Brewing a Barley Wine

[stijn26]

Hi,


I Want to brew a Barley Wine.

Beer specifications:
Desired volume ambient wort (colled down wort): 23L
OG: 1.080
FG: 1.019
Ibu: 85

Mash temp 66 degrees celsius, mash for 90 mins

Mash grist:
Pale 95%
Special B 5%

Boil for 120 mins

Hops:
Bitter hops (whatever I have in my fridge): boil for 120 mins to reach desired IBU's
Flavor/aroma hops: 20 gr boil for 30 min
Flavor/aroma hops: 20 gr boil for 20 min
Flavor/aroma hops: 20 gr boil for 10 min
Flavor/aroma hops: 20 gr boil for 5 min
Flavor/aroma hops: 20 gr whirlpool

After that a hop stand is executed for 30 mins

After cooling down, BRY-97 will be pitched, do I need nutrients or just pitch some more yeast?

After primary fermentation is done, the batch will be split up in 2.

#1: natural cherry juice extract (think like eisbocked cherry juice) will be added to add 20 sg points.
#2: maple syrup will be added to add 20 sg points.

After the fermentation of both is ready, dryhop will commence at a ratio of 5 gr / liter.

For the flavor / aroma / dry hops. I want to use some of the hops I have in my fridge:
- El Dorado
- Citra
- Ekuanot
- Hallertau Blanc
- Simcoe
- Centennial


What do you guys think?

 

[kevin58]

It's your beer so go ahead and follow your inspiration. For me that's too many hops and too many additions for flavor and aroma. A bittering addition at 60 or first wort (or both) and one... maybe two late additions in the last 15 minutes to flame out. For some of my English style barleywine's I don't even use a late hop addition at all.

 

[hottpeper13]

When I'm brewing a big beer I make a small one first as a kind of starter for the yeast. You could make a mild or the like at about 1.040 and in 2 weeks repitch 1/2 the slurry into that big beer. I like your BU:GU ratio since this one will age a bit and mellow. I get some harshness with certain hops when boiled more then 90 min.

 

[stijn26]

@kevin I'm aiming for an American Barley Wine here. But not 100% true to the style (as can been seen with the special b).

@hottpeper13 I have more bittering hops than I need, so its no problem to upping the dose and boil them for a standard 60 min.

 

[mashpaddled]

Not sure I get a good understanding of why the special b is there especially with the hops you have. Not really one to think tropical fruit and raisins are much of a mix myself. I think you could develop good malt character with a good base malt (maris otter or one of the craft maltsters' pale malt).

Similarly I don't understand the desire to put that much hop character forward with the two adjuncts. Maybe a small amount of El Dorado or maybe Simcoe but again not seeing tropical fruit plus maple or cherry as creating a cohesive beer.

I might not understand your vision for these beers.

 

[stijn26]

You could be right there for the hops + maple / cherry. How much hops would you recommend?
For the hops + special B, I did this in the past in a sort of NEIPA (but then with special b added) and it was absolutely delicious.

 

[kevin58]

 

[archthered]

Doesn't look bad to me, though it will be non standard (which is half the point of homebrewing to me). I do think you are putting too much time and effort into the hops with soo many additions. A beer like this could sit for months and I think most of the flavor and aroma you'd get from the late additions will have faded. I'd just beef up the first addition to get your bitterness and then dry hop just before bottling. But don't over do the dry hops or you'll never taste your juice and syrup. I'd be curious to know what you end up doing and how it turns out!

 

[harrydrez]

Just use centennial and maybe simcoe and save the rest for a pale ale or small IPA.

 

[couchsending]

I would not use BRY-97 yeast for this beer personally.. it doesn’t handle the drying process well and is prone to really long lag times and sulphur. You definitely will need a lot of yeast. If you have to use dry yeast I’d go with US05 personally. But the recommendation of brewing a little beer and using that yeast to ferment the Barley Wine might be a better idea. You have good temp control right? Pitching that much sugar into a yeast cake could have some interesting results.

 

[Althozgraz]

All of the best barley wines I have ever made had only bittering additions and no added sugar. These days I just go with magnum for bittering up to 100 ibu and keep things in the 9-12% abv range. As far as grains I just stick to 2row, munich, vienne, and caramel malts.