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Author Topic: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions  (Read 10719 times)

Offline sambates

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #15 on: July 24, 2014, 09:07:28 am »
this is also something of a personal preference but a 46 IBU barley wine is going to taste sweet almost no matter what the FG is. even english barley wine needs a solid hop bitterness to balance all that sweetness from the alcohol not to mention the residual sugars I would aim for closer to 80 for that beer but again, personal preference. I don't care for sweet barley wine that much.

I was basing my IBUs off North Coast Old Stock (~34 IBUs), which is a beer I really love, since I've never really made a huge BW before.

Couple of things strike me as off. That's a hell of a lot of crystal malt and that won't taste anything like an alt, though it may be a fine beer non-the-less.

Even with MO as the base, as opposed to Pils, it's way off from an Alt. I know that and I wasn't necessarily trying to hit the Alt style perfectly, but I figured it would be something fun to play with since I've got some 1007 on hand. I was torn doing a Nut Brown too, which would obviously be better as a second runnings with my grist.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2014, 09:11:34 am by sambates »
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Offline reverseapachemaster

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #16 on: July 24, 2014, 09:11:38 am »
Couple of things strike me as off. That's a hell of a lot of crystal malt and that won't taste anything like an alt, though it may be a fine beer non-the-less.

My thought as well.

Something else to consider with the partigyle is that a big beer usually has worse efficiency than your normal beer so if you are planning your recipe around 70-80% efficiency you will probably hit 55-70% in reality, which may not leave you a lot of fermentable sugar for the partigyle. You can keep sparging to try to improve efficiency but once the runnings get low gravity you start increasing the risk for tannin extraction.
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Offline majorvices

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #17 on: July 24, 2014, 09:15:20 am »
this is also something of a personal preference but a 46 IBU barley wine is going to taste sweet almost no matter what the FG is. even english barley wine needs a solid hop bitterness to balance all that sweetness from the alcohol not to mention the residual sugars I would aim for closer to 80 for that beer but again, personal preference. I don't care for sweet barley wine that much.

I was basing my IBUs off North Coast Old Stock (~34 IBUs), which is a beer I really love, since I've never really made a huge BW before.

Couple of things strike me as off. That's a hell of a lot of crystal malt and that won't taste anything like an alt, though it may be a fine beer non-the-less.

Even with MO as the base, as opposed to Pils, it's way off from an Alt. I know that and I wasn't necessarily trying to hit the Alt style perfectly, but I figured it would be something fun to play with since I've got some 1007 on hand. I was torn doing a Nut Brown too, which would obviously be better as a second runnings with my grist.


Alt or not, call it what you want. But for any beer 2.5 lbs of crystal is too much per 10 gallon batch. You will already have cloying qualities in your BW due to left over unfermentable sugars. IME what you are creating here is going to be overly cloying, sweetish and not very drinkable. Consider cutting the crystal in half, at least.

Offline erockrph

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #18 on: July 24, 2014, 09:16:34 am »
I'm currently planning to mash at 151. When formulating my recipe, BeerSmith says I should hit 1.026 FG. Then again, you really can never nail the FG perfectly with bigger beers. Only about 9% specialty grains, so I'm thinking that will also help the attenuation.

Got a recipe? 1.026 sounds kinda high.  I would mash at 148 for 90-120 minutes
He has not said what the OG was. A FG of 1.026 is in the range for a beer that starts at 1.100+. I brewed one 3 weeks back that had an OG of 1.115, and used Wyeast 1028. I might rack to a keg today, and will see what the FG is. Will report back when I know. It was a Thomas Hardy clone.

TH Clone? Recipe please :)

The main keys are oxygenation, fermentability of your wort, and a HUGE pitch of yeast. Honestly, 12.5% isn't terribly high for an ABV. I think most yeast strains can handle it, but some will be more attenuative than others.

My most recent barleywine was 100% MO with an OG of 1.142 and finished at 1.024, for an abv in the 15.5%-18% range (depending on which calculation you use). I used the WLP037 (Yorkshire Square), and pitched on about 2/3 of the cake from a 1.056ish brew.
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Offline sambates

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #19 on: July 24, 2014, 10:01:27 am »

Alt or not, call it what you want. But for any beer 2.5 lbs of crystal is too much per 10 gallon batch. You will already have cloying qualities in your BW due to left over unfermentable sugars. IME what you are creating here is going to be overly cloying, sweetish and not very drinkable. Consider cutting the crystal in half, at least.

I agree with you in regards to the Alt being too much crystal, which is why I was toying with doing a brown instead. Additionally, I've made great beers with 2.5# of crystal without being cloyingly sweet. In the grand scheme of the grist, I think it's still a small percentage. We each have our own preferences though.
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Offline majorvices

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #20 on: July 24, 2014, 10:30:06 am »
Probably personal preference. I've had a lot of beers, homebrew and commercial, that I didn't enjoy more than a few oz of.

Offline Joe T

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #21 on: July 24, 2014, 10:48:57 am »
I know it's not what you're looking for but wlp670 American farmhouse blend makes a very nice barleywine. It took my 1.106 BW down to 1.016. It took about a year for the brett to finish up but worth the wait. It had a wonderful fruity flavor when young and it continues to develop in the bottle. Last one I tried tasted of dried figs and dates.

Offline majorvices

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #22 on: July 24, 2014, 10:53:07 am »
Probably personal preference. I've had a lot of beers, homebrew and commercial, that I didn't enjoy more than a few oz of.

Sounded wrong. I should have said beer's I didn't enjoy more than a few oz of but that I know other people really enjoyed.

Offline erockrph

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #23 on: July 24, 2014, 10:54:14 am »

Alt or not, call it what you want. But for any beer 2.5 lbs of crystal is too much per 10 gallon batch. You will already have cloying qualities in your BW due to left over unfermentable sugars. IME what you are creating here is going to be overly cloying, sweetish and not very drinkable. Consider cutting the crystal in half, at least.

I agree with you in regards to the Alt being too much crystal, which is why I was toying with doing a brown instead. Additionally, I've made great beers with 2.5# of crystal without being cloyingly sweet. In the grand scheme of the grist, I think it's still a small percentage. We each have our own preferences though.

I think you might run into attenuation issues with your BW with that much crystal. I like the Nut Brown partigyle idea. Maybe you want to reserve some of the Crystal to cap the mash for your 2nd gyle.

I know it's not what you're looking for but wlp670 American farmhouse blend makes a very nice barleywine. It took my 1.106 BW down to 1.016. It took about a year for the brett to finish up but worth the wait. It had a wonderful fruity flavor when young and it continues to develop in the bottle. Last one I tried tasted of dried figs and dates.

As far an non-traditional BW yeasts go, WY1762 works really well, too.
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Offline majorvices

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #24 on: July 24, 2014, 11:11:03 am »
Yes, attenuation was my main concern but I also always keep my crystal malt on the low end, except in very rare cases. I'm just not a fan of the strong flavor of crystal. For my tastes that much dark crystal would not be enjoyable. Some of my best BW have been 100% maris otter and when I have added crystal malt I have use sugar to dry the beer out. But that's just the way I approach. I certainly don't want to say my way to the only way. (Although, it is for me. ;) )

Offline HoosierBrew

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #25 on: July 24, 2014, 11:14:34 am »
Yes, attenuation was my main concern but I also always keep my crystal malt on the low end, except in very rare cases. I'm just not a fan of the strong flavor of crystal. For my tastes that much dark crystal would not be enjoyable. Some of my best BW have been 100% maris otter and when I have added crystal malt I have use sugar to dry the beer out. But that's just the way I approach. I certainly don't want to say my way to the only way. (Although, it is for me. ;) )

+1.  Pretty much my approach.
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Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #26 on: July 24, 2014, 11:33:00 am »
The Barleywine I did was all British Pale ale malts, no crystal. I had MO, Pearl, and Golden Promise to use up!
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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #27 on: July 24, 2014, 11:55:19 am »
I'm currently planning to mash at 151. When formulating my recipe, BeerSmith says I should hit 1.026 FG. Then again, you really can never nail the FG perfectly with bigger beers. Only about 9% specialty grains, so I'm thinking that will also help the attenuation.

Got a recipe? 1.026 sounds kinda high.  I would mash at 148 for 90-120 minutes

I don't think 1.026 is too high at all for a beer like that.
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Offline erockrph

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #28 on: July 24, 2014, 12:12:48 pm »
I'm currently planning to mash at 151. When formulating my recipe, BeerSmith says I should hit 1.026 FG. Then again, you really can never nail the FG perfectly with bigger beers. Only about 9% specialty grains, so I'm thinking that will also help the attenuation.

Got a recipe? 1.026 sounds kinda high.  I would mash at 148 for 90-120 minutes

I don't think 1.026 is too high at all for a beer like that.
+1 - Good catch. A lot of good English Barleywines are sippin' beers. One of the best beer bars I've ever been to (no longer in business, unfortunately) served Thomas Hardy in a cordial glass. I was a little caught off guard at the time, but it worked and it definitely changed the way I think about certain beers.
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Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: Barleywine Yeast Suggestions
« Reply #29 on: July 24, 2014, 01:21:05 pm »
Mine went to the kegs a little bit a go. I had split the batch.
Wyeast 1028 1.115 OG 1.028 FG  11.4% ABV 74% Attenuation
WLP 022 1.115 OG 1.024 FG 11.9% ABV 77% Attenuation

Samples tasted pretty nice. I will see how they mature, and can always blend.

Gordon's beer was 1.123 OG and 1.034 FG. He used 1028.

« Last Edit: July 24, 2014, 09:45:25 pm by hopfenundmalz »
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