Barleywine Critique?

Hey guys, I've decided in light of the impending doom in 2012 (surely there will be doom-- didn't you see the documentary John Cusack made?!), I had better make a beer for the occasion.

I have the idea to make a barleywine with both English and American characteristics (hops and alcohol level mainly American). So after playing around on Hopville for a while, I came up with this starting point:

4-Gallon Recipe:

11 lbs Maris Otter
3.3 lbs Light LME
1 lb Crystal 40
.25 lbs Special B (120L)
.75lbs Demerara Sugar

1oz Chinook (13%) - 90min
1oz EKG (5%) - 45min
1oz Centennial (10%) - 20min
1oz Willamette (5.5%) - 10min
1oz EKG (5%) - 5min

1 packet US-05
1 packet Nottingham

SG: 1.121
FG: 1.030? (would be cool- ABV 12% for 2012)
SRM: 14
IBUs: near 80

What do you guys think, especially about blending Notty and US-05? I've used both before and have had great results (I know people like liquid yeast, but these have been much easier for me, and made just as good beers), but not sure how blending would work...

I've tried to avoid throwing anything in without purpose, but have never made a beer this big before, and not sure how some of the things would play out, so any input is appreciated!

I think it looks just fine, it is a great idea to throw a few packs of yeast in. The best advice I can give you is to mash low, mash long, oxygenate like crazy, use nutrient and pitch a ton of yeast. 2 packs of dry may be under pitching, I would use 2 packs of 05 and a pack of nottingham.

Your EKG's and willametes could get lost in the "C" hop mix. I would go with straigh chinook at cent:

2 oz chinook at 90
2 oz centennial at flameout/whirlpool

If it were me I would throw a half pound of C80 in there too...for complexity of flavor and color.

Thanks for the advice permo! The EKG was sort of a last minute idea (going with English/American idea), and I can see how they would get lost. But do you think that after ageing a while the Centennial would be lost too if only added at flameout?

Oh no, i dont think they would fade any faster than earlier additions. Heck.....do an ounce each of cent and chinook at 10 and whirlpool!

Hmm. Wonder where I got the idea that they would.

I really like Willamette a lot, so I think I want to keep that in there (plus it kind of is English-tasting, so it fits in my loosely conceived frame). How about this hop-schedule?

90min- 1 oz each Chinook, Centennial
10min- 1 oz Willamette, .5oz each Centennial, Chinook
Flameout- 1oz Willamette, .5oz each Centennial, Chinook

That looks pretty good. The most important thing will be to create optimum fermentation conditions.........

I like your revised hop schedule a lot more. I don't think the classic English hops mix well with the classic American ones, but I think Willamette bridges the gap.

Grain bill is good too.

Have you checked to see if two packets of yeast is enough? Definitely want to pitch enough with that target OG

Looks pretty good to me, I would suggest upping your IBU's a bit more, closer to 100. Maybe add an addition at 30 mins to get another 20-25 IBU's. You're going to be aging this for quite a while so your hops are going to fade, and your utilization is not going to be very good since it's such a high gravity boil. Also,FWIW, I pitched 1 1/2 packs of S-05 into my Barleywine and it attenuated nicely to 1.022 from 1.105, so I think you will be good with two packs. Mash low and long and you will get a nice fermentable wort. Good Luck

1.5 packets of yeast is exactly what http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html gave me. I'll actually use 1 of US-05 and then do a big starter with some washed Notty that I have. I'll be using a pretty sophisticated aeration machine (shaking the hell out of the fermenter). Do you think that will be good as long as I shake it long enough and add yeast nutrient?

Plus, the new hop schedule is about 90 IBUs, and since I'm not brewing for a few weeks, I'm sure it'll get tweaked slightly, but kept high.

I think you'll be fine with that

Ok, I'm finally getting ready for this one. Brew day this weekend. I think I'm going to go with straight US-05 unless I get a good reason to use Nottingham. Just keep the yeast simple and rather neutral. I made a starter tonight from some washed US-05 and will pitch a packet also.

I've still been playing around with the recipe, because I want to get this right. Mash low and long (149 tops), boil 90min, yeast nutrient and aeration. A few months fermenting before bottling. What else am I missing here?

4 gallons
90+ IBUs
16ish SRM
1.117 est OG (75%)

3.30 lb Pale Liquid Extract [Boil for 45 min] Extract 21.57 %
10.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 65.36 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 6.54 %
0.25 lb Special B Malt (120.0 SRM) Grain 1.63 %
0.75 lb Turbinado (10.0 SRM) Sugar 4.90 %

1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (90 min) Hops 31.0 IBU
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (90 min) Hops 40.3 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (15 min) Hops 7.2 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [4.80 %] (15 min) Hops 6.9 IBU
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (15 min) Hops 9.3 IBU

0.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -

Well, I just finished brewing this one up. But I ran into a few problems...

I misjudged how much boil off/hop absorption loss I'd have and wound up with 4.5 gallons instead of 4. Not too bad, but I also got only about 65-67% efficiency instead of the expected 75%.

So I was wondering what people thought about adding more fermentables when transferring to secondary. I had considered putting in .25lbs of sugar anyway to give fermentation a boost, so what I bumped that up to .5lbs and tossed in the .5lbs of DME I have left over?

As it stands now, the beer came in at 1.092 or so, and it'll be a nice beer either way, but hopefully someone has some advice.

Thanks in advance!

1.092 is a solid beer. If it currently has the grist percentage profile that you planned for, then I say don't change it.

Yeah, I guess you could really just make things worse by messing with it that way, huh. You are right, 1.092 is pretty solid, and I think it'll turn out really nicely, so thanks for keeping me from doing anything rash in my disappointment!