First barley wine - looking for some advice

[estebanuri]

Hi folks,
I post here because last weekend I've made my first batch of Barley Wine... :O

Some details:
5 galls, all grain, OG:1093.
Since in my country is difficult to find liquid yeasts, I used S04.
It took only one week to reach to FG: 1014... perhaps the yeasts worked too fast? This gives us an ABV of almost 11%.
At sight is too cloudy, so I'd have to do an extra cleaning step. At nose and mouth even though it is very green, I was impressed by the amazing flavors it has. I've found some notes of banana, ... not sure if this goes well with the style, but seemed to decrease while days passed.

Now it remains to do maturing, priming, and bottling...

As a newbie brewer, I'd really appreciate some advice from experienced brewers for finishing this kind of beer. My main concern is the priming step. I've been always using corn pills within the bottles with excellent results. But since alcohol is too high I'm afraid this yeasts could fail. I was planning to use champagne yeasts for this step, but the guy of my local brewing store recommended me to use L'ALLEMAND CBC-1 instead.

What would you recommend?

 

[bcsund86]

I've actually had success with carbing beers this high with S04 and S05, both pitching a new dose at bottling and just throwing priming sugar in and let the yeast do their thing. It did take about 3-4 weeks to carb when i didn't re-pitch though. I would be very hesitant to use champagne yeast. There are a lot of sugars still left in the beer and champagne yeast will most likely start fermenting those (creating bottle bombs and it will dry out your beer).

I would just get a high gravity beer yeast and either micro dose each bottle or pitch it in the bottling bucket. The big thing you will want to do is create a starter so you're not throwing the yeast into such a volatile environment.

Just have patience and don't get worried if it isn't carbed in a week. it will carb eventually and the extra time will help the beer condition.

 

[Rhaop]

I think it’s been documented on here that champagne yeast will only consume the simple priming sugars added at bottling I personally haven’t ever had to add additional yeast for bottling but do a quick google search on here to be sure, i think the champagne yeast is much cheaper so that’s another added advantage

 

[bcsund86]

I both agree and disagree. Champagne yeast will ferment the same sugars as beer yeast. So if the priming sugar is the only simple sugar left then you are correct. If it's not then you risk severe over carb as champagne yeast is capable of 1.000. It really depends on the attenuation of the yeast that was previously used. I recommended not using it because it usually has an attenuation of 75-100% and capable of 18%+ abv.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

First, before you think about bottling be sure to give it enough time in the fermenter. At 11% I would give it at least 4 weeks. Longer is better. This will help to clear it, too. If it still needs clearing, you can cold crash (with finings if you want) for a few days before bottling.

Definitely, add fresh yeast at bottling. The fermentation yeast are likely pooped out. US- 05 should work fine but champagne yeast is also a good option. At your current 85% attenuation, your yeast has already had a good feast and there shouldn't be much simple sugar left, if any.