First Barley Wine. Check my recipe!

[robertvrabel]

Stats:
5g Batch
90min Boil
70% efficiency
OG: 1.110
FG: 1.026
ABV: 11.5%
Mash: 60min @ 153F
Aging: 8-12 months in secondary.

Grain:
17# German Bohemian Pilsner Malt (I have 55lbs of it...)
3# Marris Otter
1# Light Crystal
4oz Chocolate Malt

Hops:
Centennial 1oz @90min
Centennial 2oz @70min
Cascade 1oz @25min
Cascade 2oz @1min

Others:
Yeast Nutrient
Irish Moss

Yeast:
White Labs WLP007-Dry English Ale


Let me know what you think... and if I should know of anything in particular about creating a Barley Wine. My main concern is if this yeast will be able to attenuate fully? Thanks!

 

[wjjohnson]

Looks pretty good, I would toss the pils and use all maris otter. I would use something stronger than cascade with your last two additions. You could use all centennial hops, 2oz at 15, 2oz at 10.


20# Marris Otter
1# Light Crystal
4oz Chocolate Malt

Hops:
Centennial 1oz @90min
Centennial 2oz @70min
Centennial 2oz @15min
Centennial 2oz @10min

 

[robertvrabel]

Would pils not be a good workhorse grain? I have a 55lb bag of it, so I figured i'd use it as the main grain.

 

[wjjohnson]

Well in that case just stick with the pils. I thought you were going to get these grains from a home brew store. I would use the pils and about 3#s munich with no crystal malt. Munich will add alot of good malt flavor. Maybe even a pound or two of dark brown sugar at flameout. Just to bump up the abv.

 

[Schwind]

When I did my barleywine I pitched it onto a US-05 cake from a pale ale. It took off like a rocket and finished at 1.016. I'd brew a smallish beer first with the dry English ale yeast and pitch into that. Also if your going 5 gallons lower your efficiency a bit. I only got 62% which made a beer planned at 1.105 end up 1.088. It was still 9.5% though. I mean no offense you just dont rinse as many sugars away with this much grain going into 5 gallons. You could also try adding lb of sugar to the boil.

Or you could tell me to get lost and do whatever you want.

Good luck, it's totally worth the wait to try it 6,12, and 18 months later

 

[eanmcnulty]

Barleywine sounds great. I would love to try one. I have a couple of questions.
1) When pitching on to the yeast cake of a previous beer, do you pour out all liquid, or can you leave some of it in the carboy?
2) Do you do anything to prepare the yeast cake or the carboy? (sanitize anything?...)
3) I don't keg, I bottle. Does bottling a barleywine work the same way as any ale? Add a little sugar or DME? Does it need more yeast? If so, how do you pitch it? Into the bottling bucket, stir and fill?
Thanks and good luck!

 

[robertvrabel]

Thanks, I'll consider using Munich instead of the Marris Otter. So is its usually expected to have low efficiency when making a barley wine? usually I'm around 70-75, so I should assume it'll be 60ish?

 

[Ketchepillar]

As a rule of thumb, your efficiency will decrease as your O.G. rises. Makes sense if you think about it-less water per lb of grain, so there's less ability to rinse out sugars. I could think of many analogies if you'd like...give a fat kid a piece of cake, plate is clean, give him a whole cake, he'll miss a few crumbs, give him a bakery...you see, as cake to fat kid ratio increases, overall quantity of cake consumed may increase, but percentage of overall cake consumed will decrease.

If you are usually around 70-75, I think 65 is a pretty safe bet.

 

[midfielder5]

I have only done one big beer (1.110 og) but I calculated 60% eff. , did a no-sparge, and made a second beer with the other runnings. Maybe Bobby_m will chime in here. I followed his plan from another thread. Or try googling sparging and 1.100 beer or something like that-- if that interests you. Just a thought.