Old Doctoral Barleywine

With the academic year over and the last of the core courses behind my back, I decided it was finally time to brew something I wanted to for over a year now. That something is a Barleywine or an Old Ale to age until I defend.

It took a while to think about how to best approach doing it. What recipes do people normally follow? What brewing techniques do they utilize to make it special? Talk to people who’ve done them before and what they recommend. In the end I settled for a basic “ton of base and some crystal” approach but also decided to add chocolate malt to it because I wanted to darken it up and there is a lot of it lying around the apartment thanks to the Malt of the Month Club from Valley Malt. Rather than making an aggressive American Barleywine with 100+ IBUs, I went with an English tradition and crossed it with an Old Ale for a really sticky, thick and malty brew. So here it is!

Old Doctoral Barleywine

Date Brewed: 28 Apr 2012

Volume After Boil: 5.2-5.3 US gals

Pre-Boil Gravity: 1.074 SG

OG: 1.122 SG

Fermentables

Maris Otter – 20.00 lb

US Caramel 60L Malt – 1.00 lb

Valley Chocolate Malt – 1.00 lb – Added in last 20 minutes of the mash

Extract – Light Dried Malt Extract – 1.00 lb – 90 Min From End

Hops

US Chinook Pellets – 2.00 oz – 90 Min From End

US Willamette Pellets – 2.00 oz – 15 Min From End

Other Ingredients

Maltodextrine – 3.00 oz – In Boil

WYeast Yeast Nutrient – as recommended by the company

Yeast

DCL US-05 (formerly US-56) SafAle – Cake from a 1.041 Smoked Serebrianka American Bitter

Water Profile

Mash pH: 5.2

pH Adjusted with: Five Star 5.2

Total Calcium (ppm): 106

Total Sodium (ppm): 52

Total Chloride (ppm): 80

Total Bicarbonate (ppm): 158

Mash Schedule

Single Step Infusion (68C/154F) w/Mash-Out

Boil Notes

2 hour boil.

Take a gallon and boil it separately until it’s a pint, then pour into the main kettle in the end. The resulting liquid was very thick and tasted like liquid malt extract, which it actually is. Reminded me of the old extract days.

Fermentation Notes

Bubbled oxygen for 2 minutes.

Fermented for a week at ~62-64. Gravity at 1 week is 1.046 with tons of yeast swirling around the fermenter. Letting it sit at room temperature (~70) for 2-3 weeks more to finish up. No blowoff, no exploding fermenters, nothing like that. It’s actually a little anticlimactic. You always see and hear about people’s RIS explosions and this monstrosity didn’t even have any blow off… On the bright side, this means there will be more beer in the end!

***Update***

After 3 months in primary the brew was racked off into secondary. Gravity reading was at 1.033 and tasted just incredible.