Stuck fermentation barley wine

cthompson116 · 11-11-2008, 03:18 PM

Ok, I brewed J D harvests barleywine about two months ago.

OG 1.115
I don't remmber the exact yeast but it was white labs and I pitched two vials. (Should have done a starter)

Moved to secondary after two weeks with a reading of 1.045 (Should have left it in primary until FG, I know that now)

6 weeks later checked and it was 1.038. (Recipe says 1.020 for finish)

Now, I'm pretty sure I'm stuck but will check again in a few days.

Was thinking of creating a starter and re-pitching with nottingham or I should I just wait?

Any Advice appreciated

Chris

carnevoodoo · 11-11-2008, 03:24 PM

You won't want to make a starter with Nottingham. Dry yeast cell counts are higher than the liquid type, so there's really no need.

I would try getting it a few degrees warmer. Not anything drastic, but a temperature change can spark activity. I do think taking it off the yeast cake so quickly is what happened here, but you're also at 10.3% alcohol and 65% apparent attenuation.

To kickstart something that is already at 10%+, I'd think maybe look into a champagne yeast.

cthompson116 · 11-11-2008, 03:25 PM

oh, and temperature is constant at 73

cthompson116 · 11-11-2008, 03:37 PM

I'm more concerned about bottle bombs as this will be bottled and not kegged. If I was kegging, I would just keg it as is.

Pivzavod · 11-11-2008, 03:38 PM

I dont think this would qualify as a stuck fermentation if you moved from 1.115 to 1.038 and need to hit 1.020. Try raising the temperature as suggested and maybe give it more time and you should hit FG.

cthompson116 · 11-11-2008, 03:49 PM

Ok. I will raise temp to 78 or so and see what happens.

Thanks for your help

Chris

cthompson116 · 12-04-2008, 04:25 PM

Ok. So Its now almost a month later and SG is now 1.036. I'm going to raise the temp to 82 and see what happens. I think its pretty much done but do not want to risk bottle bombs. Any advice on this matter?

Thanks,

Chris

**conpewter** · 12-04-2008, 04:56 PM

If it was me I'd probably rehydrate some nottingham and try pitching that to get it to work on it.

Next time you may want to look into pitching on a yeast cake of an earlier brew.

mkling · 12-04-2008, 05:36 PM

I actually don't think I'd use Nottingham here and I don't think I'd go raising the temp too much. I'm not completely sure about Nottingham, but a lot of yeasts don't tolerate high alcohol %'s very well especially where they are starting out from dry or a small starter. I suspect N'ham is one of those that won't tolerate high alcohol that well.

If this were me & my barleywine, I'd actually add a wine yeast at this point -- It'll tolerate the alcohol and will knock things down a bit to a reasonable level without completely drying it out. Because most of the alcohol will have been created by an ale yeast, most of the taste will go along with the ale character, so I don't think you'll lose that.

Good luck.

cthompson116 · 12-05-2008, 01:50 PM

Thanks guys.

I turned the temp up a bit. Now 80 and airlock is starting to burp a bit. I'll wait a few days and check SG again. Not sure if temp increase causes CO2 to expel from the beer or its actually causing fermentation to take place.

Thanks,

Chris