Bottle conditioning barleywine question

[stansoid]

I made a version of James Spencer's fruitcake barley wine.

OG was 1.125. FG is 1.025. 13.1% abv by my calcuations. Fermented with WLP001. It has been is stable for the past week and the samples taste great.

I normally keg my beers, but for this one I want to bottle condition it. I have not bottle conditioned since I got started a few years ago.

I am going to give most of it away so I want the final product to be as clean as possible. I am planning to put it in a keg to clarify it (using biofine clear), then rack it to another keg using a clear beer top drawing draft floater to get off the trub.

I will then add the priming sugar to the second keg and bottle it flat using a beer gun.

I am concerned that between the clarifying and the high ABV the WLP001 will be tapped out for bottle carbonating.

My question - I have read many different opinions on how clarifyer will affect the yeast/bottle conditioning, how the high ABV may effect it AND many opinions on adding campaign yeast. I know this question has been asked before, but does anyone have any experience with WLP 001 at that ABV and with a clarifying agent OR adding campaign yeast to a barley wine to help bottle carbonation along?

My thought is I will add EC-1118 with the priming sugar to the second keg before racking it over/bottling it.

Any advice is welcome.

 

[Calder]

The 001 will be worn out with such high alcohol. Assume it is done and add the 118. Your process looks good, add with the sugar and bottle.

 

[radwizard]

Out of curiosity, why aren't you just carbing it with co2, and then bottle gunning it?

 

[stansoid]

Street cred? TBH I find the bottle gun annoying (foams a lot) and I've read bottle conditioning is beneficial for aging.. But mostly because I haven't done it in a long time and seems fun.

 

[stansoid]

My gift to visitors over the holidays - a few bottles of 13% ABV Fruitcake Barleywine.. I made some great labels on Grogtag... Red with Santa riding "the bomb". Capped with a green lid and packaged in classic Canadian stubbie bottles.

I used the process above. I shall report back on how it worked out around Christmas when I test a bottle or two before I start handing them out.

 

[myndflyte]

That looks great. So did you just take his 1 gallon batch and scale up everything to 5 gallons? I've always wanted to brew it since I saw it how many years ago. Would you mind posting the recipe you used?

 

[DurtyChemist]

Off topic but where did you get those bottle lables?

As for too much foaming when beergunning, I've found adjusting the CO2 volumes helps. Sometimes it needs to be more than they suggest. Sometimes less. Each system is different.

 

[stansoid]

Myndflye - I scaled the 1 gallon batch to 5 gallons. I changed the candied fruit up a bit based on what I could find locally. I also lost close to a gallon to blow off. It was a big fermentation.

DurtyChemist - I got them from http://www.grogtag.com. They were a bit of overkill. They are vinyl and theoretically reusable. Great quality but a bit expensive. Close to $0.75 a label.