Finishing a 1.090 barleywine

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Steve973

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About a week and 3 days ago, we brewed an english barleywine that started at 1.090. We used White Labs London Dry ale yeast, and now it's down to 1.030. We have 7 more points until 75% attenuation is reached, but the bubbling is down to about 1 per 15-20 seconds through the airlock. I was wondering if it'd be okay to try to finish the beer off by racking it to secondary and introducing some of the WL Super High Gravity ale yeast. Or would that alter the character of the beer too much even though most of the fermentation happened with the english ale yeast? Comments welcome and appreciated. And thanks in advance!
 
since you are still getting 3-4 bubbles /minute i would wait until it stops and check gravity then.
you can add additional yeast at that point if required
 
Give it another week or two. Using a finishing yeast won't change it at this point (other than drying it out), but the ale yeast isn't done. Since you are looking an 5-6 months to condition, why rush it?
 
Steve973 said:
About a week and 3 days ago, we brewed an english barleywine that started at 1.090. We used White Labs London Dry ale yeast, and now it's down to 1.030. We have 7 more points until 75% attenuation is reached, but the bubbling is down to about 1 per 15-20 seconds through the airlock. I was wondering if it'd be okay to try to finish the beer off by racking it to secondary and introducing some of the WL Super High Gravity ale yeast. Or would that alter the character of the beer too much even though most of the fermentation happened with the english ale yeast? Comments welcome and appreciated. And thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

Yeah...personally, I wouldn't want a barleywine to be too far below 1.030. The unfermented sugars, along with the (hopefully) big hop bill and the alcohol, help it age like a b-wine is supposed to. 1.030 from 1.090 is 64% att., and 8% abv. Not bad. Let it be, and don't dry it out with high-grav yeast.
 
Evan! said:
Yeah...personally, I wouldn't want a barleywine to be too far below 1.030. The unfermented sugars, along with the (hopefully) big hop bill and the alcohol, help it age like a b-wine is supposed to. 1.030 from 1.090 is 64% att., and 8% abv. Not bad. Let it be, and don't dry it out with high-grav yeast.
Click to expand...
I can appreciate what you're saying, but bottling a beer that hasn't finished fermenting could be pretty bad, since nobody likes beer grenades! :)
 
I don't think Evan is saying to bottle before it is done - just to let the existing yeast work as long as they can, but not to add an uber-yeast to "finish off" the job. Barleywines should have a good amount of sweetness, otherwise you're more in I-IPA territory.
 
You have only had the thing in the fermenter for 10 days. It needs another 2 weeks or so before its ready to go to secondary. Its way too early to be worrying about the gravity. You won't (or at least shouldn't) be drinking this until about Thanksgiving or Christmas, so there is no need to rush. Let the yeast you have in there now do its job. It will drop into the 20's on its own in its own time.

Wayne
Bugeater Brewing Company
 

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