Dry Hopped Barley Wine To Early?

[buzzno]

So I brewed the Avery Hog Heaven barleywine about a month ago and instead of pitching the recommended WLP001 yeast I pitched it onto a cake Wyeast 1098.

Est OG was 1.097, I hit 1.096. The est FG was supposed to be 1.024 but I only hit 1.030. It was a very active fermentation for about a week and a half but then stabilized at 1.030 at about 2 weeks. I gave to carboy a good swirl to try and liven up the yeasties to work a bit more but after a month in the primary it was still at 1.030. I'm ok with having a slightly less ABV at 8.8% so I went ahead and threw in the dry hops last week.

The hydro sample tasted pretty good before the dry hops but after I threw them in I got to wondering if I shouldn't have thrown in a vial of WLP001 to help bring it down to where it should be.

What do you guys think? Is it to late now to pitch in another vial? Will the 4oz of dry hops be for not?

This is my first barleywine BTW.

 

[TopherM]

Barleywines are typically aged for 4-12 months, and you would typically dry hop at the end of the aging period right before you bottle/keg.

A 4-5 week old barleywine isn't going to be properly aged, and that dryhop is going to fade within about 3-4 weeks.

 

[buzzno]

I can see that I probably shouldn't have dry hopped right now. What do you suggest I do? They've only been in there for about 4 day. Should I pull them and then let this baby sit for at least 4 months before dry hopping again?

What do you think about the FG?

Thanks!

 

[peterj]

I would pull them out, age it, then dry hop again a week before bottling/kegging.

In the future I would advise against pitching onto yeast cakes. That could be a cause of your underattenuation. Pitching on a yeast cake is usually an over pitch which leads to unhealthy yeast, and unhealthy yeast quit early.

Also, what was your mash temp? That could be another cause for the FG not to be as low as you want it. Depending on that, 1.030 might be as low as it will go.

You could try making a starter with the WLP001 and pitching that. It's worth a shot if you don't mind maybe wasting some money if it doesn't work.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Pitching on a cake is ok, but I would have done a little research and probably removed 55% of the cake and pitched on that.

I am of the "It is what it is" school, and feel that pitching new yeast (champagne or whatever) will likely as not result ina worse beer.

Let it age. It may actually slowly drop some more over 4 months.

 

[peterj]

Pitching on a cake is ok, but I would have done a little research and probably removed 55% of the cake and pitched on that.

I am of the "It is what it is" school, and feel that pitching new yeast (champagne or whatever) will likely as not result ina worse beer.

Let it age. It may actually slowly drop some more over 4 months.

That's a pretty good idea. You get the ease of pitching on a cake but not the overpitch. Then the yeast still go through growth and multiplication and you end up with healthy yeast. I don't know why I've never thought about doing that. Thanks!

 

[buzzno]

Thanks for the info guys. I think I'm going to pull the hops and let it age for 4-6 months, dry hop again and then bottle it.

Thanks again. I love having HBT to bounce ideas off of

 

[cheezydemon3]

Thanks for the info guys. I think I'm going to pull the hops and let it age for 4-6 months, dry hop again and then bottle it.

Thanks again. I love having HBT to bounce ideas off of

No need to pull the hops early. They are in there, what the heck. Probably no discernable diff in the end but you can say it was "Double dry hopped"

You can still use those to bitter btw. I would pull them out and put them straight into the next boil.

 

[buzzno]

Hmmmm, I've never heard of re-using dryhops for the bittering hops. It will be a week in there this weekend so I'll probably pull them on Sunday. I most likely won't be brewing again for a couple weeks do you think I can freeze them and still re-use? How would this affect the Alpha & Beta acids? I used 4.4oz of Columbus.