Barleywine?

[adm]

I'm thinking about doing a fairly extreme Barleywine over Christmas, for next Christmas....

Does anybody have any experience with these?

Here's where I'm at so far (for 19l - i.e one corny)

9kg Pale Malt
1.5kg tin of LME (because I have one floating around that was ordered accidentally andI don't know what to do with)
500g Dark Candi Sugar (again - it's sitting in the beer bin - don't know what to do with it)
2 kg muscovado sugar - for ABV without adding any more to the body.

This (according to Beer Alchemy) would give 1192 OG and somewhere over 20% ABV.

Is it even feasible ?

What would you do for hops for this kind of thing? I have no idea, other than to expect it to be a very malt driven beer....maybe a large addition (100-150 IBU to account for lower utilisation) of Fuggles or Goldings early in the boil - then a long boil?

What about yeast - what would even survive at these alcohol levels? Could I pitch 4x SO4 for example?

Anyway - any thoughts that anybody has on Barley Wines will be gratefully appreciated!

[adm]

On the yeast question... I presume that SO4 isn't the answer....but is there anything out there recommended to chew through that type of OG wort?

[boingy]

A wine or champagne yeast might do the job.

Or you could use some of that Alcotec turbo yeast that is designed to turn a wodge of sugar and water into 20% alcohol in the space of, literally, a few days. This yeast is usually used to give a base liquid for distillation and for this use it requires the addition of carbon and stuff at the end of fermentation.

e.g.: www.leylandhomebrew.com/item1466.htm

No idea what it would do to your brew or what the end result would taste like!!

[Garth]

why not try Whitelabs high gravity WLP-099, H&G do it but you may have to order it in

WLP-099

[adm]

That WLP099 looks like a definite contender.

In fact...it looks the only real contender as most of the other "High Gravity" yeasts seem to top out around 15%. I'd better order a couple of those today.

For this kind of beer, I imagine that you would just mash and boil with the grain, adding the hops in the boil like normal and then add the LME and sugar adjuncts just a few minutes before the end ?

Otherwise, you wouldn't get much hop utilisation due to all the sugars in solution?

Mind you, this would definitely be a malt driven beer....

For the pitching amount, Mr. Malty says 10 packs of liquid yeast and an 8L starter! So there's my first problem right there. £60 worth of yeast!

So it would probably make more sense to brew a batch of regular ale first using that yeast then pitch onto the yeast cake directly with the barleywine. Mr Malty says somewhere between 1.5 and 2l of slurry depending on the thickness...

Or - even brewing a regular beer, then a strong beer, then pitching the barleywine onto the same yeast cake? 3rd generation to make sure there was plenty of yeast although it would increase the chance of infection.


What do you think?

[oblivious]

Hi adm if you want to hit that gravity you will need to look at a continuous feed, as the yeast will give up at the half way part also some oxygen or air feed at the start to help the yeast start of and a massive starter or pre pitch

There is a BYO (dec 06 ) article called cause of death, a 21% all malt barely wine. this has some very good info and tips for producing monster beers

[adm]

Thanks Guys,

I was wondering about feeding it....would you start with the wort at a lower gravity and then add some of the adjunct sugars later, plus aerate the yeast?

The more i read, the more tricky it looks to get anywhere above 15% or so....

I'll see if I can find the BYO article - it sounds like in contains exactly what I need to know

[oblivious]

it think the beer you will be stating with will need to be around 10-12%+ and added sugar or conc worth to it ever few days to get the alcohol up and ferment out

Both duvel and Rochefort do something similar but not the same as each other

[Aleman]

I'd drop it back a bit I've done a barleywine at 1.120 and that is more than enough . . . get rid of a kilo of that Muscovado sugar.

My take on yeast would be Nottingham . . . Cause I know it works Pitching 4 or 5 packets

I would seriously consider continual aeration for the first 12 hours . . . Or In my case hit it with O2 during the wort transfer . . . then at hourly intervals for the first 6 hours another burst . . . then down to Air for the next 6 hours and a final aeration at 18 hours.

I would also avoid wine yeasts like the plague unless it sticks . .. then I would toss in some Champagne yeast

Hop wise . .. 100-150 IBU is a nice starting point . . . problem with hop soup is that you tend to get a much reduced utilisation . . . I would use a hop with a higher alpha for 50-75% of the bittering (say Challenger) and then Goldings or Fuggles to fill it out

[adm]

Good tips - thanks!

I've dropped 1kg of the malt and 1kg of the Muscovado from the recipe - still comes in at 1159!

I like the idea of just using Nottingham. For the price of 1 liquid yeast, I can just pitch a half dozen packs of Nottingham and it's far easier than brewing a batch with a high alcohol yeast (which may not taste good anyway) then reusing the yeast cake.

Would massive amounts of Nottingham tolerate 15%+ alcohol - or would it just ferment so quickly that it would be done before the yeast got overwhelmed?

I think I'll have to get an air pump and stone for this beer then....

Lots to think about!

[Aleman]

If you pitch enough even Windsor is happy to do the job . . . . . although there is a big difference between 10 and 15% ( . . . . . . Yeah Like 5% . . . . . . . ) Personally I would still go with a beer yeast and finish with a wine yeast

If you search the HBD Archives for Samiclaus clones there is a report there by Marc ? ? ? ? who isolated the Samiclaus (Hurlimann??) yeast for Whitelabs . . . and that is close to 21% . . . If I remember correctly it is fed regular doses of sugar during fermentation

[Dennis King]

The white labs yeast is ment to be the Thomas Hardy strain, seems ideal

[drsmurto]

I brewed an english barleywine on Saturday, was aiming for OG 1.099 but a few things didnt go my way and i ended up with 1.088.

Pitched that onto a US05 yeast cake (i know, not an English yeast but its what i had ready at the time) to ensure i had enough viable yeast. Airlock was doing its best impression of an AK-47 within 3 hours.

Like you, plan is to put it away for a while, if i can resist.

[adm]

I've scaled my BW recipe down now and will be trying for something less up at the high end of the ABV scale - but hopefully easier to ferment out!

I've got a beer on now using Ringwood (Wyeast 1187), and I'll be pitching the BW onto the yeast cake from that when it's ready....not the ideal yeast, but it should be tolerant up to about 10% and it's what I've got!

[Aleman]

Make sure that you aerate well, it's when you are using a slurry that you really need to get plenty of O2 into the wort