Ag barley wine advice

[Pyroholic]

I'm making an AG barley wine next week. I have a rough idea of what I'm doing, but never done this style, and haven't met anyone that makes these. Barley wine's seem like it's:

1. A lot of 2row with a little other malts for some flavor
2. A longer mash
3. Minimal Sparging
4. Longer boil
5. Krunk Sauce

Just looking for thoughts and advice. Cheers!

 

[seabass07]

Double the usual amount of krunk sauce. It makes a big difference

It is mostly base malt, either 2 row or some other pale malt. There are some good ones that are just marris otter and hops. I like a bit of dried fruit flavors in mine, so I use a bit of some dark crystal malts. Don't overdo it. Remember that a small percentage of crystal malts in a 1.100+ wort will go a long way since it's mostly base malt.

The longer mash isn't really necessary unless you are mashing low, but it won't hurt.

Sparge a lot. A 120 minute boil is a good idea and you'll need a lot of wort for that. Plus anything to help with efficiency on a massive beer is a good idea. I just use a 1.5 qt/lb mash thickness and batch sparge until I have enough wort for the 120 minute boil. Plan for lower efficiency, maybe a lower 5 or 10 % lower than normal.

 

[jfrank85]

When you say not to overdo the dark malts what do you mean? Say <10% or <5% of the grain bill?

 

[seabass07]

The one I made was about 5% crystal malt. Half of that was caravienna and the other half special b. It's a little sweet. I wouldn't change it, but any more would be too much for my taste. 5% dark crystal would be way too much IMO. This also depends on what your final gravity will be and how much bitterness you want though.

 

[jfrank85]

What about in a 110 ibu american barleywine?

 

[Alellujah]

Hey, speaking of American Barleywine... I just did one last night and the recipie was something like this for a 5 gallon batch:
22 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb Crystal 80 (should've went 60L, but this is all the lhbs had)
1 lb Crystal 20
.5 lb Special B
2 oz Magnum @ 60 min
1 lb corn sugar @ 30 min
1 oz Hallertau @ 15 min (it was left over, and I wanted to up the IBUs)
1 oz Amarillo @ 10 min
2 oz Citra @ 5 min
1 oz each of Amarillo, Hallertau, and Centennial at Flame out.
Mashed in with 7 gallons at 160 to achieve 149. Held it there for about an hour but it started to drop so I put in another 2 gallons at 160. Couldn't get the temp back up past 145, so went with a 90 min mash instead of the 120 min planned.

Ran it off and fly sparged to get my volume up to 8 gallons.

120 minute boil.

After cooling I only ended up with about 4 gallons of wort. Had to leave some in the kettle because of all the hops. In hindsight, I should have started my boil with at least 10 gallons.

 

[TBrosBrewing]

Also, don't forget your yeast. Depending on your planned gravity your alc% can outpace your yeast and wind up with an under-attenuated beer. So pick something with the character you want which will survive till the end. For instance S-04 runs out of steam right around 10%.

 

[StokedBrew]

Partigyle is always an option as well with BarleyWine. Make a big baddarsh beast, then use the sparge and second runnings to make a delicious small beer. Perhaps a pale ale. I did one last year with a 40lb grain bill, did a 5gal BW with 1st runnings only (resulting in a 1.110OG) and a 10gal "small beer" with an OG of 1.045. Both were delicious and I feel like I got the most out of my grains. The BarleyWine is even better today after 18 months of aging. I think I'm going to go grab one!
Cheers!!

 

[Hophunter]

Partigyle is the way to go for BW. The wife and I used:
14 lb Maris
1 lb Crystal 80
2 lb aromatic
4 lbs pils
2 lb munich 10L

Ran off enough first runnings for a post boil 3.5 gal @ 1.102 for BW and another 5.5 gal @ 1.060 for an ESB. She boiled one while I did the other. Fermented with 2 packets of S-05 and aged the BW for 6 months, added fresh yeast, primed and waited 2 months to carb. Just cracked first bottle a few nights ago. Turned out great at 10.5%. The ESB was a little thin, would top with .5-1lb MO before runoff next time. Otherwise it was a decent tasting ESB. I also didn't feel like I wasted money on underused malt.