Old Ale - First Attempt

[hoppy2B]

lol That's funny because today I'm making a Belgian with 300 grams of Caraaroma, inspired by your recipe. Has a small amount of Dark Crystal and other bits in it too.

I'll be making a Nut Brown later in the week with mostly crystal grains.

 

[hwall95]

Haha I shall have test out the caraaroma in a porter or brown ale sometime, let us know how it turns out.

Quick update, check hydro today and it was 1.044, so I turned the fridge from 15 up to 18 to help it finish and also gave it a little swirl to push the yeast that has fallen back up to the wort. Had a quick taste, and tasted pretty decent and had a pleasant aroma but was still very sweet. Will probably ferment at 18 for a week and then move it up to 20 to double check fermentation is complete. Then after 3 weeks in total (Assuming fermentation has well and truly stopped) will cold crash for 3 days to a week and then bottle.

 

[hwall95]

Bump.

Just checked again and it has fallen to 1.024 although that it is slightly higher then predicted. I took a quick taste and it didn't taste sweet, overall it tasted really nice, and had no presence of alcohol which was great to see. Will check again in three days to see if there is any change after raising the fridge temp to 20. Just wondering whether anyone has any thoughts of whether I should pitch another packet of yeast to make sure (Bottle bombs due to long aging) or just let set until Sunday when I plan to cold crash it for a week?

Cheers guys.

 

[MartinOC]

You could always try a forced ferment test to see what you're going to/likely to get out of it & decide from there...

 

[hwall95]

You could always try a forced ferment test to see what you're going to/likely to get out of it & decide from there...

Okay cheers for that, I haven't heard of it until now but seems like a very useful method. Thanks

 

[MartinOC]

Technically, you should do it with a sample of your original, unfermented wort, but if you do it now (ie. draw-off a small amount - enough to take a SG sample) & put it on a stir-plate, or just keep it at 27C until it's finished, you should have a rough idea of what you're likely to finish at.

It won't be exact, as you'll be pushing the sample to it's absolute limit of attenuation. Your main batch won't reach that, but it'll give you an idea.

Good luck with it!

 

[hwall95]

I just bottled it tonight after letting it sit in the secondary for 3 days without any additional change. Overall 3 and bit weeks and it finished at 1.022-1.024 and tasted pretty good to me. Can't wait to try it in 8 months! Thanks for the advice guys, will let you know how it goes.

 

[hwall95]

So after 7 months I finally tried this with friends of mine. Overall it still need some time as it is still tastes quite young. The dark crystal and the carafa really came through with their raisiny/plumy and choc/coffee taste and the combination of lots of malt extract and med crystal made it a sweetish although I couldn't pick much up from victory, however my palate isn't the best. I think give it another 6 months at least and see how it goes but still very promising. At the moment is still has the mouthfeel of a bit of hit which is from bottle condition since it didn't have that prior - wish I would of keep a few at constant cellar temp. Also it goes great with chocolate brownies as one could imagine. I think it came out around 10% which is not surprising as you could taste it was strong and defintely feel it.

Friends of mine described it as a less malt intense founders scotch ale or it reminds more of founders old ale - although mine has a thicker body and keep a nice creamy head. Will update in 6 months to a year.

Sidenote: This was far earlier on in my brewing and looking back I wished I did a lot of things differently and most of all I wish I did an all grain brew.. Would of gave far more control over the body and sweetness.