Leaving the country for 3 months--rack my young barley wine now?
I brewed a barley wine on January 26 and pitched 2 11.5 g packets of Safale US-05 dry yeast. Original gravity was 1.132. Today the gravity is 1.059. I'm leaving the country next Wednesday (2/17) until May 8. While I know this is a beer that needs to ferment for a long time, I feel like I'm asking for an autolysis nightmare if I just leave it in primary until May. I might be able to enlist a good samaritan to rack it for me at some point while I'm away, but would it be a mistake to just rack it to a secondary fermenter now? To anyone who has barley wine experience: what would be best here?
Last edited by whahoppened; 02-09-2010 at 05:53 AM.
I have no big beer experience, but it doesn't look like its going to get all the way with the yeast you have already pitched. Why not rack it onto another packet of yeast and leave it go until you get back? As far as I can tell most people around here have not had problems with aging that long even with much smaller OG.
After nearly two weeks, it seems like the gravity should be lower than 1.059.
What FG do you expect?
What temp are you fermenting at?
Does it still have a krausen?
Since you've got another week before you leave, take the gravity again in a couple of days. If it is still at 59, then you might have a stuck fermentation. I don't have much experience that, though I'd be inclined to make a starter with a yeast that can handle 13-14%, and when the starter is at high krausen, rack the beer to a secondary and pitch the starter.
1.059 after only two weeks? I've not done a beer quite this big but it seems like you should have dropped through most of your expected attenuation by now. Jamil talks about maybe 10 days in the primary for a barleywine before racking.
I think the yeast is hitting the wall. Consider getting one of the super-high gravity yeasts, making a starter and racking onto fresh yeast.
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It sounds like you need to repitch this beer. You should be WAY lower by now.
Recently I brewed a 1.095 barley wine, I pitched a slurry of nottingham washed from a previous batch, after 6 days I am sitting at 1.020. So 1.059 is a LONG way from done, rouse the yeast, move it to a warmer place, repitch.....it sounds stuck to me.
Leaving the country for 3 months--rack my young barley wine now?
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