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Bulk aging on yeast scares me a little bit (autolysis). While the old books recommending to take off the yeast within 2 weeks have been proven wrong (that’s more of advice for commercial breweries due to the pressure on the yeast in those big tanks), keeping it on yeast for several months is something I’ve seen people have issues with before. To be clear, I’m talking about a primary type cake type of situation, not pre final filtered beer. For example, a lager brewery might filter pretty damn fine after 10-14 days of 40s-50s temps, and then cold lager near freezing temperature for another 5-8 weeks on a lighter lager, throughout that time there is still yeast in the beer conditioning it. Then they’ll do a final filter to remove all the yeast before kegging it. That’s standard/good for the beer (and obviously if they krausen like Jim does, that’s fantastic for the appropriate styles too). But if you make like a saison or even a belgian quad, and you pitch your yeast on March 1st, you shouldn’t keep it on that same yeast for 5 months (you risk serious off flavors developing), but you should repitch fresh yeast at bottling time.
As far as bottling goes, what Jim says about bottle conditioned versus force carbonated beers is exactly my understanding (and the Vintage Book says similar things, goes into even greater detail). Another factor is what type of carbonation you’d like to achieve. In order to get proper carbonation on a lot of belgian beers in particular (like a farmhouse saison or golden strong), you need to bottle condition them.
I personally like to bottle condition english barleywines because I think the yeast in the bottle helps them develop more over time.
When in doubt, you can look to see what your favorite commercial examples are doing and that’s a good default to be at. Most big stouts are not bottle conditioned, they’re force carbonated. It makes sense, they aren’t yeast driven and you usually want a fairly clean yeast that works hard and then steps back and lets the roasted, chocolate, vanilla, oak type flavors shine and a lot of development in those beers is through oxidation and mellowing of some of the initial stronger alcohol flavors.
American barleywines seem to go both ways, English more often seem to be bottle conditioned.
That is how I interpreted the guidlines; that an Old Ale might have wood or brett character from the aging process. I don’t plan to age this batch on wood, so I don’t expect it to pick up those characters.
It seems my batch more closely matches the english barleywine, but on the low end. I’m good with that for my first attempt. I plan to have this batch around a long time. I haven’t decided if I will bottle once I have let it condition in a keg. I think that might be my best option for longer term aging.
Sam
That’s how I interpret it as well. Old Ales need to be old and/or have some of that historic character (wood and/or brett), otherwise the “old” part doesn’t really jive.
You could always bottle a % of the batch too, so you save some back. Barleywines, especially english, can really change over time in really fun ways. At 8.5% it’ll be really easy to bottle condition it too, which will further allow the beer to change over time (compared to bottling off of a keg with c02).
On a related note, if anyone is interested in aging beers, there is an awesome book about it that I’ve had for a few years. The author lives in Denver. It’s called vintage beers – https://www.amazon.com/Vintage-Beer-Tasters-Guide-Improve-ebook/dp/B00ESCVNU2 It’s great for figuring out which beers to age, for how long, how to age them, what happens scientifically and practically as they age and so on. Great for both learning to brew beers that can age well yourself or just building a small cellar out of commercial beers. I learned so much from this book on both topics.
Sounds like it came out to be an english barleywine. 8.66% ABV meets the minimum ABV and unless you age it specifically and has some aged character, it’d probably be closer to an english barleywine than an old ale. It’s kind of arbitrary at the ABV you’re at. Old ales in particular have a super wide range. Some sit in wood and take on that character, some have brett in them, some have neither. Can’t wait to try it, save a few bottles if this lasts too long and you’re close to tapping it!
With all the solo drinking happening since this outbreak, I’ve killed both my kegs of 5.5%abv or less beer, so I’m going to need to make some more sessionable beer very soon. I’m probably going to do at least one batch of something I can turn around quickly, another american blonde or perhaps a light kveik beer.
Then I want to do another German Pilsner ASAP.
My super saison that fermented down to like 1.002 (expected 1.007 or so) is finally starting to taste quite nice after 7-8 months. It’s 11.2% ABV (was targeting under 10%, but that Belgian yeast is a fickle thing!). I feel good about trying to tame that yeast the next brew, so I plan to do a 6% farmhouse Belgian saison, and then pitch onto that cake for a targeted 9% one afterwards.
But I currently have a Maibock and English Strong ESB type beer on tap. I also have some mint lime carbonated water that is super refreshing. And 8 million bottles of mostly high ABV stuff in the cellar.
I drank that Faustien last night, it was so good, thank you Jim!
Jim, Evan has been posting so many awesome projects that you mistook this one for his, haha.
Chuck, thank you.
Colter, really I just grabbed steel flashing at Lowe’s, aisle 35ish, for about $11. I wrapped it around the outside of my grill base (that way the heat can’t escape as easily), marked where that was, then brought it over to our shop, drilled pilot holes the same size as the steel rivets I was going to use, then riveted it in two spots (the sheet was about 1.5x the length I needed, so I doubled up half of it). You could just nut/bolt it too. Then I drilled a hole to start the snips and cut out a rectangle that was about a half inch wider than my peel on each side. I went 3.5 inches tall, I’ll likely change that to at least 4 inches, maybe 4.5 inches.
I want to get some oak or other hardwood to cut into small pieces to see how that does. The hardwood charcoal I got is oak and it worked well, but I’d like to experiment some.
To Bob Z, Gordon and Mick, we’ll see you in August!
Just kidding!
Maybe by May we’ll be doing virtual meetings. Gosh I hope not.
In all seriousness, unless we become a hot spot, I think having 10-20 people meet should be safe. Washing hands before and after and NOT coming if you are sick, is probably good practice in general, but particularly now.
Ya’ll will need a place to drown your sorrows about your 401ks anyways, it might as well be OTMP.
The last two pics.
I’m up for whatever everyone decides, but would maybe throw out “same yeast competition” as an idea. I’m not sure the grain bill thing will come through as clearly, especially with the muddled “not any style” one ya’ll were talking about.
It’d be interesting to see what everyone did with an english strain for example. Expressive enough to be noticeable, but also flexible enough to do many different styles. Belgian saison could be fun as well.
Looks good to me.
I’ve had a lot of success dry hopping during primary for short periods (2-3 days), a lot more of those fruit flavors come out/more bang for the hops you put in.
I’d probably move the Galaxy to flameout too.
Scott Janish’s book on hops is incredibly informative for these types of beers.
Also I’ll be there tomorrow night, text me if you’re going and don’t have anyone to drink with, I’ll be with a small group. 708 268 8796
