edb23
Well-Known Member
I'm planning on making a barley wine soon that will be ready in time for a friend of mine's 21st birthday (about a week from now next year). A lot of the procedures I've read on how to brew barley wine say to let it sit in primary for six weeks or so, transfer to secondary and pitch a second type of yeast (most say champagne yeast, anybody know of anything different/ better?), let it sit another six to eight weeks and then bottle and age for a long time. My question is, do I need to rack it over to a secondary? can I just pitch the second amount of yeast straight into the primary, or will the three and a half months on top of the yeast cake give me some off flavors? do I even have to worry about off flavors since it will be in bottles for 8+ months?