Beginners BarleyWine

[mrphillips]

I'm playing with the idea of a 3-gallon Barleywine batch, and had a few questions.

What would be a good hop schedule/quantity? I was planning on using 6 lbs. of pale malt extract along with a few other grains (most of which won't add many fermentable sugars), and I want just enough hops to balance the malt, but not much more.

I'm still playing with the grain bill, so I'm not worried about that right now. What I'm thinking of doing is adding oak chips, and I wondered what amount might be right if I plan to age the brew for 6 months.

I know there's a lot of variables here...and I'm being vague, but if you've had any positive experiences with barleywines, I'd be happy to hear them!

 

[mrphillips]

Here's my work-in-progress recipe. I decided to go for the 5 gallon batch instead of the 3. Any pointers would be welcomed.


Barleywine – 5 gallons

MALTS/GRAINS

12 lbs. Extra Pale Malt Extract
1 lb. Flaked Oat
1 lb. Victory Malt
1 lb. Lactose
½ lb. Chocolate Malt
½ lb. Cara-pills
½ lbs. Crystal 80L

HOPS
2 oz. Chinook (60 min.)
1 oz. Golding (40 min.)
1 oz. Fuggles (40 min.)
1 oz. Golding (20 min.)
1 oz. Fuggles (20 min.)

YEAST
S-05 (2 packets)

ADJUNCTS
4 oz. dark-toasted oak chips

 

[BradleyBrew]

I wouldnt add to many adjuncts that increase the mouthfeel or the FG of the beer. Barleywines have massive malt flavor from well... the massive malt it takes to reach the OG. I would skip the lactose and probably even the carapils. Your yeast will have enough to chew through and you dont want an overly sweet barleywine. Also, I would probably skip the chocolate malt.. maybe add some crystal 120 and do a minimum of a 90min boil for additional color / caramel flavors. I boil barleywines for a minimum of 2 hours. Drop the Golding fuggles to 30 mins and your 20 min additions to 15. Also if you want to age on oak for 6 months do not use chips use cubes. Just my 2 cents. I <3 Barleywine

 

[mrphillips]

Thanks BB. The reason I wanted the Lactose in it is because I just made a Southern English Brown Ale, and it tasted like it would lend itself to a much higher ABV, so I used that recipe as a loose base for this recipe. As far as the oak, I was going to toss the 4 oz. of chips into the secondary (probably for a month), and then rack it into 5, 1 gallon jugs for another 6 months so it could cure and mellow out. It makes sense to me...but sometimes I'm the only member of that group

Does my AMOUNT of hops seem right? Like I said, I'm not a real hop-head, and I only want enough to balance out the malt. And why the longer boil time; what's the benefit of this?

Thanks again!

 

[BradleyBrew]

Hops seem ok... you might want to dial back the chinook a bit if you dont want the big hop bitterness bite. I'm sure you could easily cut your late addition hops and half and be ok. The longer boil time helps to darken the wort to that nice rusty brown color and caramelize the sugars so you start to get that deep caramel, raisin / plum, stone fruit taste and aroma.

Extract brewing the only benefit from the lenghty boil would be what I previously mentioned. For me I just brewed a barleywine and it came out to 11+ gallons for a 5 gallon batch and that is just the 1st runnings of the wort with no sparge. So for all grain it works that you need to boil longer because of the amount of wort you have + you want the effects of the longer boil. Probably TMI!

 

[mrphillips]

TMI? No such thing! I've never used Chinook before, so I think I'll take your advise.