What's a good recipe to age in a demijohn?

[pat_00]

So I moved into this house that has a 50l demijohn in the shed. It also has a cellar-ish type room under the stairs that has a pretty stable temp.

So far I have mainly concentrated on brewing wheat beers and ales. What is a good recipe that I can age in the demijohn? I can't fit it in my fermenting fridge, so it will have to be OK at ambient temps in the cellar (so far a max of 25deg, min of ?)

Any good ideas? thinking of a dark ale or stout maybe

 

[JDW81]

Lambic or another sour?

 

[pat_00]

Berliner Weiss seems pretty popular around here. Not sure if I've ever had one though, Berlin remains a month long blur to me

I'm still pretty new to AG brewing, so not sure if I wanna tackle a lambic yet, seems complicated.

 

[JDW81]

How long are you talking about ageing the beer for?

 

[Liam_snorkel]

50 litres of mead...?

 

[manticle]

Russian Imperial stout, baltic porter, belgian dark strong, dubbel, oaked porter or stout.

 

[hsb]

You can just knock out a pale/wheat wort with minimal hops, chuck in one of the wyeast liquid yeast lambic blends and leave for a year. Only as complicated as you want to make it.
But otherwise, something big, or not much point in the demijohn.
Lambic just seems suited to no temp control.

 

[pat_00]

Cool thanks for the ideas. I could age for 3-6 months or longer I guess. Might have a look at Russian imperial stout recipes

 

[manticle]

Good temp control until it's done and conditioned a bit, then rack into the demijohn, reduce the headspace as much as possible (even topping up with a small amount of boiled water if need be) seal with silicon bung or foil or something and leave to age, out of the sun/covered etc depending on the demijohn.

 

[rehab]

Barleywine is another good one for aging. Changes over time so is very ideal

 

[hoppy2B]

Only because its grape harvest time, you could look into buying some Shiraz grapes and a good wine yeast. But that would require you to crush and press the grapes, so maybe too much to ask.