The Den

Eventually I plan to put up a page with photos and details of the
process I go through when I brew at home. But for now, since I have two
beers fermenting at the same time, here's how they look:

On the left, in the 6.5gal fermenter, is the latest incarnation of my
Dry Stout, brewed 2 days ago and bubbling along happily. It should be
ready to keg in about a week and a half, and ready to drink soon after
that.  The carboy on the right was brewed today (19Feb07) and is a
Barleywine. It'll be ready to drink next Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Barleywines are very heavy, sweet, high-alcohol beers that need at
least that long to age and mellow. They are usually consumed in smaller
glasses, because they are very high alcohol (about the same as wine, up
to 12 %) .

All the wierd looking light colored stuff in the lower part is
called "trub" (pronounced "troob"). Its the protein from the grains
that were coagulated during boiling, and are starting to settle out.
They'll compact themselves on the bottom of the fermenter and the beer
will be siphoned off the top. Most beer doesn't have quite that much
trub, but most beer also doesn't have that much malt in it -
barleywines have MUCH more than normal, which makes them heavier,
sweeter and more alcoholic. 

To balance the intesity of that much malt, barleywines can take a large
quantity of hops. While a regular pale ale might use 2-3 oz, an IPA
might use 4 with more for dry hopping, I used 7, and will probably use
4 more for dry hopping when its time. Dry hopping (the addition of more
hops after fermentation) is what gives many west-coast beers their
incredible floral hoppy aromas.

When fermentation and dry hopping  is finally done, which I expect
will be in a couple of months, I'll let the barleywine sit for a couple
more months in another fermenter to age and clear, and then I'll
probably bottle it.  While bottling is more of a pain-in-the-butt than
kegging, I think it makes more sense with the barleywine. Since its
such a BIG beer, it will be consumed in smaller amounts on infrequent
occasions. I'll probably also want to give some as gifts. And, it can
last for years if kept cool and bottled, whereas I don't want to give
up one of my kegs to contain a small amount of it that is used only
here and there.  So, in the bottle's it will go. Hopefully the yeast
will have enough life to carbonate it!