Help me choose my next long-term beer

[FatDragon]

Every November in my relatively short time brewing, I've made a big beer for drinking next winter. In 2013 it was a pretty standard ~9% RIS ala Old Rasputin. In 2014 it was a bigger ~11% stone fruit heavy RIS. Last year was a ~12.5% long boil SMaDH barleywine with a big dry hop of Calypso and Caliente.

Brewday for the 2016 edition is coming up either this weekend or next weekend, depending how soon I get my ideas and ingredients together. One idea is a big, thick breakfast stout ala KBS. A Belgian is another possibility, either a strong ale or a Quad, though my yeast options are dry or bottle-harvested. I've also got a couple sours and a brett beer (Boulevard Saison Brett 2015) in the fridge that might be good for dregs, though I'm aware that might mean waiting two or more years before drinking this particular brew.

I'm also open to suggestions. I'm not sure that there are many big, long-lived styles like this that I don't enjoy on occasion, so any ideas are welcome.

 

[RedlegEd]

Hi. Given your previous "big" beers, I'd vote for a Wee Heavy Scotch Ale. You can build the yeast cake by brewing a 70/- or 80/- Export Scottish Ale (gives you something to drink while you're waiting for the Wee Heavy to condition / age.) I've still got a few bottles I brewed over two years ago that I save for special events. It seems to keep getting better and better. Ed

 

[Kent88]

I happened to see that you're in China, are there any restrictions on the malts or other ingredients that you can get? I've interacted with some people on here from other parts of Asia that have a tough time getting ingredients I take for granted.

If you can lager make a doppelbock with 100% munich malt, try to hit about 1.080 to 1.085 OG, and use enough hops at the start of the boil to get about 25IBU. Have a big yeast starter with plenty of cells and aerate well at pitching and again at 12 to 24 hours in.

If you can't lager, why not try another barleywine? I've heard good things about barleywine made with almost all Maris Otter malt.

What do people mean when they call a stout a "breakfast stout"? Really, aren't all stouts breakfast stouts if you crack them open within 45 minutes of waking up? Is there coffee in there? Real maple syrup? A Denny's Grand Slam? I need to go adjust my sig now...

 

[FatDragon]

Hi. Given your previous "big" beers, I'd vote for a Wee Heavy Scotch Ale. You can build the yeast cake by brewing a 70/- or 80/- Export Scottish Ale (gives you something to drink while you're waiting for the Wee Heavy to condition / age.) I've still got a few bottles I brewed over two years ago that I save for special events. It seems to keep getting better and better. Ed

It's crossed my mind as an option, but I don't know much about Scotch ales so I haven't given it serious consideration yet. Sell me on the style. What dry yeast strains would do the job?

I happened to see that you're in China, are there any restrictions on the malts or other ingredients that you can get? I've interacted with some people on here from other parts of Asia that have a tough time getting ingredients I take for granted.

If you can lager make a doppelbock with 100% munich malt, try to hit about 1.080 to 1.085 OG, and use enough hops at the start of the boil to get about 25IBU. Have a big yeast starter with plenty of cells and aerate well at pitching and again at 12 to 24 hours in.

If you can't lager, why not try another barleywine? I've heard good things about barleywine made with almost all Maris Otter malt.

What do people mean when they call a stout a "breakfast stout"? Really, aren't all stouts breakfast stouts if you crack them open within 45 minutes of waking up? Is there coffee in there? Real maple syrup? A Denny's Grand Slam? I need to go adjust my sig now...

Lagering may be viable and a doppelbock would be a good option for a cold weather lager. Does a doppelbock benefit significantly from a year of storage before consuming or would a shorter-schedule doppelbock be fine? The idea is growing on me more and more as I think about it, but I'd probably do it as a regular brew and do something that really needs a year of conditioning for the Next Winter 2016 brew.

Ingredients are pretty solid here with a few exceptions. There's a decent variety of hops available domestically and pellets can be shipped in from overseas so that's covered. A wide variety of grains is available, but unfortunately none of the major brands available to homebrewers is British, so no MO. Yeast is the other big issue; if it's dry, we've probably got it (unless there's some new boutique dry yeast manufacturer out there), but liquid-only strains are nowhere to be found and shipping them over is a hassle since they're likely to lose a lot of viability in transit.

Another barleywine is probably not happening simply because I want to try something different.

Finally, I'm not really sure about the breakfast stout thing. Founders does its Breakfast Stout and the ramped-up KBS so I think of a breakfast stout as a big, heavy, chocolate and/or vanilla coffee stout with about as much mouthfeel as a bowl of oatmeal. I don't know if breakfast stout is really the right term for it, but I've heard it used in that context before so I ran with it.

 

[RedlegEd]

It's crossed my mind as an option, but I don't know much about Scotch ales so I haven't given it serious consideration yet. Sell me on the style. What dry yeast strains would do the job?

Here's a great write up on the style by Jamil Zainasheff (along with a great recipe.) The preferred yeast is liquid, but I've brewed it with Safale US-05 (very good) and I think Danstar Windsor Ale yeast would also work very well. If it's available to you without killing your bank account, Golden Promise is a great base grain, as is Marris Otter. Even if you don't select it as your long-term beer, you should try making a lighter Scottish Ale just to try it. If you like a nice malty, flavorful beer, I think you'll like these. Ed

 

[bobeer]

My big annual beer is an american strong ale aged with bourbon oak chips. It's probably my favorite beer to brew! The KBS with bourbon oak might be a fun thing to do. IDK, with me, with a big winter beer, if it's not aged on boozy wood, something is just missing. Good luck!

 

[Kent88]

Lagering may be viable and a doppelbock would be a good option for a cold weather lager. Does a doppelbock benefit significantly from a year of storage before consuming or would a shorter-schedule doppelbock be fine? The idea is growing on me more and more as I think about it, but I'd probably do it as a regular brew and do something that really needs a year of conditioning for the Next Winter 2016 brew.

Ingredients are pretty solid here with a few exceptions. There's a decent variety of hops available domestically and pellets can be shipped in from overseas so that's covered. A wide variety of grains is available, but unfortunately none of the major brands available to homebrewers is British, so no MO. Yeast is the other big issue; if it's dry, we've probably got it (unless there's some new boutique dry yeast manufacturer out there), but liquid-only strains are nowhere to be found and shipping them over is a hassle since they're likely to lose a lot of viability in transit.

I've had a lot of people tell me that doppelbocks are best after a year. If you search for TheBrewingNetwork's doppelbock episode they will also say that a doppelbock is best after aging for a year. I think anything above 8% is supposed to age just fine, not that you should be trying to make it really high in alcohol. The final gravity isn't supposed to be very low, I think right around 1.018 or 1.020 is where it should end up.

That sucks that you don't have a good variety of liquid yeasts. I would think saflager 34/70 should get the job done. I'm no pro, but if I were using it in a doppelbock I'd probably bump the temperature up to right around 60F after krausen finished to clean up any diactyl and try to keep the yeasts active.

 

[FatDragon]

I've had a lot of people tell me that doppelbocks are best after a year. If you search for TheBrewingNetwork's doppelbock episode they will also say that a doppelbock is best after aging for a year. I think anything above 8% is supposed to age just fine, not that you should be trying to make it really high in alcohol. The final gravity isn't supposed to be very low, I think right around 1.018 or 1.020 is where it should end up.

That sucks that you don't have a good variety of liquid yeasts. I would think saflager 34/70 should get the job done. I'm no pro, but if I were using it in a doppelbock I'd probably bump the temperature up to right around 60F after krausen finished to clean up any diactyl and try to keep the yeasts active.

Hmm, this makes me wonder if I can actually do it... I always think about the lagering phase as the limitation in my ability to make a lager, but the bigger question is whether or not I can maintain proper fermentation temps for a lager. I have a big fridge half-filled with food and sundries that I can use to cold crash or lager a beer, but I couldn't hold it at fermentation temps for lager yeast without spoiling some food, and my regular fermentation chamber is a wine fridge that may not run cool enough for lager yeast. I'll have to do some research.

 

[Kent88]

There are several options for brewing lagers when ambient temps are too warm.

How cold is the coldest area in your residence that you could keep your fermenter? I'm hearing about of lots of people who are trying to lager into the low 60F (16C) range. Not exactly something I would want to try, but certain strains (not sure about dry strains you might have available) seem to work alright. I haven't tried it myself, but it could be worth a try.

There is always the fan & damp tshirt method, lots of people do that. Maybe add some icepacks in close proximity, too.

I've heard of one guy who worked from home who made it work with a huge cooler and put his well-chilled wort in there and swapped out water bottles he used as ice packs 3 or 4 times a day.

If you have some means of getting different yeast strains soon, you could pick a pseudo-lager strain that ferments in the high 50F to low 60F range. It wont be to style, but if you aren't entering it in a contest then who cares.

There are carboy cooling systems ("jackets" and other goofy things) that I consider way to expensive but I bet some of them work.

The easiest is the repurposed fridge/freezer with a separate, more precise temp controller.

I think I'll be trying a larger batch of lager than will fit in my fridge soon, and I plan to super-chill my wort, aerate, pitch, use the fan & tshirt method with icepacks next to them, and keep the whole thing in a cool spot in the basement. I'll keep an eye on it and as soon as krausen is over I'll let it warm up and finish at D-rest temps, which I should be able to handle without all the crazy stuff.

When it reaches FG I'll bottle, try to keep the temp at that same level for a few weeks until I'll give 'em away for christmas. Sure, no bulk aging, but I can tell him that it needs to stay in a cool spot, preferably the fridge, for a while.

Wow, the things we do for beer...

If you have means to bulk age it near freezing, I think you'll be fine.

 

[FatDragon]

There are several options for brewing lagers when ambient temps are too warm.

...

If you have means to bulk age it near freezing, I think you'll be fine.

In a few weeks my brew room should be cool enough to ferment a lager at ambient (heating Chinese apartments south of the Yangtze, where they're not required by law to have central heating, is not fun), and the fridge has room for the bucket when it comes time to lager, so I'll probably try and get a Doppelbock together soon. Optimator and Salvator are my favorite German beers so this sounds like a great idea, though I won't count it as the annual big brew. Belgian Quad is getting the most votes and it's a style I've wanted to do so there's a good chance I go that route. Time to start researching my best options for bottle harvesting a good Belgian yeast here; I wonder which Trappist breweries bottle with their house yeast...

 

[Easycreeper]

I'm voting quad too.

I think it might be interesting to finish it up with some brett if you can. Just to give it a little something extra. Your yeast situation may limit that option though.

 

[Riot]

All of the Trappist appellation breweries bottle with their house yeast, as do most other Belgian monastery beers

 

[FatDragon]

All of the Trappist appellation breweries bottle with their house yeast, as do most other Belgian monastery beers

Looks like it's time to get a couple bottles of Rochefort 6 and start building up a starter.

 

[Easycreeper]

Looks like it's time to get a couple bottles of Rochefort 6 and start building up a starter.

How's the harvesting coming?

 

[FatDragon]

How's the harvesting coming?

Since I don't have proper harvesting/starter equipment and I'm not around all day for a lot of shaking, I did several step ups from two bottles. One turned into some kind of SCOBY after the second or third step and I'm curious about trying to use it in something experimental, since it still smells really nice. The other got a couple more steps to where it's in a gallon jug now, probably only a fraction of the yeast that I'm supposed to have by now, but screw it - brewday's tomorrow so I'm cold crashing the starter and I'll decant off the top 3/4 or so before pitching it into the wort.

 

[mongoose33]

Didn't realize that this was older--didn't see it the first time.

I'd brew something you haven't done before, unless you have a recipe you really love.