Barley Wine Opinions

[alwilson]

Afternoon Chaps,

I plan on making a 'big' beer in the new year, a barley wine(esque) brew. Only with some elderflowers in the boiler at the 'late hop stage'

What are your thoughts on the following recipe I knocked up in beerengine:

7000g pale malt
2000g vienna malt
500g wheat malt
250g pale crystal malt

130g EKG @T-90

Final Volume: 25 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.101
Final Gravity: 1.024
Alcohol Content: 10.2% ABV
Mash Efficiency: 86 %
Bitterness: 46.6748887148694 EBU
Colour: 23 EBC

Do you think I need to up the EBU a bit with that qty of malt? I was aiming for slightly hoppy, and balanced with a quantity (unknown as yet) of of dried elderflowers in the last 5-10 minutes of the boil.

any thoughts, suggestions or ridicule is welcomed!

Cheers
Alex

[dave-o]

There is no way you will get 86% efficiency with such a big beer IMO. You'd be lucky to get 70% i'd think.

[alwilson]

I didnt realise efficiency decreases!

What causes that to happen?

[dave-o]

I imagine it's that the wort has such a high concentration of sugar that a large amount of it is bound to get left behind in the spent grains.

However, i'm sure someone more knowledgable such as Chris-X will show that there's actually a much more scientific explanation!

[WishboneBrewery]

You could easily double the IBU's if not more, boiling at those high gravities isn't going to extract as much bitterness as say a 1040 wort.
You could sparge more than you would normally, Collect more wort and then boil down to get your pre-boil volume (and hopefully gravity) before adding any hops.
I'd think that the pale Crystal malt would be a bit lost in there.

[Deebee]

I think you need to up the EBU. I think also i might be tempted to make the grain bill simple and use only wheat and pale. this means that you can really show the hops off. i intend doing one at some stage in early January too.

[alwilson]

Thanks pdtnc!

You could easily double the IBU's if not more, boiling at those high gravities isn't going to extract as much bitterness as say a 1040 wort.

That's interesting, can you explain why not? Is there a formula to relate AA extraction with OG?

I'd think that the pale Crystal malt would be a bit lost in there.

That was mainly for colour

Cheers!
Alex

[boingy]

Re: Hop utilisation at different gravities. Probably more details than you ever wanted here:

www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-5.html

[coatesg]

I'd definitely go for more hops. It will get aged for some time, and I reckon you want to be shooting for 80-100 ibu. Re: crystal - it won't hurt, but I'm not sure it'd make that much difference. Perhaps swapping it for a slightly larger dose of Amber?

[awalker]

A lot more hops as coatesg says

[lupulin]

You could easily double the IBU's if not more, boiling at those high gravities isn't going to extract as much bitterness as say a 1040 wort.
You could sparge more than you would normally, Collect more wort and then boil down to get your pre-boil volume (and hopefully gravity) before adding any hops.
I'd think that the pale Crystal malt would be a bit lost in there.

I would second all that. Aside from the decreased utilization of your hops, the bitterness will age out quite a bit by the time the beer is ready to drink. I think it would be almost impossible to over-hop a beer with that kind of gravity.

As for efficiency, in addition to the physical challenges of draining wort from that much grain, I think the sugar concentration actually inhibits the enzymes which = lower efficiency.

[mysterio]

46.6748887148694 IBUs seems a little low for a Barley Wine, I would jack it up to 46.6748887148695 maybe?