Maple Bourbon Barrel-Aged Barleywine

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

smiller

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
181
Reaction score
9
Location
Norman
I know this is a bit out of season, but I brewed it up in the winter and it is just now ready to drink. It is a fantastic beer, and I wanted to share the recipe. I currently don't have the capacity to brew completely all grain, so the following recipe is for partial mash.

Style: American Barleywine
TYPE: Partial mash
Boil Size: 5.6 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5 gal
Bottling Volume: 4.5 gal
Estimated OG: 1.110
Estimated FG: 1.012
Estimated ABV: 13% (accounting for bourbon)
Estimated Color: 20.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 90 IBUs
Est Mash Efficiency: 68 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Grain Bill
2-Row, 23%, 5.17lbs
Crystal (20L), 12%, 2.94lbs
Chocolate, 0.75%, 0.22lbs
Flaked barley, 8%, 1.80lbs

Extracts
Pale DME, 46.25%, 5.65lbs
Maple Syrup (grade A, medium amber), 10%, 1.83lbs (flameout)

Hop Schedule
Columbus, 2.0oz, 90min
Columbus, 1.0oz, 25min
Cascade, 1.0oz, flameout
Willamette, 2.0oz, dry-hop 1 week before bottling/kegging

Yeast: big slurry of WyYeast 1056

Mash 148F
Total Grain Weight: 10.13 lb

Soak 3oz medium plus toast American oak CUBES in 4oz. bourbon (I used Knob Creek) for ~3 weeks (plan to add them in secondary). I know this is debatable, but soaking them in bourbon sanitized them sufficiently.

Primary for 15 days at 65-68F on 0.5oz light American oak CHIPS. Before I added them to the wort, I put them in a small sauce pan with enough water to cover them, brought it to a boil, covered it, and steamed them for 2-3 minutes. I repeated this 3 times to sanitize. Then I added the oak chips plus the water (since it now contains a lot of oak essence) to the chilled wort in the carboy.

Rack off of oak chips into secondary onto the 3oz oak cubes plus the bourbon they were soaking in. Before adding the bourbon, though, I put it through a coffee filter to filter out most of the carbon dust. I like forward bourbon presence in my barrel-aged beers, so I ended up adding the rest of the pint that I bought. I would recommend starting with the cubes and the bourbon they were soaking in and tasting it every 2 weeks, adding a few ounces of bourbon at a time until you are happy. Bulk age for 2-3 months total in secondary at around 65-68F (I aged for 2 months).

If you are bottling, prime with brown sugar (treat it like table sugar when calculating the amount).

NOTES:
The FG was a little low for a barleywine IMO, as I was shooting for around 1.018. I would recommend mashing a little above 150F to correct this.

I added the maple syrup at flameout, but if I do it again, I will probably add it with 10 mins left in the boil to make sure it is blended a bit better.

The medium plus oak cubes imparted a touch of a smokey, savory flavor, which I personally wasn't a huge fan of. If you like that great, but if not, try using medium toast.

The 0.5oz light oak chips in primary added a very subtle oak foundation, but hardly noticeable. You have to be careful with oak chips, as too much can be overwhelming, but next time I will probably increase that oak addition to 0.75-1.0oz.
 
Just cracked a bottle of this last night. After 4.5 months in the bottle, it was nicely carbed, the hotness was calming down, the body was great, and a lot of complexity was coming through. I think I'll let them sit a couple more months before I try another. I'm very happy with how it is developing thus far.
 
Just cracked a bottle of this last night. After 4.5 months in the bottle, it was nicely carbed, the hotness was calming down, the body was great, and a lot of complexity was coming through. I think I'll let them sit a couple more months before I try another. I'm very happy with how it is developing thus far.

So how did this turn out for you after all?
 
Back
Top