Extract Barleywine gone wrong

So, I brewed a Barleywine a few months ago and have come to the conclusion, after a huge amount of testing, that the LME I used had been bumped up with non-fermentable sugars. I can’t get the Barleywine above 5.5% and it’s still INCREDIBLY sweet. The yeast in there has a huge alcohol tolerance. I added a little corn sugar to test and the yeast started right back up fermenting like a champ. So. Now that I have the stuff to get back into all grain brewing anyway, I figured I will get some good base malts and make some wort to add and sort this out.
How much base malt would folk recommend to get this into the, say, 9% range?

[quote=“Dreadgerbil”]So, I brewed a Barleywine a few months ago and have come to the conclusion, after a huge amount of testing, that the LME I used had been bumped up with non-fermentable sugars. I can’t get the Barleywine above 5.5% and it’s still INCREDIBLY sweet. The yeast in there has a huge alcohol tolerance. I added a little corn sugar to test and the yeast started right back up fermenting like a champ. So. Now that I have the stuff to get back into all grain brewing anyway, I figured I will get some good base malts and make some wort to add and sort this out.
How much base malt would folk recommend to get this into the, say, 9% range?[/quote]

How much and what brand of extract did you use, how long did you ferment it for, and which yeast did you use?
By my reckoning, you’d need to use around 12 lbs of LME to hit that ABV.

For all grain, I’m guessing off the top of my head that you’d need around 16-17 lbs of 2-row to hit 9%, unless of course you use some sugar as well. Even though I brew from grain, I always use a percentage of muscovado sugar in mine for a more traditional BW.

What are your gravity readings? What are you using to check your gravity? Have you been spinning the hydrometer to get the air bubbles off of it?