so i made a beer that should end up about 11% ABV and has a kg of dextrose in it. i wanted a dry barleywine with oak.
i envisioned this as a very lightly carbonated (under 1.1) sipper. the FG should be maximum 1.017, im estimating 1.014
however now that i need to decide how much dextrose ill use to bottle, im second guessing this. i know that 3.0+ will be guaranteed to blast the aroma up into one’s nose.
in any case, what are your suggestions or experiences?
Purely personal preference, but I%u2019d say stick with your original plan. Lean into the wine in the barleywine.
thanks, ill see what others say but thats one strong vote.
ill embarass myself and explain my actual concept further. high ABV ale, 2row, little vienna, 1lb oak smoked wheat and 1/2lb amber malt. 1kg dextrose, so hoping it ends up very dry. used 2xbry97 and 1xbe256 in the hope the be256 might make a little bit of higher alcohol (it’s also POF-, so no cloves i hope). oak it. and let it sit for a long time. low to no carbonation and i can have a sort of pseudo-whiskey drink.
I agree that high carbonation is undesirable. It tends to accentuate the booziness of big beers and fermentation issues that are more common in big beers like phenolics.
I shoot for something more like 1.8 v/v. Below that beers seem too flat for my taste assuming a serving temp of 50-55F. If you are serving at room temp I probably would go for 1.5 v/v.
I make an American Barleywine every year and I prefer a decent amount of carbonation around 2.5
In fact, this year’s took a long time to carbonate (I bottle condition) and I tried it at different times with varying levels of carbonation and I really like it much better now that it is around 2.5 with a nice long lasting head. To me the carbonation helps cut through the thick malt flavor and heavy mouth feel, but this is simply my personal preference and maybe you wouldn’t share the same opinion of taste.
thanks drew, kramerog and dannyjed. i think it will depend on the FG and characteristics of the beer, hard to tell at this point i guess. but your arguments are p clear, thats why im split.
Suggestion - keg it, and then carbonate it to your liking. Then bottle it.
This technique did very well for us with our Barleywine entry (10.5% ABV) at the Bluebonnet.
Not a bad suggestion, but barleywine is often stored a long time and force caring isn’t the best way to do that. Best I’ve ever done in a comp was a 5 year old BW .
Our BW was 10 months old at the time of judging. It aged very well in the keg. That is why I made the suggestion, as it is so easy to fine tune the CO2 level while in the keg.
Now you got me thinking…sit on this one for a couple more years!
Yeah, you should. If nothing else it’s interesting to see how it changes. One of the few styles that can actually benefit from oxidation.
I have learned over the years that the best way to package a Barleywine is to bottle condition it. Of course, if you can tie up a keg for over a year than I suppose that would work as well. I have tried a beer gun and counter flow, but bottle conditioning has worked best. I recently did vertical tasting of my Barleywines (1-5 years old) with my Homebrew Club and the overwhelming favorite was the 5 year old.
yup, i only bottle still. im trying to do a big beer every now and then and bottling in 330ml bottles, so i can keep some around for longer periods of time. it allows some long-term storage testing and also creates the potential for a nice surprise rather than just choosing from the 2 or 3 beers on deck at any one time.
@dannjyed, re: the 5 year old. any notes on what made the 5 year old better?
mad fermentationist (what happened to his blog anyway?) has a few articles comparing differently aged big beers which are neat
No, I don’t have any notes beside the other club members said that the 5 year had the most depth of character with a nice blend of malt and American hops. I have always scored well with my Barleywine in competitions including the NHC, but the most enjoyable experience is having a vertical tasting with my wife and friends in the winter months and comparing the different years. I also change the recipe all the time because I can’t just leave well enough alone.
We have a good supply of kegs, and aging different beers is part of our normal practice. I like the flexibility kegs offer, being able to easily pull a sample now and then, and comparing this month’s flavor profile to last month’s flavor.
I have a 2.5 gallon keg also, that is great for aging smaller size batches, or a split brew.
Our Barleywine just turned one year old now, still in the same keg. I do not bottle beer, except to give away and for competitions.
This brings up a question. Why would aging beer be better in a glass bottle than in a stainless steel keg? Has anyone done side-by-side blind taste tests? I bet someone has!
And how about cask-conditioning, or simply keg-conditioning?
Well-brewed kegged beers can store well, usually at relatively cold temperatures (around 4°C [40°F], the average temperature for normal storage of non-pasteurized kegged beer), for 10 years or more.
He went pro, I think, and got busy with that.
I dunno, but I just listened to an interview with a Belgian brewer (De Ranke, if my memory isn’t failng me) who said they can tell the difference even between bottle conditioning upright vs. bottling conditioning horizontally… Surface area vs. volume or something like that. 
They must have a hyper-sense of taste!
I (and my friends) can readily tell the difference between beer on draft vs beer in bottles. With the keg beer always winning the flavor test.
We had the same experience recently. I had saved one bottle of a Helles last year that was entered in a competition. We had some on draft in my bar also. In a side-by-side comparison, the keg beer was much better. Not even close. That bottled example actually won a medal, which shocked me.
Beer conditioned in a keg should be as good as beer conditioned in a bottle. Maybe even better, as no light can affect the beer. Is not cask conditioned ale wildly popular?
I don’t think glass vs stainless is why folks tend to age by bottle conditioning. I keg almost all of my beer but when I make a bigger beer I bottle condition at least some and store the bottles at cellar temps. I don’t have the space in my kegerator for an extra keg for years and find individual bottles convenient. A side benefit is that I enjoy big beers at cellar temperature as opposed to refrigerated temperature.
I would tend to agree … without some blind tests to back it up. Since Fred says he only bottles, maybe we can convince him to store half the bottles sideways and report back on 12-month intervals ??
Edit: Actually, it’s about time to brew my own next batch of winter-warmer Christmas ale. Maybe I’ll try that myself.
Perhaps we will do a “cask conditioned” beer. I bought a bunch of kegs, knowing the prices were going way up. So we have enough for extended aging. Might set one of our ferment / aging rooms (i.e., freezers) at a cellar temperature for this.
Having never done this before, how much sugar would be needed in a 5 gallon keg to condition a high gravity beer? Like a Stout or a Barleywine?