11th Brew - Barley Wine - Jan 19 2008

Just wanted to inform everyone that I will be brewing again on Saturday, January 19^th. Action starts at the usual time, around 8:00 am, and will probably go to 4:00 pm.

This time we will be doing a Barley Wine. The recipe I’m creating calls for around 42 lbs of base malt, which is considerably larger quantity than I have ever used before. I just checked at MDHB today and it turns out if I buy a 50lb bag of my base malt instead of by the lb, I save 67¢ for every lb. I do have to buy 8 more lbs than I needed, but I am still saving over $21, so well worth it. The result of this is threefold:

1. The brew is going to be more like a double or imperial barley wine (13+ %)

2. I don’t have enough room in my mash kettle to hold all those grains.

3. The projected OG for this brew will require lots more healthy yeast to adequately ferment

As a result of number two I have decided to try a new technique that I read about in the last issue of BYO. The technique is called Reiterated Mashing, which essentially means I split the grains into 2 or 3 parts and do 2 or 3 separate mashes. The trick is essentially using the water from the first mash for the second, but we can get into the details when I see you on the 19^th J. To help with number 3 I ordered a much larger (5 liter) erlenmeyer flask (my 2 liter broke at the last brew) which will enable me to pitch a much larger starter. In addition to that I got a magnetic stirrer (to promote the starter health) and a yeast nutrient made by White Labs called servomyces.

Another point worth mentioning is that I just did inventory on my beer stash and I apparently have around 14.5 cases of beer if you count all my homebrew (bottles or otherwise). My point in bringing this up is that I would greatly appreciate your help (Dana maybe more) in depleting my collection.

Hope to see you there!