first time making a barley wine!

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Stecco

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i made up a recipe that sounds solid enough in my head, but im looking for input in 3 areas...

1) when aiming for 11% abv, should i add champagne yeast for secondary or make a starter of my ale yeast and see what happens?

2) addition of dried cherries... puree or toss them in whole?

3) age for 2 months in secondary, or 2 months in bottles?

heres what i have

12 lbs LME
1 lb british amber or crystal 60L
8 oz victory
4 oz flaked wheat

8 oz post boil dried cherries

1 oz warrior @ 60
2 oz amarillo @ 30
1 oz amarillo @ 15
1 oz amarillo @ flame out

another 8 oz dried cherries in secondary. (im trying to add the flavor subtly)
 
also, i forgot to mention that im adding in either 1 lb of honey or cane sugar to the fermentables. any preference as to which?
 
1) I would just use a nice big yeast starter from your ale yeast.

2) Can't be sure, haven't used cherries, but I would imagine making a puree of cherries and vodka (to sanitize) would do the trick.

3) Either way would work, but you might as well bottle when you reach your FG..All that alcohol will slow the yeast down, so it will take a couple of months for bottles to carb anyway.
 
Be careful with either honey or cane sugar, they will dry the hell out of it. You usually want a barleywine to finish around 3.5-4 plato or so, but if you want dry, go for it. 1 lb of honey should be ok as long as you are ok with a drier beer, but 1 lb cane sugar will REALLY dry it out.
EDIT: If you were doing PM or AG, you could mash higher to counteract this a bit, but I think with you using LME and minimal specialty grains, it could be an issue. I used 1.8 lb maple syrup in a barleywine once, and it came out too dry for my liking. I will mash a bit higher if I make it again.
 
i was thinking of using honey/cane sugar to bump up the abv w/o having to add IBUs and buy more malt. im torn on using either of them.

so it doesnt matter how i age it? ive read recipes claiming to leave it in secondary for months, and other say bottle after 2 weeks and then age.
 
any recommendations to the specialty grains? i was considering upping the amber/crystal to 1.5 lbs
 
Be careful with either honey or cane sugar, they will dry the hell out of it. You usually want a barleywine to finish around 3.5-4 plato or so, but if you want dry, go for it. 1 lb of honey should be ok as long as you are ok with a drier beer, but 1 lb cane sugar will REALLY dry it out.
EDIT: If you were doing PM or AG, you could mash higher to counteract this a bit, but I think with you using LME and minimal specialty grains, it could be an issue. I used 1.8 lb maple syrup in a barleywine once, and it came out too dry for my liking. I will mash a bit higher if I make it again.

Have to disagree. Making an extract barley wine this big will probably be sickenly sweet without the addition of simple sugars. If I were to make an extract barley wine, I'd use probably 10% of the fermentables as cane sugar. Absolutely nothing wrong with it. I'd skip honey because in a beer this big and flavorful, the honey aspects would probably get lost.
 
If you just want to bump ABV, use more malt. And as far as I know, it doesn't really matter how you age it, you are aging to let the yeast clean up after itself. It shouldn't matter whether this happens in the carboy or bottles, the yeast is still at work either way. The important thing is that secondary is complete before bottling and you have hit your FG. A couple of weeks in primary and 2-4 weeks in secondary should allow for this to happen, as long as you pitch a large enough yeast slurry. As for grains, I would stay away from amber. You could up crystal a bit, or you could add chocolate (just a few oz, as it highly impacts color), a little flaked barley for body, Munich, even a little wheat or rye. It's really up to you, just as long as it primarily consists of pale malt. To make a good barleywine, you don't have to get fancy, so honestly your original recipe of pale, crystal, and victory would be good.
 
ok, so this will probably be the final recipe. thanks for all of the input. i still welcome annnnnny recommendations u guys might have for me!

12 lbs LME
1 lb cane sugar
1.5 lb crystal 60L
8 oz victory
4 oz flaked wheat

8 oz post boil dried cherries

1 oz warrior @ 60
2 oz amarillo @ 30
1 oz amarillo @ 15
1 oz amarillo @ flame out

another 8 oz dried cherries in secondary. (im trying to add the flavor subtly)

California Ale yeast
 
Just make sure you be mindful of sanitation when adding cherries...it's not a bad idea to at least let them soak in vodka before adding, as this will sanitize them with minimal contributions to flavor and ABV of the beer. Recipe looks good!
 
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