Help with an English Barleywine recipe

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onipar

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I'm looking for some help tweaking this English Barleywine recipe:

15 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 73.2 %
3 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 14.6 %
2 lbs Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 9.8 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 4 2.4 %
2.00 oz Northdown [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 47.9 IBUs
1.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 12.8 IBUs
1.0 pkg British Ale Yeast (Wyeast Labs #1098) [124.21 ml] Yeast 7

Est Original Gravity: 1.105
Est Final Gravity: 1.023
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 10.9 %
Bitterness: 60.6 IBUs
Est Color: 14.9 SRM

I'll probably mash around the 152-154 degree F range for 60 mins, with a batch sparge. I'm thinking of doing a 90 minute boil..maybe even longer?

I'm hoping for a nice, malty but balanced beer after aging.

Any suggestions regarding ingredients is welcome. I'm planning a big yeast starter, but not entirely sure how far to go with that.

Thanks!
 
Just another quick question. I noticed after posting this that the very most biscuit you should use is 10% of the grist, and I'm nearly at that threshold. Should I back off the biscuit and up one of the other ingredients? Or perhaps simplify and take one grain out?
 
Biscuit is fine if you're after a little toasty flavor; shouldn't be a problem with your other grains. You might consider dropping your mash temp to 148ish to help with the fermentability. Also, oxygen will be key so if you just shake and splash don't expect to get anywhere near final gravity. O2 injection is key, hit it right after chilling and again about 10 hours later before it kicks off. Attenuation is the toughest part of high gravity brewing...
 
most traditional English recipes use only two-row and crystal, the hops look good though.I'm not a big fan of 1098 either, if you let the temps get away from you this yeast can be really tart.I much prefer 1099.
Good luck!!!
 
Thanks for the tips. Okay, so I have no O2 injection gear. Should I not make this? I was planning on simply stirring and shaking, but if it's going to end overtly sweet from low attenuation, I'd rather not waste the time and money...

Maybe 1028 London Ale yeast would be better for this?
 
1028 seems like a better fit as its more attenuative but wont throw those tart flavors, as far as wort aeration do you have acces to a cheap aquarium pump?
 
1028 seems like a better fit as its more attenuative but wont throw those tart flavors, as far as wort aeration do you have acces to a cheap aquarium pump?

No, though I have considered buying one for this purpose. So definitely don't attempt this without some sort of aeration unit? Is there a specific type of aquarium pump I should get?
 
aeration is definitely reccomended but I'm sure the english made perfectly good barley wine without it, I would reccomend a huge starter if not a yeast cake though.If you could get your hands on a cheap pump w/ stone it would really help, especially with aeration after 12 hour of pitch.
 
+1 on aerating twice if no O2. I did it twice even with O2. Shake and splash won't cut it for a barley wine. O2 really isn't that expensive if you shop around, and it's quick and easy and will improve all your brews. Aquarium pump is a distant second best because it still takes a while and you can have foaming issues. Air is only about 8ppm oxygen, which is the minimum you want for any brew. The boiled wort has nearly 0, so it takes quite a while to reach anything close to 8ppm with air, no matter how it's delivered. Pure O2 reaches 8 to 10ppm in roughly 1 second per point of gravity. 1.060, one minute, 1.090 90 seconds etc. An aquarium pump takes much longer as you are dealing with decreasing efficiency as the wort nears the concentration of O2 that's in the air. Kinda like how your chiller gets less efficient when the wort gets close to the temperature of the source water...
 
http://www.williamsbrewing.com/WILLIAMS-OXYGEN-AERATION-SYSTEM-P699.aspx

I tried piecing one together myself and you can't do it cheaper than the link above, believe me. If you can afford it, get it. I recently brewed a 1.110 OG American Barleywine and I had a lot of blow off which concerned me but I fully believe it was the health of my yeast that attributed to an 83% attenuation in 3 days at the lower end of the strains temperature range. Proper aeration can carry yeast through some serious stuff. Unlike a poster above me alluded to brewers have been aerating beer for a long long time. British brewers in particular. British brewers are also known for "walking" their kettles in order to resuspend yeast in particularly difficult fermentations.
 
Thanks everyone! I think I may have to hold off brewing this until I get an O2 system I suppose. Thanks again for all the tips.
 
This may be a dumb question, but would I still need an o2 system to brew an imperial stout with an OG of 1.086?
 
onipar said:
This may be a dumb question, but would I still need an o2 system to brew an imperial stout with an OG of 1.086?

Need, no. Would it help, absolutely!
 
Thanks, man! Yeah, I think I'll brew a couple more low gravity brews until I have extra cash on hand for an 02 system. Thanks. :mug:

No sweat. You'll love it. It's a convenience for lower gravity brews but becomes more important for the higher gravity stuff. I've been using 1 second of O2 per gravity point with great success :)50 for a 1.050 brew, 1:20 for 1.080 etc). There's lots of posts about flow rates and absorbtion but without meters and oxygen test equipment it's all theoretical anyway. I just set it low enough so I don't get excessive foaming figuring it's more about the contact time than the flow rate anyway. My method has been yielding attenuation at the high end for all the different yeast strains I've used so I'm pretty sure I'm in the ballpark. I haven't had any of the fermentation related problems that you read about on here post after post since I started doing this. Fermenting in an extra fridge I bought on Craig's list helps out too!!
:mug:
 
I brewed a barley wine with first runnings of a parti-gyle.

TWO HOUR boil down to 1.090 & 2.5 gallons into the fermenter.

paint mixer attachment on a power drill and I whipped the living hell out of it

1 vial of WLP005 chowed it down to 1.020 after 20 days in primary and it tasted fantastic going into secondary. will bottle it at the end of this month
 
I'm sure the o2 systems and aquarium pumps are lovely. However, just to opine on the opposite side, I just did an English barleywine that i manually aerated. OG was 1.085. FG was 1.017. Attenuation was 80%. This was 1098 British ale yeast at 64 degrees for 4 weeks. Mash temp 152.
 
Thanks for the continued postings. Yeah, I was almost going to go for a barleywine anyway, and just do one with a slightly lower OG, but I decided to go easy for my first couple brews back from my hiatus. I ordered ingredients for a dry Irish stout and a Scottish ale. :mug:
 
It's interesting what happens whenever something like oxygen, yeast starters or proper temperature control comes up. There's always someone who comes on saying something like "well I didn't do it that way and my beer turned out great". I am not saying it's impossible to make a good barley wine without oxygen injection. I am saying this:
-the recommended concentration is 8 to 12 ppm dissolved oxygen.
-8 ppm is the absolute max possible with air, and is difficult to achieve.
-shake and splash results in just 2.7 ppm after 5 full minutes of hard work.
It's obviously possible for a beer to reach a reasonable terminal gravity without oxygen injection, but every yeast and even every ferment with the same yeast is unique. Proper aeration is easy with oxygen, reduces your chances of attenuation problems, and starts your ferment off in the most healthy way for the yeast. Some yeast may perform fine under less than ideal conditions, but that doesn't make what I'm saying untrue. Under aerate your barley wine enough time and you'll eventually get a bad batch. I don't like playing that kind of "Russian roulette" with my precious brews and want to set myself up for the best chance for the best beer. Ignore accepted brewing facts to your peril...
 
It's interesting what happens whenever something like oxygen, yeast starters or proper temperature control comes up. There's always someone who comes on saying something like "well I didn't do it that way and my beer turned out great". I am not saying it's impossible to make a good barley wine without oxygen injection. I am saying this:
-the recommended concentration is 8 to 12 ppm dissolved oxygen.
-8 ppm is the absolute max possible with air, and is difficult to achieve.
-shake and splash results in just 2.7 ppm after 5 full minutes of hard work.
It's obviously possible for a beer to reach a reasonable terminal gravity without oxygen injection, but every yeast and even every ferment with the same yeast is unique. Proper aeration is easy with oxygen, reduces your chances of attenuation problems, and starts your ferment off in the most healthy way for the yeast. Some yeast may perform fine under less than ideal conditions, but that doesn't make what I'm saying untrue. Under aerate your barley wine enough time and you'll eventually get a bad batch. I don't like playing that kind of "Russian roulette" with my precious brews and want to set myself up for the best chance for the best beer. Ignore accepted brewing facts to your peril...

"accepted brewing facts" allows for very wide latitude

there's at least 2 posters here, myself included, that get good CONSISTENT results in direct contradiction to your "my way is the best way and your beer will suck if you don't" attitude
 
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be a dooky about it.

your way is BEST ACCEPTED PRACTICE, absolutely.

but beer is pretty resilient and this is a very forgiving hobby. not saying my way is better, just pointing out that alternatives to BEST ACCEPTED PRACTICE will also make some dang tasty beer
 
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be a dooky about it.

your way is BEST ACCEPTED PRACTICE, absolutely.

but beer is pretty resilient and this is a very forgiving hobby. not saying my way is better, just pointing out that alternatives to BEST ACCEPTED PRACTICE will also make some dang tasty beer

Agreed. And I wasn't trying to be a terd with my "ignore accepted beer practice to your own peril" comment, I was trying to be humorously ominous! :ban:

In all seriousness though, I was trying to make the point that if something has worked doesn't mean it can't fail. Put it this way, it's a pretty accepted brewing practice to sanitize your carboy right? If I washed mine really well and rinsed it with warm water and skipped using any type of sanitizer and brewed a great beer would that mean I should get on here and post to new brewers that they don't have to sanitize? Would I have proven that wild yeast and bacterial infections don't exist?

Believe me, I'm not an anal brewer that tries to control every last detail; I think some variability is part of the charm of small batch brewing. In my experience, I noticed an improvement in my brews when I started using oxygen as recommended in the book Yeast. That's my point; not to say anyone else is wrong...
 
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