Yeast cake for barley wine

I want to make a big barley wine, but don't have time to make a starter. But i do have an oatmeal stout that I used wyeast London 1028 that can be transferred to secondary. Can I pitch my barley on top of the yeast cake? The og of the stout was 1066. Looking to make og of barley wine around 1100.

Yes you can, but you may not want to pitch on top of the entire cake. I would use this http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

from a newb - wouldn't a beer yeast impart "beer flavors" to the barley wine?

Hell yes on the yeast cake. Just don't aerate or you'll have the blowoff of the century.

I've used a yeast cake myself for a barleywine. I've also added 02 and watched a third of the barleywine gusher out of the fermenter on the same day.

I ptiched a 2.5 gallon batch of 1.1 BW on the cake of 1056 from a 5 gallon batch of ESB. Active fermentation in less than an hour. FG 1.012. I do not know yet if the beer is going to be just drinkable or good. I sampled a 2 month old bottle and there are signs of a good beer under the harshness which I presume is the 11.5% I calculated. TIme will tell.
Next week I will be pitching a 1.08ish IIPA on the cake of 1098 from a Cream Ale

Whenever I make a big beer (+1090ish) I always make a 5 gallon starter about 2 weeks before I brew the big one. There's no other way to get that much yeast, but I will caution you. I bet this one will turn out fine after using the stout yeast, but I will pick something a little more neutral or something that is similar to a BW. IPAs, Pales, lighter browns, something that, hopefully, wont impart too many flavors to the yeast to get into your BW.

In the case of a barleywine, I honestly don't think there's such a thing as too much yeast. However, the yeast from the previous batch is likely pretty worn out so make sure you do aerate the the BW wort pretty well.

To answer your question, of course you could (should) use the yeast cake.

ultravista said:

from a newb - wouldn't a beer yeast impart "beer flavors" to the barley wine?

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A Barley Wine is a beer.

Next week I will be pitching a 1.08ish IIPA on the cake of 1098 from a Cream Ale

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You never want to pitch a beer of lower gravity onto yeast from a higher gravity beer. Also, reusing yeast from a beer above 1.060 is not recommended. They are stressed and will do funny things.

bknifefight said:

You never want to pitch a beer of lower gravity onto yeast from a higher gravity beer. Also, reusing yeast from a beer above 1.060 is not recommended. They are stressed and will do funny things.

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I am unclear what you are saying here. I will be pitching a 1.08ish beer on the cake of a low character 1.04ish beer. 1098 is the yeast, not gravity. Unless you were using my statement to illustrate, then never mind...

northernlad said:

I am unclear what you are saying here. I will be pitching a 1.08ish beer on the cake of a low character 1.04ish beer. 1098 is the yeast, not gravity. Unless you were using my statement to illustrate, then never mind...

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Haha I thought you were saying the gravity of your beer was 1.098, not the yeast. My bad!