Proposed barley wine recipe

[blackbeer]

Looking at a final brew for the season to be a BW. here is what i have for a 5 gallon batch

20 lbs crisp maris otter
1/2 lb 75l crystal
2 oz roasted barley
1 oz magnum - 60
2 oz EKG - 20
2 oz EKG - 10

70.74 IBU @1.090
mash at 147-150 for 90
boil for 120

the expected OG is probably close given my efficiency with this system. cooler tun, batch sparging, etc.

i have a 1.050 APA finishing up with wyeast #1056 and plan on racking onto the cake and doing primary for about a month at around 62 or so and then racking into a corny with an airlock and leaving it in the basement at around 62 until sept or oct and then bottling it with a little shot of safale 05 in the bottling bucket along with 3 oz of corn sugar.

what i am looking for is a nice malty BW with a bit of mellow bitterness and nice EKG flavor. something that could be enjoyed next fall/winter and also put aside for a year or 3.

any comments or suggestions?

 

[giraffe]

That looks fairly standard. I think it will be good. If you want to age it for very long, remember the ibus will fall off. you might want to up them to be higher. My rule of thumb is to make the ibus double what i want them to taste like when I drink it. So in this case i think by november it will be balanced mildly towards the sweet side.

 

[JKaranka]

I would rather use black patent, chocolate malt or similar rather than roast barley. I think black patent is better for colour correction, but if you want a flavour contribution you might want to go for 3 or 4 oz chocolate malt.

 

[fantomlord]

I would rather use black patent, chocolate malt or similar rather than roast barley. I think black patent is better for colour correction, but if you want a flavour contribution you might want to go for 3 or 4 oz chocolate malt.

I would agree with that about the chocolate for flavor. I used 4 oz pale chocolate in my 5 gallon BW, and it came out great

 

[cmoewes]

I found that some of those small grain additions have so little impact on such a large grain bill that they may not be useful.

I've also added candi syrup (d90 or d180) to a barley wine to add a great deal of complexity. Just another thought. Plus it's a handy way to tweak you OG on something this big

 

[JonM]

Looks like a nice recipe and it looks like you've done some nice planning-ahead with that yeast cake.

Just keep an eye on it - the BW fermentation will take off like a freakin' rocket and the temp will get away from you fast. You might want to pitch as low as 52-55 because the fermentation activity is pretty much guaranteed to add as much as 10 deg. And use a big blowoff. It's going to be awesome to watch!