Teriyaki Barleywine?

My barleywine smells and tastes a little like teriyaki. It is the Little Monster recipe in Jamiil's BCS. I brewed it in November and transferred it to a secondary in December for bulk aging. The refractometer shows a Brix reading of 21, which seems a little high to me. This is my first BW, so I'm not sure what to expect. Is this normal? What could be happening here?

I'm consideing the possibility that I had low or stalled attenuation. The yeast used was Wyeast American Ale, with a big starter.

Well, a brix of 21 would mean a SG of around 1.084, which would be ridiculously high for a fermented BW if you were looking at the brix independently of other refractometer readings. Although I don't speak from personal experience, I believe you need to add an extra calculation based on your original brix reading to figure out later brix readings... right? Although it may still be high.

Check this out: http://morebeer.com/learn_vids/vids_refract

Interesting. I had to check this thread out just for the title. If all fails you'll have one killer sauce!

Drop your refractometer and take a gravity reading using your calibrated hydrometer. If it's still very high gravity (a gravity>1.030 or 1.040) throw some additional yeast in there. You could throw some champagne yeast or maybe some general ale yeast maybe such as Nottingham.

Good Luck,
J

Grizzley is correct, you need to have more numbers. In this case you actually need the gravity reading (SG, FG, or whatever you choose to call it.) If you have a hydrometer, now is the time to use it.

As to the off flavors? I'm not much of a help here....

Thanks. The SG is 1.050. When it had a high SG after weeks in the secondary, I added a packet of Safale-05 with no effect. The alcohol may have killed them off. I'll try champagne yeast.

Buffman said:

Thanks. The SG is 1.050. When it had a high SG after weeks in the secondary, I added a packet of Safale-05 with no effect. The alcohol may have killed them off. I'll try champagne yeast.

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What was your OG (or original brix)? You used Wyeast 1056? Ferm temp? Mash temp?

Mashed at 149 for 90 minutes. Original Brix 32. Fermented with Wyeast 1056 (two packages with a 2q+ starter) at ~63F. I did not get full conversion in the mash, so I to make up some gravity by adding 2+ pounds DME to hit the estimated preboil gravity.

You might have to make a starter out of one of the high-gravity ale yeasts to get this going again.

david_42 said:

You might have to make a starter out of one of the high-gravity ale yeasts to get this going again.

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Completely agree. Do this, it will most certainly do the job, do not waste your time just throwing yeast in.

david_42 said:

You might have to make a starter out of one of the high-gravity ale yeasts to get this going again.

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I'm glad I raised this issue here! What yeast would you recommend? White Labs carries a "Super High Gravity" yeast, alcohol tolerance over 15%.

Or even better, brew yourself something nice with the high-gravity yeast and rack this onto the yeast cake. It's a win-win no matter how you look at it.

I moved it to a warmer location and added a starter with White Labs Super High Gravity yeast and let it ferment another two weeks. The teriyaki flavor has subsided, but it is still at 1.050 and tastes very sweet. I'm seriously considering adding champagne yeast. Anyone used champagne yeast?