I decided to make Denny’s Old Stoner for my special 12-12-12 beer (to commemorate the date). The last time I made this was 3 years ago. I decided to collect a lot of wort and I boiled it for 12 hours (NG setup) and I ended up with 13 gallons of 1.136 SG wort. For the last few hours, it looked like syrup boiling. I fermented it at 58-62F on a gallon of US-05 slurry from a 20 gallon batch of cream ale. FG was 1.03. I kegged it on 12-12-12.
Now for the weird part … you would expect a 14% Pacific NW BW to take a few months to a year before it is good but this is absoutely perfect right now. How can a barleywine this young taste so good right now? It is better than the 3 year old batch and that won gold in the MI Beer Cup when it was a year old.
How about both? [/quote]you got it. I will pm you when I get back from San Diego. Driving out there with my son who will be stationed in Miramar MCAS. I fly back on the 5th.
[quote=“tookalisten”]Great label!
12 hour boil - you are my hero Greg!
That is a great BW! I tapped mine over Christmas as well and only wished I had made 10 gallons instead of 5.[/quote]The 12 hr boil was no biggie because it was a natural gas extended simmer to reduce volume and add viscosity. Probably cost me about 58-60 cents per hour if my calcs are right.
[quote=“Adam20”]So did the beer turn out thick since it was syruppy? How does that work out?[/quote]Just the way I like it. Thick, heavy, not too sweet. I’m sending Denny some samples. We’ll see what he says. I love it.
[quote=“MullerBrau”]I’m sending Denny some samples. We’ll see what he says. I love it.[/quote]Samples sent via UPS today for delivery to the other end of the US Friday afternoon. $33 shipping; I hope you like them Denny :cheers:
I can’t wait to hear more about how this turned out. I have mine bottled now from February of last year and it’s at 12.9% but isn’t super good which is depressing. I think I messed up pretty much everything I could mess up though other than fermentation temp and yeast. The mash was a disaster on a new system. The boil was horrible outside in the MN winter. The airlock at some point ran dry for an unknown amount of time. I think I have some oxidation going. Need to do this again.
The next time you are going to make it, plan ahead and make a light beer (pale ale or cream ale) first. Then two weeks later, make the Old Stoner and pitch it right into the primary yeast cake after you rack the light beer to keg or secondary. Old Stoner has the munchies and needs healthy active yeast so he can eat everything in sight.
That’s actually the one thing I did right. I racked the cooled Stoner onto a really light APA yeastcake. Fermented fine and finished low enough. It was mostly just disappointing procedural errors. Like I said, the mash was a disaster. We were trying a new keggle mashtun and overshoot our temp then overcompensated with ice and the 0* weather and then overshot again when adding heat and trying to stir in that much grain. The thermometer was all over the place for the whole 60 minutes.
Fermentation was fine but then the airlock emptied and I kept stealing samples which I think introduced oxygen to the beer. Never had a oxidation issue before but I think this might be it.
Oh well, I’m gonna try again next spring and cheat and sub some DME in so that I can fit it in my cooler mashtun.
That’s actually the one thing I did right. I racked the cooled Stoner onto a really light APA yeastcake. Fermented fine and finished low enough. It was mostly just disappointing procedural errors. Like I said, the mash was a disaster. We were trying a new keggle mashtun and overshoot our temp then overcompensated with ice and the 0* weather and then overshot again when adding heat and trying to stir in that much grain. The thermometer was all over the place for the whole 60 minutes.
Fermentation was fine but then the airlock emptied and I kept stealing samples which I think introduced oxygen to the beer. Never had a oxidation issue before but I think this might be it.
Oh well, I’m gonna try again next spring and cheat and sub some DME in so that I can fit it in my cooler mashtun.[/quote]
Ha, nice. I love how the answer to anything homebrew related can simply be solved by spending more money. Oh wait, I hate that. Or my budget does at least. Sadly I can’t justify spending more, I just got a fancy new three gallon BIAB setup I’m enjoying. Maybe just make a small batch of Old Stoner on that. Or convince someone else with disposable income and the space for another large cooler to do it??? Hmm, who do I know that’s been thinking about getting into all grain brewing???
