi Ace

Yeasts were 12 ounces of 1098 slurry & something like 6-8 ounces of 1882 slurry that I made a 1.040 starter for. Adjusted grav with starter is about 1.098 for that half of the batch.

Wyeast Brewer's Choice Yeast Nutrient^TM and Irish Moss were used as usual.

I saccharified at 150F for more than an hour, sparged, and stopped runnings when I had a kettle gravity of something like 1.082 or so. I boiled 15 minutes before I added the 90 minute hop addition. Gravity was still comin' out in the 1.040s, so I improvised a small bier. I ended up with 2.5 gallons of 1.048 small bier. Pretty big small bier! Medium bier?? With two additions of Soriachi Ace, I think it'll be fairly hoppy. I've primed that one in the keg.

I ran the ferment in the low 70's and left it in primary for 3 weeks because I was hoping for more attenuation. I split it favoring the 1882 with 4 gallons and 1098 has about 2.5ish.

1098: 1.102 to 1.028, for 73.5% aa & 9.9% abv

1882: 1.098 to 1.025, for 73.5% aa & 9.6% abv

I think those are the numbers anyway. I keep threatening to get a lab grade hydrometer. If there were to be a next time I'd skip the Carafoam and try to mash at 147F. It tastes really good though. Pretty hoppy and the nose is great, best from the 1882 half. Malt is great. It definitely tastes like an American Barleywine even if it is a little on the sticky side. It should age well though. I'll be dryhopping it in the last 10 days of it's existence in secondary with 1/2 ounce of each of the four finishing varieties, that is a 1/2 ounce each in both halves. That'll bring the total to nearly 1 pound of hops used for the entire batch.

A beer I made with Wyeast 1882 Thames Valley II.  I'm pitching the yeast from this ferment on a hoppy Barleywine.

Neville Premium Bitter (11 gallons)

14.25#     Gambrinus Pale Malt

.25#         Crisp Amber Malt  (27L)

1.5#         Simpsons Extra Dark Crystal  (160L)

90 minute hop addition:  1.5 oz Cascade @ 5.4% AA

& 2 oz Styrians @ 5.2% AA  (35 ibus)

KO hop addition of:  1.5 oz Styrians, 1 oz Cascade, and .5 oz of Citra @ 11.1% AA

Single infusion @ 153F for 30 minutes, vorlauf, run off with no mashout.

OG: 1.042  TG: 1.011  74% aa & 4.1% abv

First pour, 2 weeks young was creamy and malty, not as hoppy as I'd have thought, but a nice developing bitterness on the back of the tongue.  Some fruit esters, nice body and balance.  Pretty freakin' clean and malty.  Lightly biscuity.  Definitely at the dark end of the spectrum @ 14ish SRM.  I like the Simpsons Extra Dark.  At 9% of the grist there was a lot of color, but the dark carmel quality didn't seem over done.  It provided some dark fruit qualities to the malt character.  I also used it in the sour red that I made this year.  Oddly, the Citra seemed slightly present until the last gallon in the keg.  Then it suddenly became greatly pronounced as ripe red grapefruit.  Weird.

Next half I dry hopped and primed in the keg.  I used only a half ounce each of Cascade and Soriachi Ace.  The added aroma was a nice addition.  Some citrus, but mostly earthy and resinous.  It has all somehow remained very balanced.  Good beer even though it wasn't what I had in my head.

...of seeing a whole lotta nothing on this blog!  So I have to write something, no matter how insignificant.  Jib finished at 1.005 from 1.049 for about 90% apparent attenuation and 5.8% abv.  It's still in the secondary fermentor waiting to be bottled.  The other half of that batch was infected with my Clausenii starter and it's worked and still is workin'.  Makin' bubbles and tropical smells out the airlock.  Sweet.

I've been liking the hops more lately.  (Odd?)  When I smelled the esters of the Wyeast Thames Valley II a great while back, one word flashed in my head, "Barleywine!"  Whaa!?  Do you even LIKE Barleywine!!?  Well, I like a few.  Big Time Old Wooly to name one.  It won me over to the American style with it's grapefruity hops.  So far, Thames II has some nice apricot, peach, or other stone fruit esters.  I thought it could meld well with some american hop charactor.  We'll see.

A Saison for Big Brew 2010.  And I haven't made a Saison for more than a year so it was about time, I suppose.  I've always wanted to use triticale which is the wheat/rye hybrid so I incorporated it in at 10%.  I found it in flaked form at Fred Meyer.  Conversion was slow.  I opted to not do a protein rest because Triticale was flaked and also cause I was lazy.  Apparently, the triticale still had plenty of starch and therefore took longer to convert.  There might even be some unconverted starch in there... oops.  I plan to pitch my Brett. Clausenii starter on half of the batch as I rack it to secondary.  (I'm sure it'll love any extra starch.)  I formulated for 1.052, but I liquored down the wort pre boil, and a little too much...

Son of a Jib

17.5#       Gambrinus Pale Malt
2#            Flaked Triticale
1 oz.         Yakima Magnum - 14.4% aa  (28 ibus)  90 min.
1 oz.         UK Styrian Goldings - 5.2%      KO
1 oz.         French Strisselspalt -   2.9%      KO
.5 oz.        Citra                - 11.1%          KO

Moss & Wyeast Brewers Choice Yeast Nutrient
Wyeast 3711  French Saison starter

Mashed with 5 gallons of liquor @ 150F

OG:  1.049

The Goals in producing beers for the Yard City Cask Festival were:

Low alcohol, quaffable, sessionble beers

Young beers

Priming them in the keg to produce appropriate carbonation

When I made the Mild & first Bitter I could then set the date for the event.  I set it for 3 1/2 weeks out.  Brad had already made his bitter the previous Saturday, making his beer four weeks old before tapped.  Worried about not having enough festival beer, I made yet another bitter only 2 weeks before the event!  (Crazy, I know.)  I'm very happy to report that all the beers were ready with all of the goals achieved.

I used information on priming beer for low carbonation in the keg from multiple sources: Sutula's Mild Ale book, Foster's Pale Ale, and the Tastybrew priming calculator.  I decided to go with priming the kegs at different rates.  Some were 7/8 oz of sucrose, some 1 1/8 ounce, and Brad primed his at 1 ounce.  All were refermented in the keg warm (68-72F), then chilled to celler temperature a few days before dispense.  All primings worked fine.  What I really learned was that, just like a cask coming into a pub celler in London, one needs to actively manage the refermenting beer during this time of conditioning.  I monitered the pressure in the keg with this, bleeding off excess as needed, and comparing with common pressure/temperature/volume charts.

Side spiel about the two stuck mashes I had on the 10th, right here.

W Feb 10, 10

Major Tom Mild

• 12.5#  Baird's Maris Otter
• 1.5#    Castle Kiln Coffee  (180L)
• .25#    Briess C-120
• 1.75 oz.   UK Styrians 5.2% aa  (18 ibus)
• Wyeast 1968 London ESB & 1028 London Ale
• Irish Moss & Wyeast Brewers Choice Yeast Nutrient & 3g CaCl (kettle)

5 gallons H2O @ 152F: 30 minutes, no mashout (ala English Brewers).  Vorlauf & run off.  Such great extraction in the mash that I had to liquor down in the kettle to achieve desired OG.

OG:  1.037

Captain Hastings Bitter

• 13#     Baird's Maris Otter
• 1.25#  Briess C-120
• 3 oz.    UK Styrians 5.2% aa, 75 minutes (31 ibus)
• 1.5 oz. UK Styrians 5.2% aa, K.O.
• Wyeast 1028 London Ale & 1882 Thames Valley II
• Moss, Yeast Nutrient, & 2g CaSO4 (kettle)

5 gallons @ 149F: 30+ minutes, no mashout.  Vorlauf & run off.

OG:   1.039

F Feb 19, 10

Grampa Wigan Bitter

• 13#   Gambrinus Pale Malt
• .75#  Briess C-20
• .25#  Thomas Fawcett & Sons Amber Malt  (50L)
• 1.5 oz.  Weyermann Chocolate Rye  (188-300L)
• 3.25 oz.  Cascade Pellets 5.4% aa, 90 minutes (35 ibus)
• .5 oz.    Cascades, 5 minutes
• 1 oz.     Cascades, K.O.
• Wyeast 1968 & 1098 British Ale
• Moss & Nutrient, no salts (I think) and unfiltered water

5.5+ gallons @ 154: 30 minutes, no mashout.  Vorlauf unt run off.  A speedy 4 hour beer!

OG:  1.039

This is the 3rd installment in our quest for Belgian Pale Ale.  As you may tell from the picture it seems extra pale and not the orange tones as in the last two.  I used about half a percent of Weyermann Carafa in the grist of the previous example, and a darker crystal malt in the first.  I forgot to include Carafa in this bier, thus the Belgian Extra Pale Ale moniker.

BPA III

15#   GW 2-row

2#    Weyermann Vienna

1#    Briess C-20

2 oz   Cascade   6.3% aa  @  90 minutes

2 oz   US Tettnang            @  KO

3/8 oz  Cascade                @  KO

Wyeast 3711 French Saison & 3739 Flanders Golden Ale

Irish Moss & Yeast Nutrient, No salts added

28ish quarts.  Mashed @ 15: 30 minutes, then up to 167.  Ph : 5.1/5.2

OG:  1.051

TG:  3711: 1.008   84.3% AA, 5.73% abv

       3739 : 1.007   86.3% AA, 5.86% abv

The 3739 shows to be a "true top cropper".  It had a giant krausen.  It also proved to be a big attenuator at about 86% in this bier.  Our usual star, the 3711 yeast, produced an unbelivably sluggish ferment.  I recieved both yeasts at the same time.  (I believe they were both stamped September 17th?)  And for some reason that package of 3711 was bunk.  It finished though.  I still have a pack from that lot, but since then Wyeast has offered it up as a product available year around.  Woot!

When I mashed this bier I intended to saccharify at 152F, but I overshot it and rolled with it.  Even at a higher temp, both yeasts attenuated fabulously.  When tasting this bier, I can tell that it has more mouthfeel and viscosity than the previous BPA.  That one I mashed at 152.  This 3711 BEPA is deep gold with a nice white head that produces some lacing.  It's super fruity with big tropical esters, like pineapple.  There's flowery hop, maybe some citrus in the nose and on the palate.  It's pretty balanced and drinkable with some remaining bitterness on the tongue.  I still want it to be a smaller bier, let alone with more color.  I'm shooting for a 5.2% bier next time.  I'll also have the De Koninck yeast, the Schelde, for the next one.

LAMBIC IV


17 1/2#    Weyermann Pils
6#            Wheat
2 oz.        '01 Crystal hop flowers @90 min.
GueuzeFest  II & III bug starters

10 gallons H20 with 2# pils & 6# wheat @ 148 down to 143: 30 min.  Bring slowly up to 212 & boil for 30 min.  Add 3+ gallons of cold H20 + 14# pils @ 144 up to 158: 1 hour+.  Sparge with 200F.  Collect 14, boil down to 12.

OG:  1.054

Biers in GF II:
    -3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze: Nov '05
    -Petrus Aged Pale
    -Oude Beersal Gueze
    -?

Biers in GF III:
    -Cantillon Bruocsella 1900 Grand Cru: Sept '05
    -Gueuze Fond Tradition/St. Louis
    -Oude Beersal
    -Gueuze Girardin 1882
    -3 Fonteinen Oude Geuze: Nov '05

This time I made Lambic, I wanted to make sure to have plenty of starch in it for the Brettanomyces & bacteria to chew on for the long term.  I don't think that I'd provided enough in the past ones.  Mash schedules were more conventional multi step ones.  So, I performed a version of the Wyeast Lambic Mash Schedule™.  A lazier version, perhaps.  I also wanted to add aged whole hops because in the past I'd just used debittered chinook at about 1% alpha.  It might be best to use no hops at all.  This would allow the bacteria free reign to acidify without the possiblity of being impaired by certain hop compounds.  I couldn't resist, though.  So I compromised and used 2 ounces instead of like 9 or 10 which would be a more stylisticly appropriate amount.

GueuzeFest II starter tasted awesome.  Plenty of acid and complexity, and it has been the first bugs outa the gate to show visual fermentation.  Not a pellicle, but a blotchy head of foam.  GF III has just started to show some action, too.  Foam may have been any Saccharomyces that were in these, but who knows.  I yielded about 12 gallons so I was able to use some to feed to the Yard City Terrior bugs.  That carboy is pellicling up nicely now.

Biere de Garde

19 3/4#    Castle Pilsner
3 3/4#      Weyermann Vienna
1#            Castle Caravienn
1/4#         Weyermann Carafa
2#            Corn Sugar                15 min.
2 oz.         Domestic Fuggles    4.6% aa    90 min.
1/2 oz.      Liberty          5% aa        90 min.
1 oz.         Spalt            2.6% aa    10 min.

Wyeast  3725  Biere de Gard
Wyeast  1007  German Ale

Irish Moss & Yeast Nutrient
1g each in kettle NaCl, CaCO3, CaSO4

32 quarts @ 160 down to 150: 75 min. up to 168.  Ph: 5.2
Collected 13.6 gallons of 1.054 wort.  120 min. boil.

OG:  1.072

Day 18:  1007 is @ 1.021, 71% AA
Day 27:  1007 is @ 1.016, 77.7% AA
             3725 is @ 1.011, 84.7% AA

I thought they were done so I crashed them to 35F.  Boy was I wrong.  They were warm for a few days before they were lagered for nearly 3 months.  After lagering they were at ambient temperature for several days before I bottled them.  When I took the gravities I noticed that they had dropped 3 & 5 points sometime after primary.   Doh.

Oct. 23:  1007 @ 1.013, 82% AA & 7.9% abv
              3725 @ 1.006, 91.6% AA & 8.8% abv

3725 is estery and earthy.  1007 has some harshness.  I think it is from some sort of higher alcohol from being underpitched.  This is my new thought.  I always make a 20ish ounce starter for my bieres and that's fine for most of them.  My OG's are usually in the 1.050 to 1.060 range.  I read the yeast starter section of Jamil's Brewing Classic Styles with good information on pitch rate, etc.  It'll be my new thing to work on.  That is, knowing what my pitch rate should be for a given OG and propping up the right amount of yeast for it.  Happy New Year to me.

Oh, dear blog, how I have neglected thee.

I've brewed some since this blog died (and I'm apparently trying to revive it.) I've created two bieres with the Wyeast 3725 Bier de Garde. (I won't discuss that they should've added an 'e' at the end of 'Bier'... uh, no.) I find it way different than any of the other Saison strains that have been offered by the wonderful folks at Wyeast. =) Way different, and I haven't even made a Biere de Garde with it yet. I have, however, tasted a homebrewed Biere de Garde made with this strain and it was very good. After I tasted my own first 3725 biere it took me awhile to put a finger on the fact that it does put more emphasis on malt (or malt and hop) in a more basic way like, for example, 1056 American Ale does. It lets the ingredients shine a bit more than other Saison strains.

So, I've made 2 Saisons with 3725. Here they are:

The Lesser

13# 11 oz Gambrinus Pale Malt
3 1/2# Wheat (Wagner Wheat)
1.75 oz US Northern Brewer 8.1% AA (90 min)
2 oz German Hallertau 4% AA (K.O.)
Wyeast 3725 Bier de Garde (24 oz starters)

Mash Schedule: 124:30min 148:60min 169:15+min

OG: 1.045 TG: 1.004 91% Apparent Attenuation, 5.5% abv.
Apparently you can be malty and attenuative at the same time.

The Bigger (Les Bon Temps)

18# 6 oz Gambrinus Pale Malt
1# Wheat
2 oz US Northern Brewer 8.1% AA (90 min)
2 oz German Hallertau 4% AA (K.O.)
Wyeast 3725 Slurry from previous beer.

Mash Schedule: 148:50+min 168:15+min

OG: 1.054 TG: 1.003 94%AA, 6.8% abv

With this biere, I also decided to dry hop the kegged portion. One ounce of Hallertau in secondary for seven days before I transferred it to keg. It seemed to add a lot more hop flavor. More than aroma, I think. I have yet to bottle this beer (and the Lesser). The Bigger is still on draft and it has changed a lot. Since all protein and yeast have dropped out and it's become bright, the head has become extra dense (but quickly fades), it has become a little spicier and less earthy. It has also become rounder and more complex.

With the Bigger biere I decided to skip the lower temperature rest because it only had 5% wheat. The smaller biere had 20%. I wanted to see if 5% of unmalted wheat without a protein rest would aid in adding head retention. I don't think it worked for me. You see, I've had a head retention problem almost all year long. The last biere to have a reasonable amount of head retention was bottled on January 9th. I feel like each successive biere has had less and less head retention. I'm bummed. I have some sort of anti-heading bug in the system, I guess. Maybe I need to tear everything apart and clean, rinse, and sanatize as needed.

Any ideas?

I bottled the 8% Saison on Tuesday, May 27th. Since it had been in secondary a good while I decided to help it along with some 1007 German Ale. It was very bright! The flavor was great and had plenty of grassy hop nose from both Saaz and Spalt. There was some late heat in the back of the throat, but the whole beer seemed fairly delicate and not one of substance. So, it's OG was 1.063 and the TG was 1.003. I know. It is hard to believe, but look at the record! Anyway, that's 95% apparent attenuation and a solid 8% abv. I noticed when I took the MarsBiere down to the lagering freezer yesterday, that the other half of the 8% had been down there since May 7th? It's already been 3+ weeks? I remember when I used to keep better records. Now I have to decide whether I should put a potentially lethal 8% Saison on draft? I dunno. I guess I'll think on it. Whaddaya think?

Biere de Mars (Biere de Yard? OG 1.056) terminaled at 1.006... with 5% crystal malt! and no sugar in the kettle! That's still 89% AA and 6.6% abv. Maybe this is the yeast for the 100% Crystal Malt beer we've talked about. CaraFoam anyone? =)