English Barley Wine Help

[mwfishy]

Full disclosure: the batch is made and fermenting.

I was trying to make a recipe out of Brewing Classic Styles, English Barley Wine Hard and Hardy. I don't have the ability to do a 7.5gal boil so I dropped it to a 3gal boil. Here is the schedule I followed:

20min @ 150*f
10oz. Caramunich
10oz. British Crystal 145l

6lbs. Light DME

Pre-boil gravity was 1.090

Boil:
1.5oz Magnum hops 60min
.6oz Fuggle 20min
.6oz Fuggle 0min.

Added 3.5lbs Light DME.

Cooled, transfered to the fermentor and added water to just at the 5gal mark. Checked gravity and it was 1.066! Needed to be at 1.100! Added .5lb DME and .5lb corn sugar and water to 5.5gal. Gravity to 1.074. At 70*f i added one White Labs Super High Gravity Yeast, and 2 London Ale Yeast. Now its doing its thing.

Where did I go wrong? Post boil was supposed to be at 1.100. I thought I did the correct reductions to the extract partial boil bill.

Please help, what is done is done. But in the future I want a 12% Barley Wine, not a 6.6%.

 

[BigEd]

There are enough ingredients to get you to the recipe gravity range for three gallons. You've either made a mistake in taking the reading, not added or mixed properly or overlooked some part of the procedure.

 

[mwfishy]

I feel quite dumb. While cleaning up I found another 3lbs bag of DME. I failed to add it after the boil, I got wrapped up trying to clear the hop sacks and didn't add it. So the recipe should have a total of 12.5lbs of Light DME. I only added 10lbs. I guess the flavor will be there, just not the ABV.

 

[mwfishy]

Is there any way to add the remaining 3lbs DME? I have another yeast ready to go as well. What about pitching the new yeast and add albs DME in a few days?

 

[BroStefan]

How long has the beer been fermenting? If it is still even a little active I'd dissolve the DME into just enough boiled and cooled water to make pourable syrup and add it. Doing a late addition of fermentables to a high gravity wort is something I routinely do with good results.

 

[mwfishy]

Update, fermentation took off, almost blow out kind of take off. Caught it in time and built an impromptu blowoff tube. Next time I'll start with one. Got the og up to 1.080 and at day 10 it was fg at 1.008! Sharp kick to it. Great color, wish the hops would have come through better. Maybe after the burn where's off on the alcohol. Racked into secondary and it's gonna live in the 52*f crawl space for a few months before bottling. Than I'm think Christmas for the uncorking! Thanks for the help.

 

[mwfishy]

More Help PLEASE. Not sure if this will bump the thread. So read above, ferm took off and you can see the results. Just checked it at the 4 week mark, very active froc (sp) and tiny bubbles. I have not checked the gravity again, but I am concerned that this thing is chugging away to be a high abv nightmare.

Im thinking of cold crashing it and racking again, then putting it to bed for another month. This is where I need help. Should I let it do its thing for another month and then bottle it? Or cold crash it, and then hold it? Im new to both brewing and barley wines. A perfect storm. Thanks for the help.

 

[JKaranka]

Just let it carry on. If you try cold crashing it you might end up with bottle bombs. It will be drinkable, but probably teach you a lesson for the next one

 

[pdxal]

Ride it out.
Your original beer should have been in the 1.090 range based on the fermentables. You probably measured the gravity of a wort that wasn't mixed well when it was 1.066 and 1.074.
Also, 1.008 would be a very low FG for that recipe, about 88% attenuation.
A beer this big needs lots of yeast, and lots of time. You need to let it sit at fermentation temperatures (60-72 for the London Ale and 65-69 for the super High Gravity Yeast) for a long time, and certainly until it is at a stable gravity for an extended period of time. Don't worry about leaving it too long, worry about not giving it enough time.