Barley Wine Recipe Advice

I'm going to try my first Barley Wine. I might have made it too complicated. Any feedback would be appreciated.


Recipe Specifications
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Boil Size: 9.93 gal
Post Boil Volume: 8.58 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 8.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 8.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.098 SG
Estimated Color: 12.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 103.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 82.5 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes


Mash Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
25 lbs Rahr 2-Row American (1.7 SRM) Grain 1 93.5 %
8.0 oz Caramel Munich 60L (Briess) (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 1.9 %
8.0 oz Crystal 60, 2-Row, (Great Western) (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 1.9 %
8.0 oz Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (3.0 SRM) Grain 4 1.9 %
4.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 5 0.9 %


Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 6.50 gal of water at 167.0 F 149.0 F 90 min
Mash Out Add 3.50 gal of water at 211.5 F 168.0 F 10 min
Batch sparge with 3 steps (Drain mash tun, , 1.56gal, 1.56gal) of 168.0 F water

Boil Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
3.00 oz Magnum [13.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 65.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Chinook [11.80 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 20.4 IBUs
2.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 8 -
1.00 oz Cascade 2011 [7.20 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 9 5.6 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial 2012 [11.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 10 9.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade 2011 [7.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 11 2.3 IBUs


Dry Hop/Bottling Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1.50 oz Cascade 2011 [7.20 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 13 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial 2012 [11.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 14 0.0 IBUs

Yeast: US-05 (washing yeast from an IPA)

The grain bill looks pretty good to me. You might want to add a bit more hops. I think American BW's usually have a higher IBU than that (BU:GU ratio of 1 or greater). Some of the bitterness and a lot of the aroma and flavor will drop out as it's aged.

You may also want to mash a little lower, like below 150. You want to have a very fermentable wort because with an OG that high, the yeast is going to have a hard time getting the FG down to where it isn't too sweet. I recently made a BW with an OG of 1.091 and mashed at 149. I pitched Nottingham and it got it down to 1.018 (~80% attenuation).

Also, I'm sure you will, but make sure to pitch enough yeast. Probably 2 packs of US-05. The mrmalty.com calculator will tell you exactly, but I used 2 packs of Notty.

Good luck and happy brewing!

OK. I edited the original recipe in the first post. I took the IBU up to 91 and added more hops at the end of boil and dry hopping. Dropped the mash temp to 149 and I'm going to do a 90 minute mash instead of 60.

I also switched to Magnum hops for bittering because I had more than I thought in the freezer.

I moved all bittering hops to the 60 minute mark.

How's it look now?

That looks great to me! I bet it will be delicious. Let us know how it turns out.

I'd dump the crystal completely in my opinion. With barleywine you want to limit the non base grain percentage so it doesn't end to high. I'd also up the hops some more. As it ages the hops age out, leaving your beer overly sweet. Also, good luck, barley wine is a learning experience.

ALright. I took down the crystal from 1 1/2# to 1/2#

Bumped the IBUs to 102

Bumped base malt by 2#

Updated recipe in first post.

Hmmm. I wonder if beersmith takes into account diminished returns when you do a mash this big... or if all this grain will fit in my mash-tun lol.

I just looked, and it will fit, but I have the mash thickness set at 1.01 qt/lb because I thought it might help with my extraction rate if I ran it thicker and had more sparge water. Is there any reason not to mash that thick with a barley wine?

I keep thinking everything must be totally different with that much grain. Bah.

I've been looking at recipes on this board and it seems like some people are boiling their barley wines for 2+ hours?!?

rjwhite41 said:

I'd dump the crystal completely in my opinion. With barleywine you want to limit the non base grain percentage so it doesn't end to high. I'd also up the hops some more. As it ages the hops age out, leaving your beer overly sweet. Also, good luck, barley wine is a learning experience.

Click to expand...

Personally I'd keep the crystal at 1.5 lbs. The extra pound isn't going to create a lot of unfermentables and will and a lot more flavor to the beer. I had 2# of crystal and 2# of munich in my last barleywine and still fermented it down to 1.016 using a notty cake.

I made a 1.107 Belgian Dark Strong and sparged with a lot more than 3 gallons...I believe I was about 10 gallons into the kettle, boiling down to 6 gallons. With big beers you usually end up with longer boils because of the extra water volume to sparge all that grain. You can mix some extract with your strike water which will reduce your grain bill and the mash will help provide additional conversion to the extract. Big beers can take quite a bit of extract with no ill effects if mash tun capacity is an issue.

I could remove the mash-out step. That would give me an additional 3.6 gallons for the batch sparge step. I guess the question is, how important is it to halt the mash @90 minutes?

I looked up guidelines in Designing Great Beers and the averages are 12-14% specialty grains, but it many used less.

Right now specialty grains are 6.5% of the grain bill.


DME would really make a big difference in the mash. That might help my efficiency quite a bit. I'm afraid I'm going toend up wasting a lot of grain.

Stand said:

I could remove the mash-out step. That would give me an additional 3.6 gallons for the batch sparge step. I guess the question is, how important is it to halt the mash @90 minutes?

I looked up guidelines in Designing Great Beers and the averages are 12-14% specialty grains, but it many used less.

Right now specialty grains are 6.5% of the grain bill.

Click to expand...

If you are worried about having too much wort to boil down, you could always do a decoction for the mash out step. You should be able to take about 1/3 of the mash out and boil it for about 20 minutes and when you add it back to the main mash you'll be at mash out temp. BeerSmith will tell you the exact amounts. Most people will tell you that decoctions are a waste of time or really hard to do. I think every brewer should do at least one in their lifetime, just to say you did it.

I know this style doesn't "require" a decoction, but as a scientist I brew beer with an experimental mind so I'm up for anything!

Stand said:

DME would really make a big difference in the mash. That might help my efficiency quite a bit. I'm afraid I'm going to end up wasting a lot of grain.

Click to expand...

Your efficiency is going to suffer from a really large grainbill, so have some extra DME on hand just in case.

I agree with rcsoccer. Decoct to the mash out temp. It isnt hard. People just get intimidated. The calculation is super easy. And use that water for sparging.

Make sure your propane tank is full, sparge with as much was as you can (within reason) to maximize your mash efficiency and boil for 2 hours to boil off the extra water and leave the fermentables behind.

Do it on a nice day.

When you have an hour left, start your hop additions.

You could even take your first runnings and put them in a pot and boil while you are spending all the extra time sparging.

Be prepared to undershoot your mash temp. That much grain, time, stirring can decrease your temp for sure. Make sure you preheat your mash tun thoroughly, add strike water 5deg hotter than needed, add grain very slowly and mix the hell out of it. Really easy to get hot spots with that much grain at that thickness.

You need to maximize the mash efficiency, as that much grain is going to work against you. That means maintaining temps. Wrap the tun and lid in blankets or a heating blanket if available. Longer mash times result in more temp drops.

A 90 or even 120 min mash will only increase your chances. Check your temp every 30 mins and add boiling water to increase your temp as needed.

It's going to be an experience. Start early.

Keep us updated!!

I think I'm going to try a Decoction mash-out like suggested. It ends up giving me 3.47 gallons for each step in the sparge, which can't help but increase my efficiency.

I'm running to LHBS to get stuff today; then I just need to wait for a day when it isn't raining and awful outside.

Super excited about this brew!

Thanks so much for the advice!

I was just working on my first American Barley Wine recipe. I picked the same hops, i'm a fan of them. I'll be glad to see how yours turns out.

Stand said:

I looked up guidelines in Designing Great Beers and the averages are 12-14% specialty grains, but it many used less.

Right now specialty grains are 6.5% of the grain bill.

Click to expand...

Keep in mind, Vienna is a base malt, not a specialty grain. Actually, on that note I'd skip the Vienna entirely for how little you plan to use. Honestly, you won't notice that small an amount in a beer this big. If you want to keep it I'd up the % you're using in a big way. Perhaps consider switching the Vienna out in favour of Munich malt (more flavour from less grain that way).

Also, if you have access to it I'd suggest you try using Pale Chocolate Malt instead of Chocolate Malt in your brew. PCM gives a really nice toasty, nutty flavour that's really nice in barleywines, and I would highly recommend you give it a try. It won't give you any chocolate or roasty notes though if you're specifically looking for those.

Finally, have you considered adding some simple sugars to the beer to increase your OG and give you some added complexity? Could be as simple as throwing in some table sugar at the start of the boil, or could be a more exotic sugar like jaggery or turbinado. Always fun additions and they can help make up for lower efficiency, I would recommend you give them a shot.

any word on how any of these brews turned out?