Bottling High Gravity Barleywine

[Lukass]

Hey all,

So I brewed a barleywine a few months back, and it's been sitting on some oak cubes for a few months now, and it's getting to be about that time to bottle. The recipe calls for adding fresh yeast (Red star champagne, Lalvin EC-1118, or White Label WLP 715) to the bottling bucket.

This is my first time using champagne yeast at bottling, so I guess my question is, how much do you use – the whole vial/pack? The beer came in around 15-16% abv, if that helps. I just don't want to add too much and ruin the batch.

Thanks!

 

[Hopper5000]

I would rehydrate it and add about 1/4 to 1/2 of the pack when bottling. Is bottling conditioning your only option? It is going to be hard for any yeast to carb in that environment. Might take quite a while for it to carb up. On bigger beers I usually force carbonate and bottle from a keg since I've had problems with getting bigger beers to carb up.

 

[duboman]

1/4 to 1/2 pack rehydrated will do the trick and since this is a really big beer that I'll assume you are going to let sit for 6-12 months to condition, time to properly carbonate shouldn't be an issue barley wines are not usually highly carbonated


Sent from the Commune

 

[agrazela]

I recently bottled a 12% ABV Bourbon Barleywine into 22oz bombers after about 3 months in secondary, and that was the first time I decided I'd better use some bottling yeast. I used 20g dextrose and a mere 0.2g CBC-1 yeast (pitched dry into the bottling bucket, too!) per gallon.

I tasted one early (to see how the bourbon intensity will change over time...plus I was out of other beer!) and it appeared to me to be fully carbed and well-cleared after only 2 weeks.

Hooray for bottling yeast in high-ABV beer, I really doubt it would have bottle-carbed so easily without it.

 

[Lukass]

Awesome, thanks for the replies! WIll probably stick to champagne yeast though, agrazela, but it's good to know you don't always have to wait an insane amount of time to start drinking after bottling. Will probably stick to around 1/4 to 1/2 pack along with priming sugar and will let you know the results

 

[Calder]

Try and keep some for the long haul. I 've just opened a 12% BW , brewed 7/11, ....... excellent!