Hi, I'm about to attempt to make my first barleywine, I'm going to be out of the country for 6 months, and I want something nice to look forward to when I get back.
Is there a normal technique mashing/sparging a barleywine? My recipe has 17 lbs of grain for a 5 gallon batch. My strike water on that much would be 4.25 gallons! Then how do I sparge this? Seems like it would require massive volumes of water and really, really long boil times.
Also, it will be sitting in a glass secondary for 6 months. What will this do to the IBUs? I know hop flavors fade after a few months, so what kind of IBU should I shoot for in a beer that will have to wait that long to be drunk?
thanks
Is there a normal technique mashing/sparging a barleywine? My recipe has 17 lbs of grain for a 5 gallon batch. My strike water on that much would be 4.25 gallons! Then how do I sparge this? Seems like it would require massive volumes of water and really, really long boil times.
Also, it will be sitting in a glass secondary for 6 months. What will this do to the IBUs? I know hop flavors fade after a few months, so what kind of IBU should I shoot for in a beer that will have to wait that long to be drunk?
thanks