Temp Control on Northern Brewer Barley Wine

[lorne17]

Hello there,

I purchased the Northern Brewer Barley Wine extract kit (http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/barley-wine-extract-kit.html) and I'm curious if I need to make sure this is temperature controlled? I know it takes like 18 months to finally be ready. Primary, Secondary, then bottled for awhile. So, any stages that are critical for temperature controlled? I currently just have my beer in my basement, but in the summers it can get up to 75-80 during fermentation and during winter down to 60.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Lorne

 

[RM-MN]

For your barleywine, the first week is critical. You have a lot of sugars for the yeast to party on and they will make a real mess if you let them. Keep them cool! Find the temperature range of the yeast that you will be using and make sure the wort is cooler than the lowest temperature and then let it sneak up to the bottom of the range. If the beer gets too warm the yeast will make all sorts of off flavor compounds, some of which never age out. Once the ferment slows you can let the temperature rise a bit but I'd still probably try to keep it below room temp until after the second week.

 

[sfish]

you should also consider pitching 2 packs of the yeast or making a starter, aerate well before pitching, and as stated keep the temp. down.