I thought it was done, I was wrong...

[Lechien]

A while ago I brewed a AG barleywine that had a sg of 1.103, it went down to 1.030 and stayed there for a month. I was kinda bummed as I was hoping it would go lower. I racked it to a 5 gallon carboy and put it covered in my basement months ago figuring it was going too be way to sweet.

I started thinking of racking it on a notty cake I have an ipa on right now to see if it would go lower. I went and pulled a sample just now, it's down to 1.020 is extremely clear and pretty darn tasty.

I'm thinking of bottling this instead of kegging and I was hoping for some suggestions for the type and amount of yeast and the amount of corn sugar to use. Here are my yeast choices: Nottingham, Montrachet, and Cote des Blancs. That is all I have on hand and have no lhbs within 2 hrs to drive to.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

The type of yeast you add at bottling doesn't matter. It won't be doing enough fermentation to give off any type of flavors. Just sprinkle 1/3 of a pack into your priming solution and make sure it gets mixed well. Chances are, you don't need it, but I'd throw it in just incase.

As for your corn sugar amount, it depends on how much beer you have. I typically carbonate my barleywines between 2 and 2.5 volumes...but that's just my preference.

 

[Skyforger]

Well, the type of yeast you carbonate with doesn't matter for flavor. However, when we start to get into higher alcohol ranges such as we might see in a barleywine, you need to make sure the yeast you put in is tolerant enough to keep fermenting in high-alcohol conditions. You're at about 11%ABV right now, to be sure of a good refermentation you'll have to use a fairly tolerant strain. At the same time, you want to be sure that fermentation stopped due to sugars running out, not because the yeast poisoned themselves with alcohol - otherwise it might begin to ferment more than you want in the bottles, a potential bottle-bomb situation. So I would pitch a more alcohol tolerant strain, make sure the SG doesn't go down more, then prime and bottle. Most wine strains, like the ones you said you have, don't settle out easily. If you use them you should be just fine with cell count even if you wait a week or two between pitching and bottling.

High-gravity brewing is fairly tricky for reasons like this....

 

[Lechien]

Thanks for the replies, I think I'll pitch 1/2 package of Cote des Blancs yeast into the carboy and wait a couple more weeks or so to bottle.