Awesome Mike, I hope my next all grain stout holds up well enough to age for years. Inspirational work, cheers. Mine was an eight hour brew day, four hour boil, 2 hour hop addition only to focus on roasty, malty flavours. Fermenting now, smells delicious 🍻
Michael - what is your preferred technique for bottle-conditioning beer - specifically a beer you hope/plan to age this long? Here's to a great homebrew on deck in 2050!
Nothing special in terms of filling the bottles. Probably could have primed the beer into a keg and used my counter-pressure filler to reduce the oxygen exposure. However, the conditioning itself should absorb most of the oxygen pretty quickly. In this case the residual sulfites, not to mention the dark malts, helped too.
For this one I just mixed the sugar solution and yeast into the beer in the bottling bucket and filled with a wand. I was just suggesting an alternate method: using a keg and filler to dispense flat/primed beer into bottles to reduce oxygen uptake.
Thanks so much, Michael. My buddy and video cohort Paul Fowler brewed a variation of this beer last Fall inspired by other members of his St. Paul Homebrewers Club. It was a wonderful experience to not only ride shotgun for the brewday, but enjoy it so far through the winter. Guess we better set a few aside. :) ua-cam.com/video/0WbSd15mNMw/v-deo.html
You mentioned taking care of the Brett with metabisulphite. Can I ask how you then were able to bottle condition the beers? As I understand it that should inhibit all yeast. Or did you simply force carb and bottle fill from keg? It’s a great thought behind having the bottles as a tradition to enjoy for the future. Cheers great vid
When you dose with sulfites it is the free SO2 that does the killing. After 24 hours or so most of this will have left the beer (or wine or juice) if allowed. In the case of the 2007 batch I reyeasted with U-05, and the 2015 I used Pasteur Blanc. Wine yeast tend to be more sulfite-tolerant, and so are safer choices. I was inspired by wine and cider makers who dose with meta bisulfite pre-fermentation to kill wild yeast as they don't have the same luxury of boiling as brewers. All of the specific details (times, amounts etc.) are located in the original recipe posts on my blog.
My basement fluctuates between 55-65F through the year. The metabisulfite was intended to kill the wild yeast (Brettaomyces), but certainly also served as an antioxidant.
That is essentially what some larger breweries (like Sierra Nevada) do. They force-carbonate most of the way, then re-yeast and prime lightly to finish carbonating in the bottle. That said, without control and re-yeasting it would be more likely to cause issues.
Any chance of an update - keen to hear if the second batch has improved with age.
This is awesome. I want to start a tradition like this
Keep the videos coming! This one was very interesting. Cheers!
Thanks for sharing
Excellent, thanks for sharing!
Awesome Mike, I hope my next all grain stout holds up well enough to age for years. Inspirational work, cheers. Mine was an eight hour brew day, four hour boil, 2 hour hop addition only to focus on roasty, malty flavours. Fermenting now, smells delicious 🍻
Best of luck! We're planning to extend the boil on our next stout to about four hours.
Michael - what is your preferred technique for bottle-conditioning beer - specifically a beer you hope/plan to age this long?
Here's to a great homebrew on deck in 2050!
Nothing special in terms of filling the bottles. Probably could have primed the beer into a keg and used my counter-pressure filler to reduce the oxygen exposure. However, the conditioning itself should absorb most of the oxygen pretty quickly. In this case the residual sulfites, not to mention the dark malts, helped too.
Is that to say you keg-filled carbonated beer into bottles... as opposed to priming and/or re-yeasting in bottles? The heads looks wonderful!
For this one I just mixed the sugar solution and yeast into the beer in the bottling bucket and filled with a wand. I was just suggesting an alternate method: using a keg and filler to dispense flat/primed beer into bottles to reduce oxygen uptake.
Thanks so much, Michael. My buddy and video cohort Paul Fowler brewed a variation of this beer last Fall inspired by other members of his St. Paul Homebrewers Club. It was a wonderful experience to not only ride shotgun for the brewday, but enjoy it so far through the winter. Guess we better set a few aside. :)
ua-cam.com/video/0WbSd15mNMw/v-deo.html
You mentioned taking care of the Brett with metabisulphite. Can I ask how you then were able to bottle condition the beers? As I understand it that should inhibit all yeast. Or did you simply force carb and bottle fill from keg? It’s a great thought behind having the bottles as a tradition to enjoy for the future. Cheers great vid
When you dose with sulfites it is the free SO2 that does the killing. After 24 hours or so most of this will have left the beer (or wine or juice) if allowed. In the case of the 2007 batch I reyeasted with U-05, and the 2015 I used Pasteur Blanc. Wine yeast tend to be more sulfite-tolerant, and so are safer choices. I was inspired by wine and cider makers who dose with meta bisulfite pre-fermentation to kill wild yeast as they don't have the same luxury of boiling as brewers. All of the specific details (times, amounts etc.) are located in the original recipe posts on my blog.
What temperature are you cellaring these at? And did you use metabisulphate as the preservant?
My basement fluctuates between 55-65F through the year. The metabisulfite was intended to kill the wild yeast (Brettaomyces), but certainly also served as an antioxidant.
@@madfermentationist4470 very good, this could be the missing piece in the puzzle of how to age my beers for a decade! Thank you!
Can I bottle-condition a beer that was force carbed in a keg and then fill the bottles using a beergun?
That is essentially what some larger breweries (like Sierra Nevada) do. They force-carbonate most of the way, then re-yeast and prime lightly to finish carbonating in the bottle. That said, without control and re-yeasting it would be more likely to cause issues.
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