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When you mash, the enzymes get dissolved into the wort pretty readily. When you are step mashing by way of decoction, your decoction will be thick. Most of the enzymes are left behind in the wort in your mash tun, so this is not a problem.

Everyone here has given good advice, but for the sake of thoroughness, I'll also share what I have done to increase my efficiency: 1. Make sure your crush is relatively fine without destroying the grain husks. 2. Use pH 5.2 buffer to treat your water, unless it is pretty soft and you are...

1) Is a 45 to 60 minute lauter long enough for a typical 5-gallon batch, or should this be taking longer? That's exactly what I shoot for. 2) Should I be aiming for a specific lauter flow rate (given a 5-gallon batch scale)? This kind of ties in with your first question. Whatever flow rate...

I never bother to stir the mash except when I'm adding liquid. I can give you the things I've done to help get my efficiency numbers up: Dough in fairly slowly, but not TOO slowly. I use a hose to let water stream into the mash tun from the HLT, and i add grains while I'm adding the water...

Yes, I'd definitely swap some of your pils malt with some sugar. You don't have to use so-called "candi sugar" and you don't even have to attempt to invert sucrose on your stove. Since this is a lighter beer, you can simply use dextrose (corn sugar). It's very pure and it won't lend any...

Specifically, what kind of flavors does the maple syrup impart to the finished beer?

Sure you can. I'm pretty sure that it's the same stuff. You can email white labs to verify that, of course. By the way, just order a bunch of the dry packets off of some homebrew website and keep it in your fridge. That stuff is so awesomely vigorous.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, that was our first attempt, and it's definitely a tasty homebrew, but it really doesn't capture what makes a real English barleywine so great. It lacks the intense malty aroma and intense malty flavor of the style. It also needs more mouthfeel. I am currently...

Have any of you made some super tasty barleywines?

This coming week, I'm about to try filtering a beer for the first time. We used pellet hops, and I want to be sure to clear out most of the crud before dry hopping. I plan on siphoning the beer from its fermentor into a corny keg. I assume I need a ball lock with a barb, and a hose to connect...

If you were going to brew an English Barleywine, what grains would you use? Let's say you were trying to make something akin to J W Lee's harvest ale. What would you do to give it over-the-top maltiness and that great raisin/toffee/caramel flavor?

Hey all, It has been a while since I last posted, but I have not given up on brewing at all. So far, my best beer has been a slight approximation of an English barleywine. My friend and I had originally intended to brew an ESB, but I bought a lot of extra Maris Otter pale malt, and we decided...

Have you checked your temperatures after the mash has stabilized? For example, it might be a good idea to check your temperature about twenty minutes after dough-in. 155F and WLP001 would not yield a final gravity of 1.007. It sounds like your mash temperature might be dropping lower than you...

I don't think you'll get the correct character with victory malt. It's quite different than amber malt. And, amber malt is definitely a specific kind of malt. Whoever recommended Thomas Fawcett amber malt was definitely on the right track!

Amber has a much stronger flavor than biscuit. Biscuit really won't impart the flavor that amber malt provides. In my experience, amber malt produces a roasty flavor. Ounce for ounce or pound for pound, it's not going to be quite as intense as black patent, but a little goes a long way...

You could just do the decoction at the end to raise the mash up to mash-out and sparge temperatures. This will still give you that nice "decoction" flavor if you don't want to step mash.

You can mash the biscuit. If he wants to, he can substitute some of the dry malt extract for maris otter pale and mash that, too.

A friend and I brewed an all-grain british barleywine that we love. You can approximate our five gallon batch like this: 8 lbs light dry malt extract 3 lbs biscuit malt 2 lb of 40-60L crystal malt 1 oz Northern Brewer at 60 minutes 1 oz Northern Brewer at 45 minutes 1 oz Kent Goldings at 30...

Is it possible that your temperature (for whatever reason) dipped below 60? That yeast's lowest recommended temperature is 60 degrees. If your temperature drops, the yeast become less active.

Remember that a mashout provides more than just the act of ceasing enzyme activity. It helps dissolve the sugars that you spend so long producing by conversion. Even if you've mashed thin, you can pull off an appropriate amount of wort, boil it, and return it to the mash vessel for ten or...