Monday, October 15, 2007

Barleywine Brew Day

On September 30th, I brewed a ten-gallon all-grain batch of barleywine. The last time I brewed a barleywine was in November of 2003, (and I still have some of that batch left).

This recent batch had a starting wort gravity of 1.120 on brew day, so it'll be a monster. I included the following grains in it: Maris Otter, Klagas 2-row, Castle Caramel Munich, Cara-Vienne, and small amounts of two new available grains: Crystal Rye Malt and Simpsons Golden Naked Oats.

There's over a pound (total) of hop flowers in this 10-gallon batch. I started with 2-ounces of Nugget hops for bittering, and have a lot of Fuggles and Kent Goldings for the rest of the hop bill. I'll also dry-hop with Fuggles and Kent Goldings.

Shane, Cody, and Keith showed up to keep me company, for the last half of the brew day. Cody had just finished 2nd in a 50-Kilometer run, so he only had half a beer and went and sacked-out in Shane's car...he was pretty darn tired. It was a fun day.

It is finally ready to transfer to secondary fermentation tonight (Oct 15). The little yeasties have been going nuts for two straight weeks! I'll check the gravity during transfer, and see if there's a need to add any champagne yeast.

Here are some photos of the brew day operation:

MashTunBottom
The bottom (inside) of my mash tun.

Mashin_in
Mashing-in.

MashTemp
Hitting a mash temperature of 152 degrees perfectly.

MashRecirc
Recirculation through the mash. Here's my cheap-ass flow control system, (a set of needle-nose vise grips with silicone tubing on its jaws).

BrewingBarleywine
Enjoying a glass of my Harvest Double-IPA on brew day.