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?