Help me brew my housewarming beer!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

msarro

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2011
Messages
233
Reaction score
7
Location
Bethlehem
Hey everyone, I am starting to put together the recipe for my big bad barleywine to celebrate SWMBO and I buying our first house.
I'm looking for this to be extremely strong, sweet, and sippy. So I'm nodding towards English Barleywine, but thinking of going just a touch higher FG than style. This will then live in our basement and age. And age. And age. The goal is to make a batch every year, and then do verticals every year we live there together.

So, here is the start of the recipe - please let me know what you think. I need some help with dealing with some of the fermentation.

11 lbs light DME
2 lbs 40l crystal malt
2 lb molassas (one in initial boil, one at 10 min)
1 lb light belgian candi sugar
1 lb light brown sugar
1 tsp irish moss
1 oz sorachi ace (or magnum) - pre boil
1 oz sorachi ace (or magnum) - 60 min
1 oz centennial - 30 min
1 oz sorachi ace (or magnum) - 30 min
1 oz centennial - 10 min
1 oz willamette - 5 min (or flame out)
1 oz wilamette - dry hop on secondary fermentation

Still deciding on yeast, but i'm thinking of making a starter using wyeast english ale and scottish ale to begin. Then after the first few days of fermentation, adding champagne yeast. Finally for bottling adding a touch more champagne yeast, and some priming sugar/brown sugar.

Planning on using oak chips, not sure if I want to soak them in port wine, or some single malt scotch.

What are your thoughts. I'm trying to get this planned out prior to our move in so there is at least 45 days to ponder.

Your input is really appreciated!
 
A couple pointers. 2lbs molasses is going to be way too much. If you're set on having molasses, top it at no more than 1lb, maybe even down to 1/2lb. The type of molasses you are using matters too. If you want it to have a higher FG, drop the candi sugar and brown sugar. Make up for the lost gravity by more base malts, either grains or extract. Maybe toss in a pound or two of Munich or Vienna, or maybe some biscuit malt. The hop level that you have seems to be more American bw level (not that that's bad though, I like the Cent/Willamette combo, and with Magnum, even better!). And just an opinion: I think Magnum would work better than Sorachi Ace.

If you want it to be sweet, and a high end FG (the 2lbs crystal will help), forget about the champagne yeast. I'd recommend using the Scottish ale yeast. Wyeast's Scottish ale has tolerance up to 12%, attenuates around 70% and is a good yeast for big beers. Make sure the wort is hit with tons of oxygen (either directly or by shaking the hell out of it), and keep fermentation on the cool side.

And oh yeah, congrats on the house!
 
Back
Top