Big Project: Barleywine

[razyrsharpe]

Today i am brewing my first barleywine. Also, it will be my first partigyle brew. First lesson - I need a bigger mashtun. my 10 gallon is good, but i needed a 12 gallon to get 21lbs. of grain and 9.25 gallons of water mixed correctly. had to draw off .5-.75 gallons of liquid. i will have to use LME if i want to do this again with this mashtun. Live and learn.

Here is the recipe: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/barbarian-cimmerian-barleywine

 

[dwhite60]

Why not just do 2 or 2.5 gallons? It will suit your equipment better.

Barley wine is going to sit around at least six months before it's getting REALLY good. Ties up a lot of bottles or a full keg for that time. I don't find I knock back more than one 12 ounce bottle of barley wine in a sitting. Five gallons is a LOT to me. But that's just me.

All the Best,
D. White

 

[razyrsharpe]

Lol. Unless it's undrinkable I don't see a problem gettin rid of it! I'll simply buy more beer and increase my bottle inventory.

 

[catdaddy66]

Lol. Unless it's undrinkable I don't see a problem gettin rid of it! I'll simply buy more beer and increase my bottle inventory.

Christmas is coming soon. You could gift it... to me.

 

[RM-MN]

Today i am brewing my first barleywine. Also, it will be my first partigyle brew. First lesson - I need a bigger mashtun. my 10 gallon is good, but i needed a 12 gallon to get 21lbs. of grain and 9.25 gallons of water mixed correctly. had to draw off .5-.75 gallons of liquid. i will have to use LME if i want to do this again with this mashtun. Live and learn.

Here is the recipe: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/barbarian-cimmerian-barleywine

You're using the wrong paradigm. Instead of replacing your mash tun to handle the extra grain you think you need to make your barleywine, why not work on increasing the brewhouse efficiency so you can fit the needed amount of grain into your current mash tun.

Line your mash tun with a fine mesh nylon of polyester bag (Swiss voille curtains work well), then mill your grains to flour or nearly that. Your efficiency will go up, probably by 10 points or more so you have to reduce the amount of bast malts to account fot that and suddenly your current mash tun will look larger. If not, reduce the batch size a little to compensate. When the mash is complete, probably in 30 minutes, lift the bag up a bit to let it drain which will utilize the very large filter area.

 

[Jwin]

You could also do a double/split mash. Mash half the grain leaving enough room for a couple extra gallons if able, drain into kettle and heat as needed, sparge with a minimal amount of water so not to have to much liquid in second mash, then treat wort from mash one as strike water for mash 2.
Or just keep an eye on Craigslist for a cheap cooler. I grabbed a huge Coleman extreme off of CL for $30. Not sure the size but I did a split batch with my buddy(11g each after boil) where we mashed 67# of grain in it. (My profile pic) . I just got a second kettle(20g) so I will be doing more gyle brewing faster now. My old bk(15g) will be a HLT/second bk for gyle. Will be turning out 22-24g per brew day in 4-5 hours max. Hopefully I get it down to 3 hours after I get my stand built.

Nothing wrong with a big mash tun. Efficiency can take a hit with one and draining a large tun can be challenging. I think a brew bag is definitely in order. I do recommend preheating a larger tun every time though. And keep close track of your temp drop after your temp levels out. On a moderate day, I have to heat strike to 167ish to rest the mash at 150, even with preheating the tun for a half hour with 180* water.

 

[Smellyglove]

Why not go for a thicker mash? As I calculated these weird american numbers you're at 3.6L/kg. You can go down to 2.5L/Kg, and use more sparge water, which will bump you efficiency.

And yes, I'm a PITA for not converting back to U.S numbers

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

It's not etched in stone that you must brew 5 gal. I have a 9 gal BK that I do BIAB in. It maxes out at about 16 lbs. That covers about 90% of everything I brew at 5 gal. When I did my 1.110 BDSA, I just did a 3.5 gal batch. It's not worth it to me to invest in a bigger setup just for the occasional big brew. A friend used to say, "You don't design a church for Easter Sunday."

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, last weekend's brew was a 55 point pale with 11 gallons to the fermentors and 22 pounds of grain in a 10g Rubbermaid cooler. Mash water was just over 1.25 quarts per pound, with two batch sparges of 4.6g each. Nailed the pre-boil volume and gravity.

I bet that recipe could be easily tweaked to make it all work out much easier...

Cheers!

 

[catdaddy66]

Here is a link to an excellent article on declining efficiency as OG increases. It is in the first post...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=515396

It may give some suggestions for you to try next time.