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Definitely maybe

Just curious. What was the gravity of the free wort?

I've made a number of barleywines that have aged for 4-6 months with ~1 gal of headspace in a glass carboy. I have never detected any stale or offputting flavors as a result of this storage method. Topping up with CO2 wouldn't be a bad call for some extra insurance.

If it were me I would spend 3-4 weeks in primary, cold crash, and then move to secondary. I would then add the flavoring and age until it's where you want it. I think 1 week in primary likey isn't enough time for fermentation to complete on a big beer so you'd be taking a lot of yeast with you...

Nice! Happy to hear things are moving. What was your desired FG on these?

For some extra insurance against fermentation restarting you might consider dosing it with campden tablets and cold crashing.

The "sickeningly sweet" and "FG of 1.010" seem to be at odds. Have to throw it out there: maybe you've become fixated on a relatively minor flavor component and can no longer see the forest for the trees. Have you had anybody else try the beer and also deem it to be overly sweet as a sanity...

Did you end up mashing in the low 140s? What OG did you end up with? Did you end up with the OG you had predicted?

That's crazy that the Super Yeast is being so difficult. What ABV would you expect this second batch is sitting at? If it were my beer I think I would give it a few weeks in the mid 60s unpurturbed to work through the sugar before throwing in the towel. I would bet this is a case of stressed...

If still stuck, I would try building up a new starter using the high gravity yeast and pitching that at a slighty higher temperature (mid 60s). I would bet that initial period in the 50s got things stuck for you.

Under the rational that the more food the Roeselare has available the more impact it will have on the flavor I would pitch it directly and let it handle primary duties. It will take the beer down near 1.000 with no issues. Even so, it may end up a bit bland. You can always bend in a second...

I don't think it is all that critical when you transfer. If you transferred early, after a month maybe, you'd end up taking a lot of microbes with you and it would continue to mature. Leaving it on the cake longer seems like it works fine too. Probably wouldn't make that much difference...

I would second that this lacto then sach method can be effective and gives a better baseline level of acidity than just starting with a blend of all the microbes will often get you. I've had good luck repitching the combined sach and lacto dregs over the last year and a half. I would recommend...

Very cool project! Looking forward to reading the results

Was this a 5 gal batch? 10L (2.6 gal) of starter was a bit of an overkill maybe.

10L starter - wow! How did you manage that? Is that a 2L starter fed 5 times? Thank you for the update. Very neat! I'm inspired to try a batch of this myself.

Mine (Weak Knee Homebrew in Pottstown Pa), vacume packs the grain, will sell you a sack of grain at near cost, has a barrel club, and serves their own beer for free. It is a very well run little shop.

Damn! Didn't realize the gains could be lost so quickly. I'd been thinking that longer term stability of flavors was one of the key benefits of this brewing approach. Is this a pretty consistant observation?

I've been frustrated by this too. I had a beer that got to 63% apparent attenuation after a month (which was my target) and then proceeded to get down to 94% AA given 4 more months in secondary (I was pissed). Yeast are odd creatures that don't care what we want them to do. It seems like...