Barley Wine Recipe Questions

Ok, I am about to attempt my first barley wine, but the recipe is a bit brief. Can some of you more experienced folks flesh it out for me? Here is its:

Barley Wine

Ingredients:
12 pounds, dry pale malt extract
1/2 pound, honey
1 pound, dry light malt extract
1-1/2 pounds, corn sugar
2 ounces, Chinook boiling hops (13.2 alpha)
2 ounces, Cascade boiling hops (5.5 alpha)
2 tsp., Irish moss
2 ounces, Fuggles hops (finish)
2 tsp., Sparkeloid
champagne yeast
Procedure:
Boil malt, boiling hops, and corn sugar in 1-1/2 gallons water for about 1 hour. In last 30 minutes add Irish moss, Fuggles, and sparkeloid. Add to 3-1/2 gallons cold water in fermenter. Pitch yeast and ferment about 7 months. Bottle and age.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 7 months

Some things seem odd to me.

(1) Seven months in a primary fermenter seems just plane wrong

(2) As you add the corn sugar in the initial boil this would seem to be a non-carbonated brew right? Is Barley Wine usually not carbonated?

(3) I have never used Sparkeloid. It goes in at the beginning like that?

(4) Just in general, any more tips or comments that don't directly address my question would be much appreciated.

1- Yeah, 7 months is a long time to be sitting on the protein etc from the break and yeast. You would probably want to move it after a month or so.
2- No. You do carbonate your Barley Wine. It is lower carbonation, but you do add sugar when you bottle (as well as to the boil).
3- I dunno. I think its a fining agent and would be added after fermentation is complete and you are drawing close to bottling time. You can buy some and follow the directions, or skip it.
4- Don't use champagne yeast. You would be better off with a English or American Beer yeast. It doesn't need to be liquid but be sure that you are putting enough yeast in to do the job. Also with out any steeping grains (crystal especially) your sugars are all LME, Honey and Corn. You are going to have a very light, most likely, disappointing and wimpy barley wine.

But really you should listen to this and do what he says:
The Jamil Show- English Barley Wine
The Jamil Show- American Barley Wine

Thanks for the info. Anyone else with more to say?

You don't have to, but I'd add some specialty grains - like any recommended in those shows - at least steep some in a gain bag.

Yea, first thing I noticed was no specialty grains. This will be more of an IIPA without.

Here is where you can find the links to the Jamil Show mentioned above by Catfish:

English Barleywine - http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/membersarchive/Jamil07-16-07.mp3

American Barleywine - http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/membersarchive/Jamil01-15-07.mp3

no need to use the champagne yeast. Most good ale yeasts will ferment this just fine and will offer a more true-to-style flavor profile

Boiling just 1.5 gallons will result in poor isomerization of the hops. Your IBUs will be less than whats calculated with Beer Smith or a similar program. And with boil-off, you will have less than 5 gallons at the end. If you can boil more than 1.5 gallons to start, that would be much better. If you can't, you will want more bittering hops to compensate. At the very least, I would add the sugar and honey towards the end of the boil to offset this a bit. And you might need to add more water at the end to finish with 5 gallons of wort. As for the specialty grains, it depends what you want. Extract tends to have lower attentuation than all-grain, so you'll likely still have a decent final gravity with your recipe even without adding crystal malts. Personally, I would rather have it finish a bit dry than too malty/sweet, so I wouldn't add any on your first attempt. Maybe it will be closer to a IIPA, but that will still be a good beer. And if it finishes too dry, you could always blend it with a maltier beer. Of course, this is just my opinion and I haven't used extract in a while so take my advice with a grain of salt. Definitely use a ale yeast and if you need to finish up with a wine yeast, you could use that for the final few gravity points. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.