Looking for a Good English Barleywine/Old Ale Recipe

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by OddNotion, May 14, 2012.

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  1. marquis

    marquis Pooh-Bah (2,301) Nov 20, 2005 England
    Pooh-Bah Society

    No, haven't tried those two.They are from "Brewing beers like those you buy" by Dave Line ISBN 0 900841 51 6 As Dave died in 1979 the beers will of course be much earlier versions than what you've had!
    I've tried other brews from the book and they turned out fine.
     
  2. messyhair42

    messyhair42 Initiate (0) Dec 30, 2010 Colorado

    Here's a recipe I made myself, been two weeks since I bottled at the taste I had then was great, rich, boozy, with a good sugar/hop balance. It'll be three months before I even open one

    15# MO
    1# C40
    5 oz carapils
    1/3# amber malt
    4 oz special B

    60M 1 oz galena
    60M .4 oz chinook
    10M 1 oz Fuggles
    2M 1 oz fuggles

    pitched WLP 013 from a two stage starter
    method is a no sparge 70M mash. collect 4.5 G 1.077 wort. ended with 3.56 G of 1.098.
     
  3. HerbMeowing

    HerbMeowing Maven (1,271) Nov 10, 2010 Virginia
    Trader

    Just to see if you were paying attention. ;/
     
  4. bgjohnston

    bgjohnston Initiate (0) Jan 14, 2009 Connecticut

    Do you crush your own grain? With no sparge, getting 3 1/2 gallons worth of 100 gravity point wort out of less than 17 lbs of grain sounds really good.
     
  5. messyhair42

    messyhair42 Initiate (0) Dec 30, 2010 Colorado

    Yes, I set my rollers at .027". I know thats small but my MLT has a copper pipe manifold with slots. and I never have had a stuck sparge. recirculation takes a little more time but I like the improved efficiency. I may do more no sparge beers in the future. I probably should add that I mashed at 154F for 70M now that I see I omitted it.
     
  6. OddNotion

    OddNotion Pooh-Bah (1,853) Nov 1, 2009 New Jersey
    Pooh-Bah Society

    So this talk made me grab a bottle of '08 Hardy's from my "cellar" and I will be drinking it tonight. From what I remember this is an amazing beer and if I find myself liking it again enough to try to brew something similar this would be my source.

    Just trying to put these ingredients into names that I recognize better, would it be fair to say that the Pale Malt = Maris Otter? Lager Malt = Pilsen Malt? Is there another name/substitute for the invert sugar, I know I can buy it by that name elsewhere but I would like to try to keep everything to a single order, if not, I would just buy it from the separate source. If I am going to push it to a 5 gallon batch should I basically be doubling (2.5x I guess is the correct amount) the EKG addition? What are your thoughts on the length of the boil, and would it be a good idea to boil down a portion of the wort to the point of carmelization?

    Also, for clarification, is a UK gallon different in any way from a US gallon?
     
  7. marquis

    marquis Pooh-Bah (2,301) Nov 20, 2005 England
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Pale Malt in Dave Line's day was whatever you could get from the LHBS ! Later I used to get mine from the back door of the Beeston Maltings and it was all MO. Lager malt would probably have been Pilsner malt.
    Invert sugar is more difficult as there were different grades but perhaps Golden Syrup would be what Dave had in mind.
    http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/refined-sugar-vs-invert-sugar.html
    The UK gallon is bigger; 5 UK gal = 6 US gal
    Just double up the quantities and boil for say 60 to 90 minutes-for some reason weaker beers need longer boils than stronger ones.
     
  8. pweis909

    pweis909 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,176) Aug 13, 2005 Wisconsin
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Can you say more on this? How do you find lower strength beers with short boils?
     
  9. JayS2629

    JayS2629 Initiate (0) Oct 23, 2010 Alabama

    Wow! You already have a lot of advice to digest. First, I have found that Special B malt gives a nice dark fruit/tobacco thing you are looking for. I don't know your batch size, but I'd say 1/2 lb to 1 lb in a five gallon batch. I also, for what its worth, would not put high alpha too deep into the boil. Last suggestion, and I may be out of line, but to get the melanoidin flavor I had a lot of success with a reduction. You basically take about 2 quarts of your first runnings and boil them down in a seperate boil until they are a thick syrup much like LME. Add this back to the rest. Here is my suggestion for a 5 gallon batch.

    22 lbs of Marris Otter
    10 oz caramunich
    1 lb of Crystal 15
    1 lb of Crystal 80
    .25 pale chocolate malt
    .50 lb of Special B
    1.5 oz horizon (60)
    .5 oz Kent goldings (20)
    .5 oz kent goldings (0)

    If you want an Americanized hoppier version replace hops with somthing like this: Mostly aroma.

    2.5 oz magnum (60)
    1 oz chinook (0)
    1 oz chinook (0)
    1.5 oz centennial (0)
    1.5 oz Amarillo (0) even consider dry hopping

    Your yeast choice will work ad so will WLP013, wyeast 1028, or WLP001. Make a big starter for sure!!!

    This beer will take a lot of aging before it should be drank.
     
  10. JayS2629

    JayS2629 Initiate (0) Oct 23, 2010 Alabama

    Another consideration to bump ABV without too much boozy taste is to use Wyeast 3021 champagne yeast and 1/2 lb of light brown sugar in a secondary fermentation.
     
  11. mjryan

    mjryan Maven (1,485) Dec 22, 2007 Minnesota

    How about 70% MO. 20% Munich. 10% Spec B or even something like Simpsons Extra Dark Crystal. Perhaps you could substitute around 10% of the base malt with something like Jaggery or Turbinado sugar for a dryer finish. Mash at around 150 to 153 F. Bitter to your desired level with whatever hop you like. Northern Brewer might be nice. Add around 4oz of English type hops at flame out and let it sit for 30min or so. EKGs would fit the bill. I might consider First Gold or even Styrian Goldings personally. 007 would be my yeast choice. Dry hop with an oz or 2 of whatever finish hop you chose. Age for some time. I've had high gravity beers taste great right out of the gate and some that took almost a year before they came together. This is what I would do.
     
  12. marquis

    marquis Pooh-Bah (2,301) Nov 20, 2005 England
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Never did less than a two hour boil with low gravity beers so I don't know.
     
  13. pweis909

    pweis909 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,176) Aug 13, 2005 Wisconsin
    Pooh-Bah Society

    OK. Sort of makes sense to me now. I suppose it relates to melanoidin formation / kettle "caramelization" from the prolonged boil adding flavor to a beer that might otherwise risk come across as weak on flavor due to low concentration of wort.
     
  14. SeanGC

    SeanGC Initiate (0) Mar 15, 2011 New York

    Glad I found this thread when building my Old Ale Recipe.

    Here's what I have so far.

    Size: 11.0*gal

    Ingredients:
    21.0*lb Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt (69.0%)
    4.0*lb Munich TYPE I (13.8%)
    2.0*lb Caramel Malt 60L (6.9%)
    1.0*lb Special B - Caramel malt (3.4%)
    1.0*lb Barley Flaked
    1.0*lb Molasses (3.4%)

    4.0*oz East Kent Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60*m
    2.0*oz East Kent Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1*m
    1.0*ea White Labs WLP004 Irish Stout

    Schedule:
    Mash @ 152 for 60 mins
    Boil for 3 Hours

    -----------------

    I planned on doing a 2-3 hour boil. However, my keggle can only hold 13 gals. Is it ok for me to add the water loss into the fermenter or post boil in the keggle? I've done it before with 5 gal batches, but never with a 10 gal batch that boils for 2+ hours. I'm not sure if adding the water post boil would effect the melanoidin formation.

    Thoughts?
     
  15. Homebrew42

    Homebrew42 Initiate (0) Dec 20, 2006 New York

    I've boiled 3 gallons of first runnings down to less than a quart of thick dark syrup and it yielded a rich mahogany color and a subtle but distinct buttery toffee flavor to the beer. Interestingly I've been told that this kind of character can be mistaken for diacetyl by beer judges, but I've never entered my barlywine into a comp so I can't speak from personal experience on that.
     
  16. SeanGC

    SeanGC Initiate (0) Mar 15, 2011 New York

    Here's my question about boiling off first runnings. If you're target pre-boil volume is 13 gals (I run a 15 gal system and shoot for 11 gals post-boil), and you boil off 3 gals of your first runnings down to a quart (boiling 2.75 gals), do you sparge with an additional 3 gals to meet your initial pre-boil volume of 13 gals?
     
  17. yinzer

    yinzer Initiate (0) Nov 24, 2006 Pennsylvania

    I did that with a Scottish 1.037 beer. When very young I thought that it had diacetyl but my go-to samplers told me that it wasn't. This flavor did go away and the beer turned out very well. This was very close to a SMaSH beer with only 2.5% roasted barley. I think that with it being a small beer the flavor was more pronounced at the beginning and with the simple grain beer it was effective. I'm not sure if with a complicated grain bill that it would help that much.
     
  18. Homebrew42

    Homebrew42 Initiate (0) Dec 20, 2006 New York

    Yes, or if you're afraid of over sparging you can top up with water at the end of the boil.
     
  19. SeanGC

    SeanGC Initiate (0) Mar 15, 2011 New York

    So for 11 gals post boil, should I boil 6 gals first runnings? I'm thinking 3 gallons should be enough since I already have munich malt, c 60 and molasses. This way, it contributes more to that sweet/carmelized flavor without over doing it.
     
  20. Homebrew42

    Homebrew42 Initiate (0) Dec 20, 2006 New York

    The flavor that I got was not sweet and caramelized, it was more toasty buttery toffee, it was also rather subtle, and would likely be clobbered by any significant amount of molassess IMO.
     
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