bathtub barleywine & Old Speckled Hen to secondary
It's been 2 weeks since me_not_you and I brewed up our second go at an Old Speckled Hen clone. It really should have been transferred to secondary after about 1 week, but there are a couple of reasons I didn't get to it sooner this past week:
(a) I ended up being fairly busy, and
(b) I decided that I wanted to try reusing the yeast on my next batch of beer.
Talking to a friend and fellow brewer last weekend about reusing yeast, he suggested brewing a big beer like a barleywine since it would be big and a good match for the London Ale Yeast that was already in the primary carboy. I spent some time looking a recipes and decided on one based partially on some of the leftover specialty grains and hops I had in the freezer. I swung by the homebrew store on Friday afternoon and picked up the ingredients needed (mostly a large amount of DME).
I spent some time over the past week reading about reusing yeast. The safest and most recommended was to reuse it is to rinse the yeast cake and separate the good yeast from the trub that's all mixed together at the bottom of the fermenter. That's all well and good, and I'll probably do that one of these days, but it sounded like a fair amount of work so I opted for the easy path of just adding fresh work directly on top of the yeast cake and trub left in the primary fermenter of the previous batch. To do that, I had to brew on the day I was transferring said previous batch. That day was today.
Barleywine recipe is modeled after Old Bawdy clone recipe (from Beer Captured, p.128).
Type: Extract with grains
Batch size: 5 gallons
Ingredients:
Brewing Instructions:
Fermentation:
Target gravity:
O.G. 1.101 - 1.105
F.G. 1.023 - 1.026
ABV: 10%
Here are some details of brewing the barleywine:
It was a pretty, warm, and breezy day. Nice to sit in the garage watching the clouds blow by in a beautiful blue sky after many days of rain. Here's the timeline of my brew day:
9:55am - started steeping grains and sanitizing
10:41am - flame on
11:02am - at boil; flame off
11:13am - DME in; about 1 gallon of wort removed; flame back on
11:21am - at boil; bittering hops in
12:06pm - flavor hops in; extra wort back in
12:14pm - chiller in to sanitize
12:16pm - Irish moss in (almost forgot!)
12:21pm - aroma hops in
12:23pm - flame off
12:25pm - started chilling
12:45pm - chilled to around or below 80 degrees
1:30pm - barleywine in primary in bathtub
2:05pm - everything cleaned up and put away
When I filled the brew pot (up to the level of the lower rivets for the handles), I didn't take into account the large amount of DME that would be added later. When I added the 12 pounds of DME, it raised the level a couple inches such that the pot was almost completely full. I had to scoop out about a gallon and put it in a pot off to the side in order to have the space for the wort to foam up (but not over!) while boiling. This brought the level back down to the bottom of the lower rivets. After the wort had boiled for 45 minutes and the volume had decreased, I added the extra wort back in along with the flavor hops, and the level came back up to the top of the lower rivets.
Given how full the pot was, when it came time to transfer to primary, I decided to use the autosiphon rather than pour since I wanted to wort in the carboy rather than all over the kitchen floor. Took a bit longer that way, but I still passed it through a strainer and funnel into the carboy to help aerate the wort. I also stirred up the wort once it was in the primary to make sure the yeast was in suspension. When the primary was full, the level was 1.75" above my 5 gallon mark. I'm guessing it was at least 5.5 gallons.
Measured the O.G. at 1.102.
The transfer of the Old Speckled Hen clone went smoothly. This took place after the barleywine wort was cooled but before the barleywine was transferred to primary (since the OSH was in the primary I was going to use for the barleywine.) I forgot to take a wort sample before I put in the airlock and moved it to the guest bathroom so I took a sanitized wine thief in and pulled a sample. The specific gravity was 1.020.
The barleywine is now sitting in the bathtub. (I decided to put it there since I guessed the fermentation might be vigorous given the large amount of healthy yeast. ovrclokd said I needed to work "bathtub" into the name of the beer.) I just checked on it, and it is fermenting away. 6 hours after pitching, and the yeast foam has filled the top of the carboy and crawled up into the airlock. This is the first time I've had that happen. I hope the airlock doesn't get blown out overnight. Oh, and I really should invest in a blow off tube.
ETA: Just checked the barleywine again before heading up to bed. The cap for the airlock has blown off, and there's yeast all down the side of the carboy. And a few spots on the walls and the ceiling. I really need to get some large diameter blow off tubing. Here's a picture:
I went ahead and pulled the airlock and stopper out. (There's enough positive pressure from the fermentation to keep anything from going in.) Now there's yeast foam coming out the top of the carboy. I'll check on it tomorrow and put a sanitized airlock back in once it calms down a bit.
The rest of the weekend was also action packed and busy, but it's late so I will have to wait and post about that tomorrow.
(a) I ended up being fairly busy, and
(b) I decided that I wanted to try reusing the yeast on my next batch of beer.
Talking to a friend and fellow brewer last weekend about reusing yeast, he suggested brewing a big beer like a barleywine since it would be big and a good match for the London Ale Yeast that was already in the primary carboy. I spent some time looking a recipes and decided on one based partially on some of the leftover specialty grains and hops I had in the freezer. I swung by the homebrew store on Friday afternoon and picked up the ingredients needed (mostly a large amount of DME).
I spent some time over the past week reading about reusing yeast. The safest and most recommended was to reuse it is to rinse the yeast cake and separate the good yeast from the trub that's all mixed together at the bottom of the fermenter. That's all well and good, and I'll probably do that one of these days, but it sounded like a fair amount of work so I opted for the easy path of just adding fresh work directly on top of the yeast cake and trub left in the primary fermenter of the previous batch. To do that, I had to brew on the day I was transferring said previous batch. That day was today.
Barleywine recipe is modeled after Old Bawdy clone recipe (from Beer Captured, p.128).
Type: Extract with grains
Batch size: 5 gallons
Ingredients:
- grains:
- 12 oz crystal malt (49-64L)
- 8 oz dark Munich malt (8-10L)
- 2.5 oz Belgian aromatic malt (20-26L)
- 1 oz chcocolate malt (338-432L)
- 12 oz crystal malt (49-64L)
- fermentables:
- 12 pounds extra light DME
- hops:
- bittering (60 min): 1.5 oz Magnum @ 13.7% AA (20.55 HBU) - 3 hop plugs
- flavoring (15 min): 2 oz German Hallertau @ 3.0% AA (6.0 HBU)
- aroma (1-2 min): .5 oz Czech Saaz @ 3.0% AA (1.5 HBU)
- bittering (60 min): 1.5 oz Magnum @ 13.7% AA (20.55 HBU) - 3 hop plugs
- other:
- 1 tsp. Irish Moss (added with flavoring hops)
- yeast:
- Wyeast 1028 London Ale
Brewing Instructions:
- Steep grains in 1+ gal water at 150 degrees F for 20 minutes.
- Remove grains and sparge with 1 gal. water at 150 degree F.
- Top up wort to 5 gallons.
- Bring wort to boil.
- Add extracts and bring back to boil.
- Add bittering hops.
- Continue to boil for 45 minutes.
- Add flavor hops and Irish moss.
- Continue to boil for 14 minutes.
- (put wort chiller in to sanitize sometime in last 10-15 minutes)
- Add aroma hops.
- Simmer final aroma hops 1-2 minutes.
- Cool with wort chiller.
- Transfer to carboy and top up to 5.25 gallons.
- (take sample for O.G.)
- Shake and swirl to aerate.
- Add yeast and put in airlock
Fermentation:
- Primary for a week or so.
- Move to secondary for approx 8 weeks.
- Prime with another dose of same yeast strain approx 3 days before bottling.
- Bottle-condition with 4 ounces corn sugar.
- Bottle condition for 5 weeks and cellar for 9 months to 2 years.
Target gravity:
O.G. 1.101 - 1.105
F.G. 1.023 - 1.026
ABV: 10%
Here are some details of brewing the barleywine:
It was a pretty, warm, and breezy day. Nice to sit in the garage watching the clouds blow by in a beautiful blue sky after many days of rain. Here's the timeline of my brew day:
9:55am - started steeping grains and sanitizing
10:41am - flame on
11:02am - at boil; flame off
11:13am - DME in; about 1 gallon of wort removed; flame back on
11:21am - at boil; bittering hops in
12:06pm - flavor hops in; extra wort back in
12:14pm - chiller in to sanitize
12:16pm - Irish moss in (almost forgot!)
12:21pm - aroma hops in
12:23pm - flame off
12:25pm - started chilling
12:45pm - chilled to around or below 80 degrees
1:30pm - barleywine in primary in bathtub
2:05pm - everything cleaned up and put away
When I filled the brew pot (up to the level of the lower rivets for the handles), I didn't take into account the large amount of DME that would be added later. When I added the 12 pounds of DME, it raised the level a couple inches such that the pot was almost completely full. I had to scoop out about a gallon and put it in a pot off to the side in order to have the space for the wort to foam up (but not over!) while boiling. This brought the level back down to the bottom of the lower rivets. After the wort had boiled for 45 minutes and the volume had decreased, I added the extra wort back in along with the flavor hops, and the level came back up to the top of the lower rivets.
Given how full the pot was, when it came time to transfer to primary, I decided to use the autosiphon rather than pour since I wanted to wort in the carboy rather than all over the kitchen floor. Took a bit longer that way, but I still passed it through a strainer and funnel into the carboy to help aerate the wort. I also stirred up the wort once it was in the primary to make sure the yeast was in suspension. When the primary was full, the level was 1.75" above my 5 gallon mark. I'm guessing it was at least 5.5 gallons.
Measured the O.G. at 1.102.
The transfer of the Old Speckled Hen clone went smoothly. This took place after the barleywine wort was cooled but before the barleywine was transferred to primary (since the OSH was in the primary I was going to use for the barleywine.) I forgot to take a wort sample before I put in the airlock and moved it to the guest bathroom so I took a sanitized wine thief in and pulled a sample. The specific gravity was 1.020.
The barleywine is now sitting in the bathtub. (I decided to put it there since I guessed the fermentation might be vigorous given the large amount of healthy yeast. ovrclokd said I needed to work "bathtub" into the name of the beer.) I just checked on it, and it is fermenting away. 6 hours after pitching, and the yeast foam has filled the top of the carboy and crawled up into the airlock. This is the first time I've had that happen. I hope the airlock doesn't get blown out overnight. Oh, and I really should invest in a blow off tube.
ETA: Just checked the barleywine again before heading up to bed. The cap for the airlock has blown off, and there's yeast all down the side of the carboy. And a few spots on the walls and the ceiling. I really need to get some large diameter blow off tubing. Here's a picture:
I went ahead and pulled the airlock and stopper out. (There's enough positive pressure from the fermentation to keep anything from going in.) Now there's yeast foam coming out the top of the carboy. I'll check on it tomorrow and put a sanitized airlock back in once it calms down a bit.
The rest of the weekend was also action packed and busy, but it's late so I will have to wait and post about that tomorrow.