Transfer to the Barrel

After a long, slow ferment that including re-pitching some dry yeast, the Theme from the Barrel No. 1: American Barleywine was finally ready to transfer into the rye whiskey barrel.  The ~ 2.5 gallon carboy fermented down to ~ 1.028 and the ~ 5.0 gallon carboy fermented down to ~ 1.034.  Not quite as low as I had hoped, but it tastes pretty good and we'll see how it turns out after some time in the barrel.  So that comes out roughly to 1.032, 72% attenuation and a hefty 10.6 % ABV.  The barrel should add a little to the ABV.

One bummer though is that I didn't quite have enough barleywine to top off the barrel, so I had to add a little bit of Shore of the Baltic Sea (the only other dark, strong beer I have going right now).  Didn't quite get the runoff I thought I got during the brewday and my math must have been off somewhere.  I had hoped to have ~ 1 gallon or so to keep around to top off every so often as the beer was absorbed into the barrel, evaporated, etc. but I'll just have to do that with the baltic porter instead.

I'll give it some time and give a taste in the next month or so.

Batch #47 - Theme from the Barrel No.1

Theme from the Barrel No.1

Brewed - March 10, 2012

Style - American Barleywine (Barrel-Aged)

Ingredients:

• 26.5 lbs.Maris Otter
• 2.00 lbs. Munich 10L
• 1.50 lbs. Sugar in the Raw
• 1.35 lbs. CaraMunich
• 1.25 lbs. Crystal 120L
• 0.50 lbs. Dextrose
• 0.40 lbs. Special B
• 0.30 lbs. Chocolate

• 1.0 oz. Millennium (90)
• 1.0 oz. Magnum (90)
• 1.0 oz. Perle (60)
• 2.0 oz. Centennial (0)
• 2.0 oz. Amarillo (0)

• Wyeast #1056 American Ale (slurry from Schooner)

OG - 1.113
Primary – 45 days
Barrel - 34 days
Secondary - ??? days

Transferred to the barrel - April 24, 2012
Kegged - ???

FG - 1.032
Attenuation - 72%
ABV - 10.6%


Notes:

• A big, bad barleywine for my first barrel filling
• Part 1 of a Parti-Gyle batch; not quite the traditional method where I designed one overall beer and mash to get two beers (one strong and one weak), but this was more about designing the barleywine that I wanted and then using the 2nd runnings to make a low-ABV beer for the upcoming Yard Cask Fest
• Fermented beer will be dumped into a 7-gallon freshly emptied Rye Whiskey Barrel from Woodinville Whiskey Company
• Only brewed an 8-gallon batch due to the limit of the mash tun (can only put in ~ 33-34 lbs. of grain) and wanting the finished beer to be in the 11% ABV range  
• Mash at 149° for 90 minutes
• Sugars added into the boil to help bump ABV and fermentability
• 120 min boil
• Estimated IBU's ~ 98
• Ferment in the low 70's for hopefully 2 weeks and then transfer into the barrel
• Long, slow ferment; 45 days in the primary; re-pitched with some dry yeast
• Transferred to the rye whiskey barrel on April 24, 2012
• Had to top off the barrel with ~ 0.4 gallons of Shores of the Baltic Sea, which also happens to be fermenting really slow but as of April 24th is ~ 1.025
• 34 days in the barrel - transferred on May 28th

Batch No. 4 - PITA Barely Wine

PITA Barley Wine

Brewed - December 2, 2007

Style - Barley Wine
Source - Northern Brewer Kit

Ingredients:

• 0.5 lbs. Briess Caramel 90
• 3.0 lbs. Amber LME (60)
• 9.0 lbs. Amber LME (15)
• 1.0 oz. Target (60)
• 1.0 oz. Cascade (30)
• 1.0 oz. Fuggles (0)
• Wyeast #1056 American Ale
  

OG - 1.082
Primary - 11 days
Secondary - 150 days!!

Bottled - May 11, 2008

FG - 1.025
Attenuation - 69.5%
ABV - 7.47%


Notes:
- full boil
- put all LME in at 60 min - doh!
- secondary for 5 months!
- should have made a starter?
- named for a horribly messy bottling day
- submitted in 2008 Pro-Am



Finished w/ sample



My young brewery at capacity