Elixer of Life: An Olde Ale

The elixir of life is a legendary potion, or drink, that grants the drinker eternal life and or eternal youth. Many practitioners of alchemy pursued it.  I'd like this to be our pursuit, as well.

After looking around at a lot of recipes, and doing a lot of research regarding what constitutes this classic style, I pieced together the recipe below:

5 Gallon All-Grain Batch

16.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain

1.00 lb Treacle (100.0 SRM) (60 min)

0.75 lb Carastan Malt (30.0 SRM) Grain

0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain

0.25 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain

2.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (60 min) Hops 22.3 IBU

2.25 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (15 min) Hops 13.8 IBU

2.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (0 min)

Yeast:  English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) or US-04 (dry)

Starter:  2L starter.  To make starter use 2L of water mixed with 1/2 pound (8oz) of Dry Extract 24 hours before your brew day.  Boil extract and water, cool, pour into a sanitized growler, and shake vigorously for 1 minute.  Next Add two packets of yeast. Cover with sanitized strip of foil.  Allow to sit for 18-24 hours to propagate.  If you are making the starter in advance store the starter in the fridge after the propagation period.  The yeast will settle out and you may decant the liquid before pitching the yeast onto the wort.  We are shooting for 385 billion yeast cells when pitching.

Mash at 158 degrees for 60 minutes

Note:  Reduce first 2 gallons of run-off until a syrupy consistency is reached (about 2 qt.).  You will have to eye it to see that its about 2 qts (half gallon).  A good way to know when you are about there is to put your spoon into the reduction.  lift it, it should pour off the spoon slowly and as a syrup.  If that happens you are good to go.

update from first brew

 
updated on:  02/12/12

For this group brew, we will need eleven 5 gallon batch brewed up.  If you would like to do more than 5 gallons, please indicate the number of gallons you are willing to contribute to the barrel.  All batches will be fermented in primary, then transferred into the barrel for aging. Each 5 gallons contributed will equate to one share for future splits.

Blending/Solera

This barrel brew will be a mixture of barrel blending and a pseudo-solera style project.  At the 6 month mark, 10 gallons will be removed from the barrel.  Each person in this barrel group will brew up 5 gallons of a beer of their choice; 2 people will brew up 5 gallons of the recipe above to refill the barrel. (i.e. if we have 11 people, 2 people will brew the recipe above; 9 people will brew up other beers).

Brewer's for this barrel will meet up at the 6 month mark, bringing the 5 gallons of "brewer's choice" beer that they made.  Together the group will sample all the brews and determine portions of each brew to be added to the beer removed from the barrel.  This blended beer will then be bottled and split amongst the group. If a portion of the beer removed from the barrel is left over, it will be kegged and put on tap in the brew house.

At the 1 year mark, one of two things will occur.  A) another blending session will be held.  (B) the contents of the barrel will be removed and divided up based on each brewer's share.

Specialty grains

I've ordered all the specialty grains and will divide them up into 11 bags.  Each brewer will need to obtain the 16 pounds of Marris Otter.  I have 2 sacks of MO coming as part of the bulk grain buy.  If you don't have any MO, you can buy some from me at cost.  Other option is going to the local homebrew store and picking some up. 

I should be getting the specialty grains just after Christmas.  I've ordered enough for every persons batch and it comes out to $4 a person.  I will divide up all the grains into bags and mark each persons name on the bag.  The bags will be at the brew house in the grain room.  If you need Marris Otter...let me know.  I have 2 sacks that I ordered as part of the last group bulk grain buy.

I am working on finding a good bulk source for trecale and will add that amount/price in once i find more details.

Dates and obligations

Please understand that if you are signing up to be a brewer for this barrel project, that you will need to commit to being present on certain days for things such as blending, bottling, and barrel filling.  Below are some dates to give a guideline for how things will work.

Sunday February 19th: All batches should be brewed  by this date.

Sunday February 26th: (required attendance)  On this day, the barrel will be drained, rinsed, and filled with each members brew.  This will most likely take place before the monthly meeting.  Each brewer for this project is expected to help in the filling and cleaning portions.

July ???: (required attendance)  By July 10 additional gallons of the recipe should have been brewed up by two members of the project.  the remaining members should also have 5 gallons of a beer of their choosing finished.  Sometime in mid July (group will pick a date that works for everyone) all brewers for this project will meet to blend a beer, followed by bottling of the beer.

February (following year): (required attendance)  Brewers for this project will blend another beer or remove brew from barrel.