Low OG with first AG barley wine.. Sugar to UP abv?

[av8er79]

Brewed my first all grain barley wine today with:
22 lbs of grain
1 lb of dextrose
.5 lb of DME

Planned OG was 1.110
Actual OG was 1.085

I am fermenting with 2 packs of re hydrated SA-05. If it ferments down to around 1.012 it will be close to 10% abv I was hoping to get it closer to 12%. If it is fermenting away at 24-48 hours can i add 1-2 lbs of dextrose to bump up the abv? Do I simply dump into primary?

 

[inhousebrew]

Wow, you missed by a bit huh? First barleywine? What was you're expected efficiency? Just curious.

Anyways, you could add more dextrose but three pounds would put you at a total of around 13% which is a bit high and could thin it out. I'd honestly like a barleywine to have some meat on it's bones and finish no lower than 1.020 but that's just me. What did you mash at?

If you do add it you could just dump it into the fermenter. Or add it to some boiling water and cool it before pitching if you want to feel really safe. I would personally leave it and count it towards a learning experience. But if you really want you could also boil some DME and add that without the risk of drying it out more. Or honey. Just some things to think about.

 

[av8er79]

Expected efficiency was 68% i think. Mashed in 10 gallon igloo at 152 for 90 min.

I am still learning something everyday so a few questions:
When you say you would not prefer below 1.020 how do you stop fermentation when it hits 1.020?

 

[inhousebrew]

Well, you don't stop it but rather try to plan around it. It's not always easy to pinpoint final gravity but I think adding three pounds of sugar which is about 100% fermentable might get you lower and dryer than I would want to be. Maybe... I've never added that much sugar.

Is 68% what you usually get for most beers, or is that what you calculated for the barleywine. Because that is where I would start for a giant beer but I get around 80% efficiency normally but loose a lot with big beers.

 

[av8er79]

yea, i normally seem to get 68% or so. batch sparging

 

[inhousebrew]

There we go. That'll do it. You're likely going to loose a lot of efficiency with a crapton of grain. There are ways to compensate like more sparging to further rinse the grain and a longer boil to get down to the correct volume or adding DME or LME or getting a finer crush but it's a little late now.

the US-05 is a beast of a fermenter and chews through almost anything fermentable so if you want to add something I would do the boiled DME.

 

[av8er79]

thanks for your help!