Shoulders of Giants Barleywine

     So, on places like Homebrewtalk, and r/homebrewing, discussions about long-term aging of homebrew are always popping up every week or so. There isn't really a lot of information on this topic out there, especially in terms of what to do as a brewer to ensure long-term aging stability. The general consensus is that 5 years is easily obtainable, 10 if you are lucky, but people who want to age a beer till their first born is of legal drinking age (21 here in the states) are usually told to give up on the idea, or look into wine or mead.
     Since I recently joined the US Army, I would really like to do some long term verticals when I exit the service, (be it 20 years for my retirement, or less) and thought, what a great way to do a ton of brewing, and really take some meticulous notes to make some concrete data to put out to the home-brewing community. I'm planning on brewing a lot of this English Style Barleywine as the main focus on this aging project, since it is the beer I would like to have a 20 year vertical of upon retirement. I also plan on doing some other 'traditionally aged' beers like American Barleywine, Russian Imperial Stout, Lambic, and Flanders Ales, and Belgian Quads.
     Returning to this Barleywine, and its brewday, This time around went much better than the last one (I'll attribute that to a 6 month hiatus), and everything went according to plan. Knowing that I wanted to get a good efficiency, and a lengthy boil for extra kettle carmelization, I opted to use my 100qt boil kettle for this 5 gallon batch. I didn't really time the boil, I just let it go until my end time was what I wanted, probably around 2 and a half hours. I fly sparged super slow, and sparged till my runnings were about 2.5 Bx (SG 1.010 or so). My pre-boil volume was just shy of 10 gallons, which boiled down to 6 Gallons.
     This Barleywine clocked in with an OG of 1.115, which my two packets of rehydrated Safale-05 seemed to tear through pretty fast, But has since slowed down around 1.028 as of today (14 Dec). I'm going to let this sit of the yeast for a total time of at least 4 weeks, then transfer over to some oak cubes for 2 weeks then another month of bulk aging. I'll be sure to update as I move forward with steps.

• Malt Bill
• 20 Lbs Maris Otter
• 1 Lb Munich 10L
• 1 Lb Crystal 120 (normally Special B, Not Carried by New LHBS)
• Hops
• 1 oz Magnum 90 Minutes
• 1 oz Magnum 60 Minutes
• 1 oz East Kent Goldings 15 Minutes
• Process
• Mash: 7.15 Gallons at 151°F mash 90 Minutes
• Collect 9.89 Gallons at 17°Bx for 84.2% Efficiency
• Boil forever (at least 2.5 hours)
• Rehydrate 2 packets of Safale US-05 with 3 tsp of yeast nutrient
• Ferment 28 days at 65°F, Oak for desired flavor (~14 Days) bulk age for additional 28 days. 
• OG: 1.115, IBU: ~51

First Brew Back

  I finally got all settled in my new place in Oklahoma, and its pretty sweet. Detached garage, fairly enclosed elevated front porch, and best of all, a basement for brewing activities. Naturally, my first weekend in the new place, I had to christen the place with a batch of beer. I also started my keezer, which once to a more final stage will get its own blog post.
For being my first brew day in over 6 months, in a new location, while watching my 3 year old, and switching LHBS, it went ok. Before I left for basic training I was considering making a checklist for brewday, so I don't have to think nearly as much step to step (and between beers), and this solidified it. I didn't make any huge mistakes that would ruin my beer, mainly I just boiled longer than I wanted dealing with the chiller.

•      Malt bill
• 9 lbs Maris Otter
• 1 lb Munich 10L
• 1 lb Flaked Maize
• .5 Lb Crystal 40L
• Hops
• 1 oz Fuggles 70 min
• .5 oz Fuggles 40 min
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings 40 min
• 5 oz Fuggles 25 min
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings 25 min
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings 10 min
• .5 oz East Kent Goldings Dry Hop 7 Days
• Process
• Mash 3.6 Gal, 1 Hour @ 155F
• Collect 6.25 Gallons, 13 Bx, 76% Mash Efficiency
• Boil 100 Minutes, Top off with 1 gal to make 6 gal in the Fermentor. 
• Pitch 1 Packet Saf-ale 04, At 60F, free-rise to ambient basement temp (about 68)
• Ferment 14 Days, Cold Crash 48 hours and keg, 12 PSI
• OG 1.055, FG 1.016, 5.23% Abv, Est. 38 IBU.

     The beer turned out great. I ended up adding some dry hops, but misread my gravity and left them a little too long, but it was only a half ounce, so the grassy flavors didn't overpower anything. It came out crystal clear, and is nice and refreshing on tap, but unfortunately the food and beer safe tubing I purchased was leaching flavors, so I ordered some new tubing (AccuFlex Bev Seal Ultra) to re-run the existing two taps, and the next 2 taps (Stainless Perlick Faucets, I learned my lesson with my two cheap chrome faucets). 

   
     The next scheduled brewday is my House Barleywine, which I should get around to naming more descriptively, since I brew it about once every year, but I plan on starting this routinely every thanksgiving, and having a vertical every year on brewday, saving enough of each batch to have a vertical of every batch I have brewed when I leave the Army. Who doesn't want to partake in a 20 year vertical? 

Back into the Swing of Things... Almost

I’m finally getting back into blogging, after a brief hiatus from pretty much every normal aspect of my life, due to Basic Training, and AIT, and now that I am getting ready to settle down back to a (somewhat more) regular life, have decided to blog about mostly brewing, but some other stuff as it comes up.

As of right now, I am planning on revamping large parts of my brewing process, buying some new equipment, building some new equipment, and doing some cool experiments, and starting a pretty sweet beer cellar if funds and space allow.

The first major purchase/build is looking to be a fermentation chamber. I have all the gear I need for starters (I do need to get a few new flasks, and I will probably get a new stir plate this year too), so this to me seemed the logical next step in expanding my repeatability. I’m looking at something that will fit probably 3 fermentors at a time, with the ability to reach get down to the 30s℉ in the warmest summer months. I’m planning on upgrading much of my system to be able to produce 15 Gallon Batches for making some sours, and extended aging projects, as well as for splitting batched in thirds to compare yeasts.

I’m planning on building a pretty similar unit to the one I built in college, but not nearly as big or ugly. I might even spring for some nice plywood, or just sand down the chip board, and have my lovely wife paint it to look less like crap. Mini Fridge with the door taken off, sealed into a larger box. This time, I will actually add a temperature control unit, and a CPU fan to move air around. I’m thinking I might use 3 STC-1000 units, one to control the overall temperature of the chamber, and 2 to control a heating pad/Brewbelt to raise the other fermentors to whatever temperature I need.

The next big project is going to be a kegerator. I recently bought some more kegs, and am planning on buying (at least) two more so I have 6 total. So far I am planning on having the ability to have 6 products on tap. Ultimately, I want one of those to be a Nitro faucet, and one to be a beer engine (I love Cask ale). The more I look at the options, it looks like the slickest way to add a beer engine is going to be with a coffin kegerator, plus that keeps the  regular tap handles slightly more out of reach of my 3 year-old son. It will also give me some bar space to entertain on.

There are some other areas I am looking to expand, but these two are the most immediate. I want to get both a clean and sour solera going, as well as starting a large homebrew bottle cellar with clear and effective labels. I also am planning some serious brewing for next year's holidays (sadly not enough turnaround for anything great this year), as well as some meads and cider.

As for right now, I just need to wrap up the rest of my Initial training, Collect my belongings and family, and move out to my new home, and start brewing up a storm in the next 2 months before my volume gets reset on January 1st. I am planning on revisiting some of my house ‘big’ beers, my Russian Imperial Stout, and my Barleywine, both of which I plan on brewing to save for the end of my first contract with the Army, and maybe I will save enough for the end of my career with the Army. Vertical flight of Barleywine going back 20 years?

In addition to the long term aging of some celebratory beers, I want to do some experiments with long term aging of cork&caged bottles, since there doesn’t seem to be any real information out on the internet about their longevity vs Crown caps.

Well, I guess that's all for now. I’ll slowly start updating what I had/have going from when I left for training, and what happens in the next few weeks, and be sure to update with many pictures, recipes and stories.

Prost!