Brewing Master » Homebrew Beer » HOMEBREW Digest #1273
HOMEBREW Digest #1273
Question:
I have now made two barleywines: the first using champagne and Wyeast 1028 mixed at pitching, and the second using the 1028 in the primary, followed by adding champagne in the secondary. Both batches were, IMHO, excellent. The second batch blew out in the secondary after the champagn yeast addition, but it came out great. Next time I’ll be sure to add the champagne yeast while the beer’s still in the primary (after the krauesen drops) in order to avoid blowout. In short,…just brew it! It’ll work out fine. Best of Luck Russ Brodeur
Response:
I am interested in brewing a barley wine from an O.G. of 1.100 or higher, but don’t wan’t F.G. above 1.030. Does anyone out there in HBD-land have personal experience using champagne yeasts for barleywine?
Well, I just brewed my very first barley wine. Getting rid of some malt extract now that I find all-grain so much fun. O.G. around 1.120 at 75 F. I pitched all three gallons onto the yeast cake remaining from a 5 gallon batch of stout. My last measurement of S.G., after about a week and a half in the primary, is 1.030. This is just the American Ale Wyeast yeast. I plan to rack to secondary soon and see how things go. I suspect if my original S.G. were only around 1.100, it would be down to 1.024 or so by now. The trick seems to be using lots of yeast and rousing it (I swirled things up every day). — John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA–My views are my own If I were you, who would be reading this sentence?
Response:
Well, I just brewed my very first barley wine. Getting rid of some malt extract now that I find all-grain so much fun. O.G. around 1.120 at 75 F. I pitched all three gallons onto the yeast cake remaining from a 5 gallon batch of stout.
I’ve never tried using a "used-not-yet-cleaned" fermenter to take on fresh wort. Helluva starter isn’t it? :-) I was planning on extracting some of the lees to a sanitized mason jar but pouring new wort into a filthy fermenter sounds appealing in a sadistic sort of way. :-) My last measurement of S.G., after about a week and a half in the primary, is 1.030. This is just the American Ale Wyeast yeast. I plan to rack to secondary soon and see how things go. I suspect if my original S.G. were only around 1.100, it would be down to 1.024 or so by now. The trick seems to be using lots of yeast and rousing it (I swirled things up every day).
Would a nutrient have helped with that much gravity, even while using a whole cake? How long do you think you’ll be able to let this beast age before you declare open season? :-) I’d like to brew a BW but I don’t don’t think I could do it the justice of time. — John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA–My views are my own
Mark
Response:
: : Well, I just brewed my very first barley wine. Getting rid of : some malt extract now that I find all-grain so much fun. O.G. : around 1.120 at 75 F. : : I pitched all three gallons onto the yeast cake remaining from a : 5 gallon batch of stout. : I’ve never tried using a "used-not-yet-cleaned" fermenter to take : on fresh wort. Helluva starter isn’t it? :-) Yes, indeed. I do it fairly regularly with beers that will be fuller in flavor or otherwise similar. Like brewing a weizen and then a cherry weizen a few days later. : I was planning on extracting some of the lees to a sanitized : mason jar but pouring new wort into a filthy fermenter : sounds appealing in a sadistic sort of way. :-) Hey, it ain’t so bad as all that. Sort of like wearing the same socks two days in a row <g. : My last measurement of S.G., after : about a week and a half in the primary, is 1.030. This is just : the American Ale Wyeast yeast. I plan to rack to secondary soon : and see how things go. : : I suspect if my original S.G. were only around 1.100, it would be : down to 1.024 or so by now. The trick seems to be using lots of : yeast and rousing it (I swirled things up every day). : Would a nutrient have helped with that much gravity, even while : using a whole cake? I suspect not that much. There should be *plenty* of nutrients with that much gravity. : How long do you think you’ll be able to let this beast age before : you declare open season? :-) I’d like to brew a BW but I don’t : don’t think I could do it the justice of time. Good question. We’ll see if it gets raided on New Years for some tiny sips. Anything that survives then should be pretty well aged by next holiday season. — John DeCarlo, MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA–My views are my own If I were you, who would be reading this sentence?
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – barleywine I am interested in brewing a barley wine from an O.G. of 1.100 or higher, but don’t wan’t F.G. above 1.030. Does anyone out there in HBD-land have personal experience using champagne yeasts for barleywine? If so, do you use only champagne, or use ale yeast and pitch the champagne when the ale yeast poops out? Do you wait until the ale yeast completely poops out? Do you rack the wort before pitching the second yeast? Do you need a starter for dry champagne yeast that is to be put in a wort that is already 8 percent alcohol or higher? Does using champagne yeast by itself produce a barleywine with less "beer" flavor? Considering the cost of a batch of barleywine, I don’t want to experience too much "trial and error". Thanks in advance to those who reply, Brian Seay Plano, TX
Hey Brian. My roomate and I brewed a barleywine two months ago which has been aging. It’s fabulous, so I feel I can tell you we used champagne yeast all the way. We made a starter with og1.06 or so wort, and it fermented like gangbusters. Then we racked to a secondary to get rid of some of the huge amount of yeast and hops. Very successful. Good luck to ya! Adam Coles Aerospace Engineering Class O’ ‘93 December! CU Boulder
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HOMEBREW Digest #1273 Tue 16 November 1993 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator Contents: Volcano Beer (Cecil Clontz) barleywine (Brian R Seay ) hard cider/mead (Eric Saidel) Wort chiller construction help (William Swetnam) Hunter airstat modification (Lee=A.=Menegoni) Question re: raspberry wheat beer… (J Paschel) The beer machine (Bob Ambrose) Bishop’s Tipple by Dave Line (Bruce Buck) Long Ago Lager (Jeff Frane) Malt Extract for Mead (Dave Lame) Mini kegs as a replacement for bottles (James Gallagher) Noche Bueno (George J Fix) Yeast culturing–an update (D S Draper) Answers to brewpot questions (Keith A. MacNeal HLO1-1/T09 DTN 225-6171 15-Nov-1993 1248) HSA / Airstat (Theriault Kenneth M.) Hops in Ice Tea (Cecil Clontz) Making Mead (Aaron Morris) Taste by any other name (Chris Amley – 3M Telecommunications) Yeast starters and aeration (richard_h) trub separation (gt6179d) Fridges (Kieran O’Connor) Pot shots, er..scrubbers (Jack Schmidling) Bambi Gas/ 7 up Gas/ Decoction (COYOTE) (Articles are published in the order they are received.) Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc., then you MUST unsubscribe the same way! If your account is being deleted, please be courteous and unsubscribe first. Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu. (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from message to that address to receive listserver instructions.) Please don’t send me requests for back issues – you will be silently ignored. Hello Fellow Homebrewers, I need some help diagnosing a batch that went from bad to worse. I made a Czech Pilsner using a can of BREWMART Czech Pilsner extract. I also used 3 lbs extra light DME. The can came with a dried yeast and a pilsner enzyme. At 68 degrees I pitched both the yeast and the enzyme. It took the normal 1-2 days to start foaming but stayed extremely active for 2 weeks. A local brew shop said bottle it anyway and that it would be considered a dry beer. I drank 2 sips and decided to dispose of the entire batch. I could pop the cap and sit the bottle upright in the sink and watch it empty its self from the bottom up. Help !! What did I do wrong ? Thanks in advance ! Cecil Clontz .com barleywine I am interested in brewing a barley wine from an O.G. of 1.100 or higher, but don’t wan’t F.G. above 1.030. Does anyone out there in HBD-land have personal experience using champagne yeasts for barleywine? If so, do you use only champagne, or use ale yeast and pitch the champagne when the ale yeast poops out? Do you wait until the ale yeast completely poops out? Do you rack the wort before pitching the second yeast? Do you need a starter for dry champagne yeast that is to be put in a wort that is already 8 percent alcohol or higher? Does using champagne yeast by itself produce a barleywine with less "beer" flavor? Considering the cost of a batch of barleywine, I don’t want to experience too much "trial and error". Thanks in advance to those who reply, Brian Seay Plano, TX Here’s the recipe I use for hard cider – put your cider in your fermenter, add sugar (normal granulated sugar is fine) up to about 11-12% potential alcohol. Add yeast and yeast nutrients commensurate with how much cider you’ve got. Seal and wait. I’ve got about 30 gallons going right now – needed about 40 pounds of sugar, and it’ll ferment for about 3 months before bottling. I bottle with more sugar so it gets a nice sparkle. I also do about a case a year in which I bottle with honey – about a third of a cup for a champagne bottle. That gives it a nice apple mead flavor. The best honey, I find, is wildflower honey. - eric Having read in for the last few weeks I have seen numerous messages about wort chillers and their construction. I think I have a good idea as to the design of my coil, but I still have a few questions about materials and other things. I am going to make an immersion chiller and am planning to set it up as follows: Hose from kitchen sink to copper coil in either a bucket of ice water or a cooler with ice water, hose from that to my immersion unit, then hose back to sink for drainage. My questions are as follows: 1. What are the recommendations on size of the copper tubing, 1/4 3/8 or 1/2 inch. A quick stop by my local hardware store raised the question of fittings, I’m wondering more about what may be the most efficient for heat transfer. 2. Some commercial wort chillers that I have seen do not put the water through an ice bath first. Is there a problem in chilling the wort too fast? 3. I’m planning on using 25′ of tubing in my immersion section, is this too much, too little? Private E-Mail would be appreciated unless you think it would be good for the masses. I feel I’ve taken up enough space on a simple query…. Thanks in advance…. Will Here is the uncensored text from HBD on the Hunter Airstat modification. Some may find the following words offensive: Chest, down, desire, unit, mount, do. In HBD1156 Bruce Ray asks how to modify a Hunter Airstat to maintain temperatures below 40F. I originally posted this last November and have been using it with the mod very happily ever since. I use the airstat to control a 13cf chest freezer. I put the airstat in a manual "HOLD" mode and simply set the temperature up or down as desired. The airstat is designed to control a compressor driven refrigeration device (a room air conditioner) so it is right at home with a refrigerator or freezer. It turns the attached unit on when it senses a temperature 2 degrees above the setting and off 1 degree below the setting. It has a built-in timer with a 4 minute delay to keep the attached unit from cycling too rapidly. At 45F my freezer runs less than 2 hours total in a 24 hour period and about 3 hours at 35F. You cannot change the Air Stat range but you can offset the sensor calibration. In other words, performing the following modification will allow you to set the Airstat at 40F yet the fridge/freezer temp will be maintained at 35F. The sensor is a thermister that provides 10K ohms of resistance at 25 degrees C. According to the thermister data sheet, at 32 degrees F the resistance is 27.28K and 22.05K at 41 degrees F. The resistance decreases as the temperature rises so if you make the air stat think the sensor is 22k when its really 25k the air stat will say 41 but the sensor temp will be around 35 degrees F. This is done by simply putting more resistance in parallel with the sensor. Using ohms law, Rt = 22K, Rth = 25K (Thermister), and Rp (parallel resistor) = Rth (25K) * Rt (22K) Rth (25K) – Rt (22K) With this resistor in place the the range of the air stat is effectively shifted about 5 degrees lower. Just keep in mind that the temperature reading on the air stat will not match the fridge temp. The thermisters change in resistance is not linear. It will change about 20k ohms going from -13F to -4F and only 2k ohms going from 68F to 77F. Therefore the desired range of use should be considered before determining the magnitude of offset. Although, in the 12 degree swing between 33F and 45F this should not pose a problem. | | | 12 : 00 40 | | | | Submini spst | / | | | PROG| HOLD | U | | (c) | | O / | / | / | R | | 180K (c) | I installed a 180K ohm resister in series … read more »