First Barleywine

[mgregg]

I started brewing last summer and have made about 10 brews so far with 3 being excellent, 3 being ok, 2 being drinkable and 2 going down the drain. I got Palmers How to Brew after my first batch(amber ale that turned out ok) and I've wanted to try his fighting urak-hai barleywine since I first read the recipe. I was planning on doing this recipe as my next batch until I was able to pick up a northern brewer barleywine extract kit for about $21(no yeast). The kit includes 12 lbs amber lme. .5 lbs caramel 90 steeping grains, 2 oz cascade hops and 1 oz williamette hops.
I want a higher abv then the NB kit comes in at(NB is 8% I want 10+%) and I'd like to try to incorporate some of Palmer's recipe so I was thinking making these additions to the kit:
Adding 2 lbs wheat dme. Palmers recipe calls for 5 lbs of wheat dme, but less amber malt.
Adding a pound of turbinado to boost the abv and keep the brew from getting too thick from the extra dme.
Adding 1 lb of caramel 40 and .25 lbs of chocolate malt to the steeping grains add a little depth to the malts.
Changing the hops to 2 oz magnum for bittering and 4 oz williamette-2 oz at 15 min, 1 at 5 min, 1 at flameout-(I think the 3 oz provided with the kit will not be enough with the malt additions and I just happen to have these on hand). Maybe throwing some of the cascade into the mix near the end of the boil.
Also thinking of using Nottingham instead of the recommended s-05 to give it a little more of that British feel.
Any thoughts on this recipe? I'm pretty excited about brewing my first barleywine, but I'm also nervous that my additions/substitutions might detract from the quality of the kit.

Any advice or recommendations are more than welcome.

Thanks,
G

 

[RM-MN]

Use plenty of yeast for this high of gravity beer. If I were doing it, I'd probably use 3 packages of Nottingham. Keep it cool for the first week or a bit more. I'd be trying to keep it between 57 and 60 degrees because if you let it start getting warmer, the yeast will get away from you and heat up the fermenter and at the higher temperatures, Nottingham can produce off flavors you won't like in the beer. Don't be in a rush to bottle or keg this beer either. I'd be looking at a month to 6 weeks in the primary to give the yeast time to complete the ferment and clean up.

 

[HB_in_Subic]

I agree with RM-MN. Use as a minimum 2 packages of yeast. I just made an English Barleywine last night and used 2 sachets of M27 Belgian Ale Yeast (tolerates up to 14% ABV). I made a yeast starter with them before pitching. Within 12 hours I had to replace the liquid in my blow off tube bottle.

This is the recipe;

Steeping grains (@155F for 25 minutes):
2 oz Chocolate Malt
1 lb Crystal 60L Malt
1/2 lb Pale Ale Malt

10lbs Extra Light DME
1lb Corn Sugar

2 oz Brewers Gold Hops @ 60 minutes
1 oz Kent Golding Hops @ 15 minutes
1 oz Kent Golding Hops @ 5 minutes

This is fermenting on my back porch at 78F-88F. I would not be surprised if I can replace the blowoff tube with an airlock before 48 hours.

The original recipe (8%, with the corn sugar mine is 9%) called for White Labs Dry English Ale 007, Wyeast British Ale II 1335 or Muntons Premium Gold Dry Yeast. I used the Belgian Yeast so that I do not have to worry about leaving it in the Fermentation Chamber for an extended amount of time.

Leave it in the Primary as long as you can stand (2 weeks after FG reached minimum) but not longer than 8 or so weeks. I leave all of my beer in Primary for a minimum of 3 weeks now. The yeast is cleaning up it's bi-products after achieving FG. The results are a much better tasting beer.

 

[mgregg]

Thanks for the tips! Since I'm brewing this today and I only have the 2 packs of Nottingham, I'll probably just rehydrate and stick with the 2 packs of nottingham and see how it starts off. If it's not going good in a day or 2 I could grab another packet of Notti and sprinkle it in. I do have some s-05 and mangrove jacks m79 I could add, but I'd rather just keep one strain in there. My basement holds a steady 57-58 degrees right now so I'll start it down there for a week or so then probably move it onto a seed warmer to bring the temp up another 6-7 degrees and leave it there for another 3+ weeks before racking it to secondary for several months. Then I plan on splitting the batch and adding some oak and bourbon to half and keeping the other half as is. I'll try to bottle it by summer before the basement warms up to it's summer temps of 70-75 but I don't plan on drinking this one for a while.

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks for the tips! Since I'm brewing this today and I only have the 2 packs of Nottingham, I'll probably just rehydrate and stick with the 2 packs of nottingham and see how it starts off. If it's not going good in a day or 2 I could grab another packet of Notti and sprinkle it in. I do have some s-05 and mangrove jacks m79 I could add, but I'd rather just keep one strain in there. My basement holds a steady 57-58 degrees right now so I'll start it down there for a week or so then probably move it onto a seed warmer to bring the temp up another 6-7 degrees and leave it there for another 3+ weeks before racking it to secondary for several months. Then I plan on splitting the batch and adding some oak and bourbon to half and keeping the other half as is. I'll try to bottle it by summer before the basement warms up to it's summer temps of 70-75 but I don't plan on drinking this one for a while.

The packets of dry yeast like Nottingham hold more cells than the liquid yeast packets which will help in this situation. So will aerating the wort as the yeast needs oxygen in it replication to build cell walls. With good aeration and the 2 packs of Nottingham, you should be good.

To help control the temperature you can set the fermenter in a tub of water. That will increase the surface that is exposed to the air temperature and help to hold the beer temperature constant.

 

[mgregg]

Brew day went off well. No problems except I didn't lose as much water during the boil as I expected and my o.g. is lower then I was shooting for. I was hoping to be in the 1.095-1.100 range and I came in at 1.086. Guess I'll see how it turns out sometime in October.

 

[mgregg]

24 hours after pitching in a 60 degree basement.

 

[HB_in_Subic]

Looks great!

 

[mgregg]

48 hrs in, basement down to 58 degrees. Glad i used a 1" id blowoff tube instead of an airlock. I've never had a beer take off like this before.

 

[RM-MN]

This is a barleywine. It has lots of sugars for the yeast to eat. I'm not a bit surprised that it took off like that.

Looking at your picture, when the ferment begins to slow you should either change out to an airlock or move your overflow jar to a lower spot so the fluid collected doesn't get sucked back into the fermenter as the beer begins to cool.