Bottled Barley Wine Problem

[ScottWa]

So I have a big Barley Wine that I brewed last September that is not carbonating. I am debating what to do with it. I followed the recipe for JW Lees Harvest Ale out of the Clone Brews book and followed each step almost exactly. The mini-mash method states to use 3.3 lb of Maris Otter 2-row, I had 5lb 12 oz so I just used it all to give a slight gravity bump. Here's the rest of the recipe:

15.5 lbs LME
2 oz EKG for 60 min
1 oz EKG for 15 min
.5 tsp Irish Moss for 15 min.
1 oz EKG for 3 min

Yeast starter - 2 pints (32oz) water and 4 oz DME with Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast for 24 hours

OG 1.126 FG 1.036

Target OG from book 1.119-1.120 Target FG 1.029-1.030

Brew date was 9-23-12
Transferred to secondary 10-7-2012
secondary for 6 weeks then bottled on 11-18-12 and re-pitched another dose of Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale Yeast 3 days before bottling.

The recipe states it will be ready to drink 9 months after carbonation and will peak 10-16 months.

I opened a bottle last night to share with my wife as it has been in a bottle for nearly 9 months - not even a fsst or hiss when the cap was removed - not good. The beer was quite flat and unimpressive. What should I do with this beer? Should I remove all caps and try adding a little bit of priming sugar to each bottle? My thought is to open each bottle and put back into a sanitized carboy and re-pitch with either a super high gravity yeast or champaign yeast and see if I can get the gravity down a bit more then re-prime and re-bottle. Sounds like a pain in the @$$ but I also don't want to dump this beer. Thoughts?

 

[Qhrumphf]

I had a similar problem with my Imperial Red. I got a very slight amount of carbonation, but not much. It was also slightly lower gravity. I ended up dosing with champagne yeast and it carbed them right up. Not the most sanitary method, but I divided up the yeast on a clean sheet of paper while still dry, uncapped and poured in an appropriate amount per bottle, recapped, and let it sit. Worked for me, but YMMV.

 

[BanginBanjo]

I had this exactly problem with a barley wine I made last year. I came to the conclusion that the yeast had died, which I would guess is the case here as well. I see that your about right on the threshold for alcohol tolerance with the 1084 yeast, so it's possible that it didn't survive. Also, if you added priming sugar initially, then you shouldn't need to add any more now.

If you can force-carb it in a keg, then I would suggest pouring each bottle carefully into the keg and doing that. Otherwise, I think the champagne yeast is your best bet. As long as your sanitation is good, your biggest enemy here would be oxidation.

 

[huhwha]

Me too. I brewed a very similar one in April. We bottled a few test bottles with some different additives, and none of them carbed. In my case, the main batch is now nicely carbed in my keg waiting for me to clean and sanitize the bottles. On the up side, my taste samples have been extraordinary! It's a bit hot right now, as you might imagine, but should mellow nicely with age. Somewhere north of 12%. Yum.