DustinHickey

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Hello All,
I am planning on making a barley wine soon and have one question. I currently use a 8 gallon kettle and am looking to hit an original gravity after the boil of around 1.105.

My question is as follows:

Is it possible to acheive such a high gravity in 5 gallons of wort from batch sparging without having to boil off extra gallonage to get to your target?

For example, since I only have 1 (8 gallon pot) I am hoping to hit my target OG boiling down from 6.5 to 5 gallons without having to boil down to 5 gallons, add additional wort from sparge, and then boil down to 5 gallons, and repeat until I hit my gravity.

I was just hoping someone would have some experience in this?

In other words, if I am mashing at a grain to water ratio of 1 quart per pound of grain and using about 21 pounds of grain, the first runnings would provide about 5 gallons of wort giving me about 1.5 gallons to sparge with. Do you think I can hit my taret gravity with this amount of water or would I have to sparge with more water to get the correct amount of sugars out of the grain and then boil it down over and over?

Notes:
My mash effeciency is always right on at about 75%.

-Thanks,
Dustin Hickey

DustinHickey

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no love?

permo

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Just brew as usuall, boiling down from 6.5 to 5 gallons, then add a pound or two of DME or even some sugar or honey to hit your OG.

Your boiling forever may result in more unfermentable sugars, which is exactly what you do not want in a barley wine. Besides, there is no reason to get hung up on hitting such a huge number. Brew within the means of your equipment and drink the results. 1.090 is pretty easy to hit, if you boil down from 6.5 gallons.

GaryJohn

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Hmm, I'm not sure. I just add extract.

DustinHickey

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Thing is that i dont want to use extract or sugar. Ill have to just go for it i guess.

maida7

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personally I would add some extract or sugar to get the gravity up.

I don't think your gonna get to 1.105 with out a super long boil. Maybe if you put is like 32lbs of grain and mashed at 1 qt/lb and did no sparge. That might give you 6.5 gallons of 1.085 preboil wort. Not very efficient is it?

stephen424

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I would just add the sugar. There is soo much malt in there that it will help you get the higher abv, and barleywine is sweet as is, substituting the sugar isnt gonna change anything.

WVbrewer

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Perhaps you should brew a half batch. Then you will have the capacity to do an all grain barleywine. Plus, I never really need 2 cases or a full keg of barley wine. Just a thought...

indigi

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Do a mash aiming for 1.060, then use that to mash in a batch of fresh grain. That'll get you up there. I'd probably bank on worse effeciency in the second mash, though, and don't mash too low or too long. Any longer sugars from your first mash will probably get clipped in the second, and if you're not careful you can kill the mouthfeel.

Got Trub?

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TANSTAFL - There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

Brewing higher gravity beers requires you either:

1) Increase your boil volume and therefore boil time
2) Accept reduced efficiency and increase your grain bill
3) Accept reduced efficiency and make up the deficit with DME/sugar
4) Some combination of above.

In your situation I would decide what boil off I'm willing to work with, guesstimate how much my efficiency will be reduce by and up the grain bill and then have DME and or sugar standing by to make up any deficit when you check your preboil gravity if you undershoot.

GT