Should I aerate a stuck fermentation before re-pitching more yeast?

I'm pretty sure the answer to my question is "no," something to do with oxidizing the beer or something... Anyway, I have a Barleywine Ale that is stuck. Its O.G. was 1.085. After dumping tons and tons of yeast into it I've managed to get the specific gravity down to 1.026. Thats still too high for my taste. I plan on re-pitching a yeast starter in hopes to get this beer down to a drinkable level of sweetness. My question for the forum is:

Should I aerate this beer before re-pitching more yeast?

I would be aerating with a diffuser stone. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that you are never supposed to aerate after you've pitched your first round of yeast. I'm desperate for this batch (the most expensive one I've attempted) to become drinkable.

I don't know but I want to find out too. What are you shooting for?

No....

You have more beer in there than not beer, and FERMENTED beer + Oxygen = Wet Cardboard.

Long story short, I've moved this beer around from carboy to keg to carboy to carboy a couple of times, thinking it was ready. The last taste test I did was WAY to sweet to be drinkable. I would be ecstatic if I could lower the gravity reading down to say 1.010.

You have probably run out of fermentable sugars. You could boil some corn sugar and see if the existing yeast could consume that. If you get a barleywine to 1.010, it would be too dry and lack the body needed to support that high of ABV.

What was the recipe and yeast used?

How old is this brew?

Honestly i think your fermentation is finished. With a OG of 1085 and a FG of 1026 there is probably no fermentable sugars left. Barley wines often are sweet and with your alcohol at 7.75% it will need to age for a few months anyway. Remember that alcohol is sweet too and some of that sweetness will drop down with time.

Plug your recipe into BeerSmith or something similar and it will tell you expected FG but I suspect you have hit it.

What was your recipe? At 75% AA, you're most likely done, but the recipe itself may shed more light on this. You'll also find it's much less sweet when carbonated and chilled a bit. Quit racking it, too. It's probably fairly well oxidized as is from all those unnecessary transfers.

Goodness, I can't imagine a BW getting down to 1.010. +1 on all the "fermentation's done" comments. Bottle/keg it and set it aside for a few months and it'll mellow out a bit.

And no, don't aerate again .

Saint_Doyle said:

I'm desperate for this batch (the most expensive one I've attempted) to become drinkable.

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You need to get undesperate. It will be months before this beer is good. My barleywine was bigger, and it took 8-9 months before it started coming into it's own. At almost 3 years old, it's dandy.

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wildwest450 said:

You need to get undesperate. It will be months before this beer is good. My barleywine was bigger, and it took 8-9 months before it started coming into it's own. At almost 3 years old, it's dandy.

_

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+1 I made a Barleywine that I'm not going to touch for another 4 years on my 50th birthday.

I've been thinking about this brew a bit more. I have 2 more thoughts:

1. If your 1.026 FG barleywine is too sweet, I think you probably grossly underhopped it. Brew another barleywine with a stupid amount of hops and combine at bottling time.

2. If you did use sufficient bittering hops (and by this I mean at least .75 IBU:GU), I don't think you actually like barleywines. Stick to IIPAs and clones of Scaldis Ambree instead. It's the closest thing to a barleywine I know of that has a light to medium body and finishes dry.

GuldTuborg said:

I've been thinking about this brew a bit more. I have 2 more thoughts:

1. If your 1.026 FG barleywine is too sweet, I think you probably grossly underhopped it. Brew another barleywine with a stupid amount of hops and combine at bottling time.

2. If you did use sufficient bittering hops (and by this I mean at least .75 IBU:GU), I don't think you actually like barleywines. Stick to IIPAs and clones of Scaldis Ambree instead. It's the closest thing to a barleywine I know of that has a light to medium body and finishes dry.

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+1 barley wines are generally medium -> sweet. From my experience hopping isn't a linear thing, the higher the gravity of the boil the lower your alpha acid conversion rate will be.

My rule of thumb for hopping is that too much is better than not enough because a) Hops make beer last longer b) Hop bitterness and flavour drop over time c) i love Hoppy beers

GuldTuborg said:

I don't think you actually like barleywines.

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I'm starting to agree with you. I wanted to make a high gravity beer, and around that time I tried a Sam Adams seasonal Barleywine. It wasn't bad so I gave it a shot. I'm not a big hop head, so I may have skimped on the hops. I don't plan to actually enjoy this beer at this point, but I really don't want to pour it down the drain. I'm far too stingy.

kinghellsfire_NZ said:

From my experience hopping isn't a linear thing, the higher the gravity of the boil the lower your alpha acid conversion rate will be.

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Ok, so maybe hops aren't always evil. Can I dry hop my Barleywine at this point to offset some of the sweetness?

To respond to a few other questions: this beer is 7 months old and has been stuck for the past 5. many of you have suggested I just let it sit for a while longer. Should I have it sitting at room temperature or chilled in my kegerator? The majority of the yeast in there is champaign yeast. I think it does best at room temperature, but I don't want to chance this beer spoiling from sitting in a closet for another 6 months...

Here is my recipe I used:
6.5# Golden Light Malt Extract
6.5# Sparkling Amber Malt Extract

2 oz. Galena Hops (boil)
1 oz. Cascade Hops (finish)
1 oz. Willamette Hops (finish)
2 oz. UK Fuggles Hops (finish)

Wyeast 1338 Euro Ale Yeast (primary)
Red Star Champagne Yeast (secondary)

Thanks for all the responses so far.

I think a lot of the "more time" suggestions are simply for conditioning; fermentation's done on that guy (and 1.026 is actually pretty good/standard for a BW), so you won't be seeing much in the way of gravity dropping no matter how much yeast you pour in. I'd recommend kegging/bottling now and aging it for a few months.

Regarding dryhopping, you could give it a shot and see if the flavor comes down to where you want it, but I think it'll take a lot of hops and I'm rather skeptical that you'll end up happy with it. There's nothing wrong with dryhopping a BW, but it sounds like you need some bitterness, which can be hard to get with DH. Perhaps a strong "hop tea" would work better for you, as it'd allow you to extract some bitterness from the hops as well.

To the original question, no do not aerate the wort. You can make a starter that is well aerated to get good healthy yeast and when that is fermented out crash, decant, warm up and pitch...but, oxygen and alcohol do not play well together.

Saint - dry hopping isn't going to really get you where you want, you need bitterness to counteract the sweetness.

I see. What I'd do at this point, if I were you, is bottle it and set it aside for a while. Give them away as gifts. While you may not like barleywines much, some others definitely do. If the only problem with this beer is that it's too sweet for your tastes, I bet some of your friends/family would love a few bottles. Plus, you'll save on gift buying expenses for a while.

Alternately, you can just bottle or keg and send to me for proper disposal.

Why is oxygen no good for alcohol? Don't you aerate continually when making wine? It's not the alcohol. It's gotta be something else.

Saint_Doyle said:

Here is my recipe I used:
6.5# Golden Light Malt Extract
6.5# Sparkling Amber Malt Extract

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There's one of your main problems. If you want to brew a high gravity beer that finishes low, you need a highly fermentable wort. Extract is typically far on the less fermentable side of things, so without some simple sugars to dry it out the 75% AA you got is often the limit. You also underhopped IMO, and I'm not just saying that because I love hops. More bittering hops would have gone a long way to help cut the sweetness.

itsme6582 said:

Why is oxygen no good for alcohol? Don't you aerate continually when making wine? It's not the alcohol. It's gotta be something else.

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Looks like there is a situation where oxygen is ok; however, for beer you do not want to do this:

"Macroaeration refers to the practice of aerating, or oxygenating, fermenting wine by vigorous racking to produce a softer, less astringent wine that exhibits more fruit character and improved color stability.

...

Macroaeration is only used in red winemaking as it involves vigorous splashing of wine during pump-over or racking operations. Macroaeration has a softening effect on the astringent tannins and enables the winemaker to produce a softer wine.

Wine aerated in this way is approachable much earlier (younger) and has well stabilized color. The high phenolic content and relatively low pH protect the wine from negative oxidation effects. In contrast, white wines have a very low tannin content and typically a higher pH, which makes them more prone to the negative effects of oxidation. Macroaeration therefore is never practiced and not recommended for white winemaking."

http://www.winemakermag.com/stories/article/indices/7-aging/541-oxidation-as-partner-techniques

you could always brew a 1gal batch of very bitter beer and combine the two but it would have to be a lower gravity than a BW to make it cost/hop effective. However bitterness and sweetness aren't taste opposites so you may just get a sweet and bitter beer (it is possible).

You could also use the hop bitterness extract that moorbeer sells. It's pricey at $26 per bottle but its pretty easy to use and you cqn give the beer as many additional IBU as needed

If you want a big and dry beer, a Belgian triple or quad might be more to your tastes.

Like others had said, you can brew another batch and then blend. A 2.5 gallon batch of a highly hopped, dry-ish double IPA might be pretty good blended with your current batch. The problem with this method, is that you're sinking more $ and effort into something that might not ending up any better.

I personally would probably add some bourbon, as that should really help balance the sweetness. I too am not a huge fan of BW, but I love bourbon BW's. If you want something aggressively, I'd add a whole 375ml bottle... if you want a kiss of bourbon, maybe 1/3-1/2 of that. Even Williams works really well with beer, and should only set you back $8 (at most) for a small bottle.

Red Wine is another addition that goes well in barleywines.

Keep in mind that if you go the bourbon (or wine) route that it will take at least 4-6 months for the flavors to meld, and it's best to reserve judgment until then.

Regardless of what you chose to do, consider bottling this batch. A mediocre barleywiine will become a pretty damn good one in 3-5 years.

rorygilmore said:

Like others had said, you can brew another batch and then blend. A 2.5 gallon batch of a highly hopped, dry-ish double IPA might be pretty good blended with your current batch. The problem with this method, is that you're sinking more $ and effort into something that might not ending up any better.

I personally would probably add some bourbon, as that should really help balance the sweetness. I too am not a huge fan of BW, but I love bourbon BW's. If you want something aggressively, I'd add a whole 375ml bottle... if you want a kiss of bourbon, maybe 1/3-1/2 of that. Even Williams works really well with beer, and should only set you back $8 (at most) for a small bottle.

Red Wine is another addition that goes well in barleywines.

Keep in mind that if you go the bourbon (or wine) route that it will take at least 4-6 months for the flavors to meld, and it's best to reserve judgment until then.

Regardless of what you chose to do, consider bottling this batch. A mediocre barleywiine will become a pretty damn good one in 3-5 years.

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Or you could add bourbon and wine and get the worst hang over ever

rorygilmore said:

Regardless of what you chose to do, consider bottling this batch. A mediocre barleywiine will become a pretty damn good one in 3-5 years.

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Sounds like I'm gonna cap this batch and forget about it for a while. Guess I'm gonna HAVE to drink a case or two of commercial beer this weekend so I can acquire enough bottles.

Next time I'll soak this batch with more hops. No, next time I'll stick to the Oktoberfests.

Saint_Doyle said:

Guess I'm gonna HAVE to drink a case or two of commercial beer this weekend so I can acquire enough bottles.

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That's what I call a wonderful problem.

Saint_Doyle said:

Sounds like I'm gonna cap this batch and forget about it for a while.

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Oh boy, that was a stupid idea. If anyone is interested, this is how that little experiment worked out:
Exploding Barleywine Bottles: My Latest Failure