Go big, or go home (Gnarly Roots Barley Wine)

Tentative Label

Gnarly Roots:
Recipe Specifications
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Post Boil Volume: 21.84 l
Boil Size: 27.32 lBatch Size (fermenter): 20.00 l   
Bottling Volume: 19.50 l
Estimated OG: 1.109 SG
Estimated Color: 12.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 108.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 79.2 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amt       Name                                       IBU
4.50 kg   Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
0.50 kg   Crystal 45L (45.0 SRM)
3.00 kg   Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)
75.00 g   Chinook [11.90 %] – Boil 90.0 min          84.9 IBUs
45.00 g   Willamette [5.20 %] – Boil 30.0 min        16.0 IBUs
1.00 tsp  Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)
45.00 g   Cascade [6.40 %] – Boil 0.0 min             0.0 IBUs
American Ale yeast (wyest 1056, from yeast bank)
Brettanomyces bruxellensis (added 7-10 days post-ferment)
Brettanomyces lambicus (added 7-10 days post-ferment)

Mash Schedule: 
Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 8.00 kg
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Name       Description                        Temp Step    Time
Mash In    Add 15.25 l of water at 70.9 C     64.4 C       75 min

Sparge: 
Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun, , 17.32l) of 75.6 C water

Boiling Gnarly Roots. Sparge water for Son of Gnarly in the background

Brew Day:

It was a typical mid-march brewday; the morning started off cold & snowy, but it was warm enough for everything to start melting by noon.  It was also a long brewday – the size of Gnarly Roots meant everything took longer – from heating the mash & sparge water, to brining the batch to a boil, even to measuring out ingredients.  Plus, I re-sparged the leftover grain to produce Son of Gnarly; a parti gyle’d bitter-like concoction, designed to get my beer stocks  up and make use of some leftover hops.

24L where there should be 20L…

There isn’t too much to report about this brew.  Things went pretty much as expected, but for one problem.  Big beers like this require a long boil to concentrate the wort, meaning you begin with a larger-than-normal volume of unboiled wort.  This need to concentrate the wort must be balanced with not over-boiling, which can overly darken the final beer.  Unfortunately, I erred on the side of underboiling, and over-shot my final volume.  Instead of 20L, I ended up with 24L – and thus a S.G. of 1.100 instead of 1.109.  I also over-extracted the grain, meaning Son of Gnarly will be weaker than planned.

On the plus side, the cultured yeasts did very well and I have more than enough yeast to start this beast.  Starting early next week I’ll have to begin getting the Brett yeast ready for their multi-month fermentation of this beer.