I posted last week about how I was brewing an English Barleywine first and then an English Pale Ale second from the same grains. I’ll give a brief review of what I did, you may find it funny, then get to my question.
In the instructions for the barleywine it said that I may end up with a pre-boil gravity of about 1.070 so to top it off with some light DME to get me to an OG of 1.100. Well, I miss read it (too many homebrews during the brew session) and thought it said a pre-boil gravity of 1.100. Thank the Beer Gods I noticed my folly, but not before adding 3lbs of DME bringing the pre-boil to 1.090. Well, I ended up with an OG of 1.200 for my barleywine. I made a hell of a starter so it’s still fermenting steadily since last Friday. To make it even worse, I made the same mistake with my English Pale Ale, but caught myself before adding too much. I was very happy to find that if I never added the DME, my numbers would have been RIGHT on target. Always a good feeling. Either way, beer has been made.
I fermented my pale ale with two packets of rehydrated Nottingham yeast. Those yeast burnt through that sugar in about 1 day. Amazing. But what I found was that for my pale ale having an OG of 1.060 (remember I added 3lbs DME) rather than an OG of 1.042 has a very strong malt character. I used 1oz Fuggle @ 60min, 1oz Kent Golding @ 45 min, and 1oz Styrian at flame out, but there is very little hops. I think with the high gravity I threw the balance out.
So here’s my question: I am thinking about dry hopping for both the barleywine and pale ale in the secondary. I want the hops to linger in the barleywine until my first drink one year from now and I want an nice hop character in my pale ale. I have never dry hopped, but I feel this is the way to get the hop flavor to be in the beer and to linger for the long aging process. Anyone recomment a good hop for these style of beers? How much should I use?
