Fixing an extract barleywine with a high FG

Ok, so a while back I brewed up a big old extract English barleywine. As it turned out, I did everything right - no off flavors and I hit my FG. The catch is, my FG turns out to be really sweet (FG 1.030). What can I do to balance out my barleywine? Can I get my FG any lower? Should I try to up my IBUs by boiling some EKG to make a bittering tea and add that? Should I just suck it up and cellar it for a couple years? Help!

Style: English Barleywine
Batch size: 5.0 gal
Boil volume: 3.0 gal
OG: 1.124
FG: 1.031
Bitterness (IBU): 52.1
Color (SRM): 17.8
ABV: 12.2%

Grain/Sugars:
6.00 lb Light DME, 42.9%
6.00 lb Light DME, 42.9%, boil for 15 min
1.50 lb Brown Sugar, Dark, 10.7%, boil for 15 min
0.50 lb Crystal 40L, 3.6%

Hops:
2.00 oz Cluster (AA 6.8%, Pellet) 60 min, 30.3 IBU
0.50 oz Cluster (AA 6.8%, Pellet) 15 min, 4.0 IBU
2.00 oz Kent Golding (AA 5.8%, Pellet) 15 min, 13.5 IBU
0.50 oz Cluster (AA 6.8%, Pellet) 5 min, 1.6 IBU
1.00 oz Kent Golding (AA 5.8%, Pellet) 5 min, 2.7 IBU

Yeast/Misc:
Pitched onto Windsor yeastcake

After a month in primary, I racked to secondary and pitched an extra 11g of Windsor ale yeast. After a month in secondary, I racked to tertiary. Still sitting sweet at 1.030 at cellar temps.

 

With that high of a gravity you should be shooting for IBU's in the high 60s or low 70s. Your Windsor cake might not be able to handle any more alcohol than what you have. You're right about leaving it be. With fermentables still left in solution, the only thing that can happen is more alcohol . Keep it racked for a while if you have the time.

 

considering you started with such a high OG, i don't think your FG is really that high. youv'e got 75% apparent attenuation, so that's not bad at all considering the yeast strain (website says "moderate" attenuation). according to BJCP, for an english barleywine the OG should be 1.080-1.120, so you're at the top of the range, and the FG should be 1.018-1.030, and again your'e at the top of the range.

However, you seem to think it doens't taste good as is, so that sucks!

You can add crushed up bean-o to the fermenter (tons of threads about that on here), and I would also pitch some actively fermenting, alcohol tolerant, attenuative yeast to see if that helps. maybe a 500mL active starter of 1056, or trappist high gravity or another super high gravity yeast. You could also add the hop tea as you said, but i would think you'd want to make a weak wort to help isomerize the alpha acids and do a pretty long boil. Cellaring it won't help much , you won't see the gravity change at all. your yeast has probably topped out its attenuation anyway, and even if it hadn't, most english strains aren't alcohol tolerant much past 12% (hell, most any yeast strains have a lot of trouble in that kind of environment).

what i would probably do first, though, is get a packet of dry champagne yeast and one carbonation tablet (cooper's sells them, or you could just really carefully measure out some sugar for one bottle). anyway, thief and bottle one beer from the fermentor. Add the carbonation tablet and 2-3 grains of yeast. wait a couple weeks and see how it tastes. Sometimes big beers like that taste funny uncarbed, so i would try this to see if it tastes ok carbed before i added beano and everything. nayway. good luck!

ps i do agree with dkrules about the IBU's... if your carbonation test still tastes sweet, it's probably because the balance is off... so before adding beano, if i were you, i'd try the hop tea idea (or better yet boil some hop extract and add that!!!!)

 

It actually tastes substantially like North Coast's 2013 Old Stock Ale, which I also found too sweet. I was intentionally shooting for the top of the range but I had thought that the hops' bitterness would balance out the sweetness a little better.

 

Even with like 75-80 IBU's, you're still going to have a sweet, sweet beer. I would add some SUGAR and hop boiled tea (to prevent you from having additional unfermentables) to the carboy with the bean-o, and a dab of champagne yeast. Leave it for a month and then bottle it and cellar away. Leave it for a year or better. It will taste more like a desert wine than a beer perhaps, but definitely delicious. If you can buy a keg and keg it, purge it, and hit it with 20 lb of co2 and leave it until next winter you may be very pleasantly suprised at how wonderful it actually is (preferably have an IPA ready at the same time as you tap the keg and you will have the very best of both worlds). Happy brewing!

 

So, what does a good bittering tea look like?

4 cups water
5oz corn sugar
.5oz EKG @ 60
.5oz EKG @ 10

Something like that?

 

Just do the whole ounce for 60 minutes.