I brewed my half batch 2012 barleywine last weekend. For some reason the gravity came out really low. Which is weird, because the volume seems pretty low too. I was shooting for an OG of 1.104 and 2.5 gallons, but I ended up with an OG of 1.086 and a volume of around 2 gallons. I'm not sure what happened, but here's the recipe:
10 lbs 2-row
1 lb Malted Rye
.5 lb Caramel 40
.5 lb Caramel 80
-Mashed @ 158F for an hour
1 oz Chinook @ 60 min
1 oz Simcoe @ 20 min
1 oz Cascade @ 7 min
I may or may not dry hop with some Cascade, Amarillo, Simcoe, etc. I'll have plenty of time to decide that.
I fermented at around 68F for the first 3 or 4 days. Then, the temperature dropped when active fermentation was done. Closer to 60F. One thing I learned is that even in a really cold room you can keep your fermemtation temperature stable by wrapping a truck-stop blanket around your carboy. It didn't even drop one degree during active fermentation with that blanket wrapped around it.
Here's my recipe for the IPA I'll be brewing for the BYO-BBR collaborative experiment.
15 lbs 2-row
1 lb Caramel 60
Mash @ 152 for an hour
1 oz Chinook @ 60
1 oz Simcoe @ 20
1 oz Cascade @ 7
(No dry hopping)
1 package of US-05 in each bucket
Ferment @ around 68F for 2 or 3 weeks, then bottle.
IBUs: ~70
Assuming my efficiency is around 62% like it has been, I'll have an OG of 1.069.
In other news, I got The Surly Smoke partial mash kit from Northern Brewer. It was too late when I found out it was a lager... Looks like a chest freezer (with external thermostat) is in my near future.
I was really planning on stepping up my brewing anyway. Hopefully, this year I will:
-Have a dedicated chest freezer for fermentation
-Buy a pH meter (for testing my water, mash pH, and StarSan viability)
-Upgrade the metal parts on my mash tun (to stainless steel)
-Build or buy a stir plate
-Buy a refractometer
-Buy a grain mill (and start buying grains in bulk)
-Start Kegging
