Barleywine Tips

Northern Brewer General
1

Thinking of doing my first barleywine this Sunday. Plan is to go with NBs standard AG recipe for starters:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/documenta ... eyWine.pdf

Wondering if anyone out there has suggestions for alterations, or tips/tricks/lessons learned with this recipe.

Also wondering what folks recommend as far as primary temps with the neobritannia yeast. I presume the ol’ start as cool as possible and move up theory holds in this situation?

Thanks!

2

Pitch a TON of yeast. If you only have 1 pack, you need a monster starter, and might be best served to make a 5 gallon batch of a low gravity beer and just pitch the entire yeast cake into the barleywine.

3

[b]THIS^^^^[1]

And keep the temp under control. It will likely be a very active fermentation and produce a lot of heat.

  1. /b ↩︎

4

if you have an O2 system, pre-pitch would be the time to use it! if not, aerate the hell out of it!

5

Then wait 3 or 4 years

6

Thanks Fellas.

The guy (good guy) at NB told me that a robust 2L starter would be sufficient. Do you agree?

Second question: Will two 1L starters produce as much yeast as a single 2L starter?

7

[quote=“HaleBrewer”]Thanks Fellas.

The guy (good guy) at NB told me that a robust 2L starter would be sufficient. Do you agree?[/quote]
did he have a beard and/or glasses? :lol:

it should be very close either way. probably unnoticeable difference. just keep that yeast happy & your BW will turn out. just remember: lots of healthy yeast, plenty of aeration pre-fermentation, and keep that fermentation temp in check!

8

Indeed. Glasses. Cody.

He’s helped me before. Smart, honest guy.

I’m gonna go with 2 starters each a bit over 1L, pitching half of the Neobritannia smack pack into each. They’ll have about 36 hours to do their thing before I need them on Sunday.

Hope that’s enough.

Hoping a swamp cooler approach will keep the temp down low enough.

In the past, I think I’ve not let some of my beers get to stable basement temp before pitching, so they’ve not had a great shot at fermenting low.

9

[quote=“HaleBrewer”]Indeed. Glasses. Cody.

He’s helped me before. Smart, honest guy.[/quote]it seems they all have beards and/or glasses. they’ve all been very helpful and polite. the guys remember me from being there only a few times. that means a lot in customer service.

[quote=“HaleBrewer”]I’m gonna go with 2 starters each a bit over 1L, pitching half of the Neobritannia smack pack into each. They’ll have about 36 hours to do their thing before I need them on Sunday.

Hope that’s enough. [/quote]personally, I’d go with the “everyone in the pool” method over decanting after only 36 hours. some others might know better than me though.

[quote=“HaleBrewer”]Hoping a swamp cooler approach will keep the temp down low enough.

In the past, I think I’ve not let some of my beers get to stable basement temp before pitching, so they’ve not had a great shot at fermenting low.[/quote]
get the wort temp about 6 degrees lower than your desired fermentation temp. with that much yeast eating away, temp will rise fast. you can also try ice packs to help lower the chamber temp.

10

They’ll actually have closer to 48 hrs, given some revisions to the schedule (this happens when you have offspring!).

I have to go with separate vessels, as I don’t have anything in the 2L range that will leave enough headspace. I guess I could use a spare 5 gal carboy, but that seems kind of silly…

11

[quote=“HaleBrewer”]They’ll actually have closer to 48 hrs, given some revisions to the schedule (this happens when you have offspring!).[/quote] 2 boys here! 4 & 1 1/2 years.

[quote=“HaleBrewer”]I have to go with separate vessels, as I don’t have anything in the 2L range that will leave enough headspace. I guess I could use a spare 5 gal carboy, but that seems kind of silly…[/quote]I agree!

12

If I was gonna do it, I’d make at least a gal. starter a week ahead of time. Let it ferment out, fridge it, and decant.

13

+1 Denny. Looks like you’ve already made your starters, but according to Mr. Malty calc, u’d need a 5L starter for 1082 OG with 1 yeast pack. and that’s redonkulous. A 2L stepped-up once would give you 300billion cells, which is enough http://billybrew.com/stepping-up-a-yeast-starter (this chart has been super helpful to me.) So step-up w/ decanting seems the way IMHO.

Cheers.

14

Well, I am old enough to know that I should not be discounting the advice of people who’ve been there before…

So, I’m going to have some patience…I’ll step up the 2L starter to a 5L, and wait on the Barleywine until next weekend. Maybe do the cream ale tomorrow. What is a week when you’re looking at a multi-month/year timeline, eh?

To accomplish that I presume I need only create 5L of 1.030ish wort and pitch the decanted yeast from the two 1L starters I have going right now…right?

Would it be a good idea to stash this huge sack of grain in the chest freezer since its already been crushed?

Thanks All…

15

Smart man!

I don’t think you need to worry about putting the graiin the freezer for a week. Just keep it in a sealed bag in a relatively cool, dry place.

16

I was never happy with my attempts at a barley wine until I pitched onto a secondary yeast cake. My latest attempt I brew my variation on the innkeeper 1st and then pitched the barley wine on that beers secondary that yeast cake. Came out great.

Also if you are bottling (assuming natural CO2 and not filling from a keg), YMMV but my experience has been that you are going to have to add fresh yeast at bottling. Nothing worse than opening your first BW after waiting several months only to have it be flat :cheers:

17

I began stepping up to a 1.5 gallon starter yesterday morning…having begun with 2 1L starters w/ 1/2 smack pack in each.

That ought to be enough, no?

18

Yep.