Barleywine needs help. Final gravity 1.040

I think this one started in the 1.120 neigborhood. I suspect that the US-05 yeast has hit its limit. Gravity has not moved from 1.040 for two weeks. I added some S-33 because I've read it has a high alc. tolerance. That was three days ago and I see no change.

Any suggestions on getting this gravity down further? So far the taste is great, just too sweet.

Here are some specs for those that may ask.

Mashed at 150F
10lb 2 row
2lb cara red
1lb 60L crystal

9lbs LME
1lb dextros

Lots of hops.

At an OG of 1.120, with three pounds of crystal and 9 pounds of LME, I don't see this beer going any lower at all.

It's at over 10% ABV and adding any yeast now would just cause the yeast do die from alcohol poisoning.

You could try racking it onto a big fermenting starter, or pitching some active yeast at high krausen but I don't think it would do much even if you used something like champagne yeast. I hope I'm wrong, though, and someone else has done this successfully!

I was afraid of this. I suppose bottle carbing will be a problem too.

Maybe add some Bret and put it in secondary for a year...


I agree with Yooper...you are at 75% attenuation, which is what you get with extract and about right for the rest of the bill with the dextrose counteracting the crystal...lot of unfermentable sugars.

Oh that reminds me...Beano...search on using that or the enzyme to attack some of the unfermentables.

Last idea, brew a smaller beer very dry and blend them. This one can sit in secondary while that one catches up. You could do 2 or 3 different ratios and end up with as many different beers.

Chadwick said:

I was afraid of this. I suppose bottle carbing will be a problem too.

Click to expand...

Should carb just fine. I believe US05 can go a ways further. I'd leave it in secondary another month at least anyway to make sure it doesn't start up again, that could be an issue...bottle bombs...

Is Brett an option for you?
Also, you can make a super dry beer and blend to taste.

Brett isn't anything I'm interested in.

I'm considering this:

Like advised, make a small 3-4 gallon batch of something designed to be very dry with an OG of around 1.040 and when I reach high krausen I'll dump in about 2 1/2 gallons of the barleywine.

Any thoughts?

Chadwick said:

Brett isn't anything I'm interested in.

I'm considering this:

Like advised, make a small 3-4 gallon batch of something designed to be very dry with an OG of around 1.040 and when I reach high krausen I'll dump in about 2 1/2 gallons of the barleywine.

Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

Well, it depends on what you want to do. A lower gravity beer would be fine, if that's what you want to do. Or if you still want your barleywine, bottle it up and enjoy it over the next 5 years. It should be tasty, although sweet- like a dessert beer.

If you do this again, it's great to do incremental feeding for super high gravity beers as the yeast doesn't stall out so quickly. But for this time, 75% attenation, over 10% ABV, isn't bad!

Chadwick said:

Brett isn't anything I'm interested in.

I'm considering this:

Like advised, make a small 3-4 gallon batch of something designed to be very dry with an OG of around 1.040 and when I reach high krausen I'll dump in about 2 1/2 gallons of the barleywine.

Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

Yooper gave the nice answer.....
You brewed the beer you wanted to and it finished about where it should. Why the heck do you want to mess with it?

Get it to bottle carb, age it a while and see how it is.

Mess with it now, and however it turns out will be impossible to recreate, for good or ill.

Chill OUT.

Desert beer? I like the sound of that. I suppose a wine is a slightly sweet drink, thus barleywine can be too. Like I said, it does taste great. It's just a little sweeter than what I was shooting for.

I'm going to let it rest for another week and then bottle it and be satisfied with it for what it is. Thanks for the replies folks.

As far as bottling goes, should I do the usual priming sugar routine and bottle like a normal beer, or is there some other approach for something with this gravity and alcohol content?

Be prepared for the priming to take a loooong time.

For bottling you might want to add some champagne yeast to help with carbonation.
Add enough sugar for ~2 volumes and a bit of yeast (~1 million cells per ml/°P of beer) and let them rest for a while...

Chadwick said:

Brett isn't anything I'm interested in.

I'm considering this:

Like advised, make a small 3-4 gallon batch of something designed to be very dry with an OG of around 1.040 and when I reach high krausen I'll dump in about 2 1/2 gallons of the barleywine.

Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

I did this recently with a barleywine that started at 1.122 and finished at 1.032. It had been sitting in secondary for about 18 months. I brewed a similar beer but with OG of about 1.080 and pitched it onto a huge 1056 yeast cake, which took it down below 1.010. About a month ago, I bottled them both - about a gallon or so of each on its own (which I cleverly labeled "sweet" and "dry") and about 6 or so gallons of the two blended, which I call 50/50 (very clever naming system I use). They all still need more conditioning time, but I checked a bottle of the blended beer this past weekend and was pretty pleased. I used the oxygen barrier caps as I expect to give these a year or so before I pass final judgment. I am honestly not very hopeful that the 1.032 beer will ever be very good. For comparison, SN's website indicates that Bigfoot final gravity is 1.024.

Ha ha. I'm so happy I could leap for joy. I planned on bottling this brew this weekend. I decided to check the gravity to confirm its still at 1.040 and it has dropped to 1.032. That over sweet taste is now gone and it tastes much better than it did at 1.040.

I'm not sure if I want to bottle this weekend or let it rest a little longer. I'm leaning toward bottling. I now dread the long wait for them to condition in the bottle. I'm thinking it could be months before I pop the top on one. Ah, but good things are worth waiting for.

Well I think I've been wrong about this so far but if you are taking a poll my vote is to hold off bottling. Let the yeast finish on their schedule. I forget if you have ability to do a secondary...but that might be a good way to go in another week or two.

Sounds like a Giant of a beer I'd give it some more time, it's big.

Bottled this beast of a beer yesterday. FG was 1.030. I hate that this will likely take many months to carb up, if at all. I did dry hop it with 2 oz of Cascade 3 days before bottling to ensure I keep a strong hop aroma and profile through the long bottle aging process that will inevitably be needed. This is going to be my last >1.100 OG beer for a while. Outside of a moderate gravity experiment I batched after I bottled this stuff yesterday, my next two beers are going to be American IPA's without anything outside the ordinary.