Barley Wine Bottle Explosion

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Korben

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A friend of mine brewed up a barley wine... i was excited about it he said it was about 9% ABV. I was looking forward to trying it.. He said he kept it in the primary for two weeks, then to secondary for two more weeks, then to bottle conditioning for a planned 3 weeks till the first tasting day. However, about 2 days after bottling he came home from class and about half of his bottles had exploded. I said I had no idea why that would happen, unless he added too much priming sugar or did not mix his priming sugar well enough... Is this a common occurrence with barley wines? I was wanting to do one sometime in the the relatively distant future (about 6-8 months from now) and bottle condition it. Should he have left it on the cake longer or in secondary? its too bad i hope the remain bottles turn out well.
 
i am not sure completely... I think he said his OG was 1.095 so.. let me do a little math, he said it was around 9% ABV so I guess his FG would have been around 1.025-1.027.. Sorry can't be completely sure.
 
2 weeks on the cake for a Barleywine seems a little short. If he took a few FG readings in consecutive days to make sure the fermentation was over, maybe there was too much sugar. Or much less likely, an infection that got in during bottling.
 
I agree ugly.. that is what I was kinda thinking about doing with my future barley wine.. month in primary then rack to secondary and hopefully forget about it for about 3-4 months then bottle condition for a month... does that sound right?
 
It sounds like he was a little to early on the bottling. I’m going to guess that the rest of those bottles are going to go soon. He probably should have let it go for a few more weeks maybe even months. A big beer like that really would do well with lots of time.
 
a month on the yeast will not hurt it at all, and you can go longer. then a long bulk aging. check out the 9/9/09 barley wine swap thread in the recipes section. lotsa guys are aging the big beer upwards of six months before they bottle, and then another six in the bottle before shipping them out.

it really does sound like he bottled whilst it was still fermenting and pop!
 
Sigh.

My 9-9-9 spent 6 weeks in primary and has been in secondary since, well, that would be around 10-20. ish. I'm not in a hurry to go into the keg. Eventually I'll want the carboy for something else so I'll rack it. It was at 1.023 after three weeks in primary. It will be interesting to see what it reads now.
 
with barley whine you need to let it ferment out completely... its hard but you need to... and 9% in that short of time... im thinking his hydrometer might be off or he was looking at a higher abv then that... his best bet is to stick the remianing bottles in the fridge and let them carb slowly... they will carb, it will take time about 2 extra weeks... but he needs to slow it down or crack them and let them go flat then reseal with new sugar in two weeks...

Cheers
 
Thanks for the advice jack i will.. let him know. Jeez I wish I wasn't just getting into brewing or I would have loved to do the 9/9/09 Barley Wine exchange sounds great!
 
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