I think my barleywine is ready for bottling. I brewwed on 5/23, reracked and dryhopped on 6/9, racked off of hops on 6/17.
O.G = 1.18 F.G.= 1.042 ABV = 18.7
I have been kegging for awhile, but I want to bottle this beer to age it longer, and I was wondering about the sugar vs. yeast preperation for bottling. Do I use sugar and how much, do I use yeast and how much, do I use both ???
Thanks
Michael
Wow, that’s a nice strong barleywine.
You should add both corn sugar to prime and some additional yeast. How much depends on temperature of the wort, batch volume, and the desired level of carbonation. For a 5 gallon batch of beer at 66F about 3.5 oz of corn sugar would get you 2.2 volumes of CO2 in the bottle.
with an 18+% abv bw, force carb it in a keg, and then use a CP filler or a beer gun to bottle. Don’t worry about getting oxygen in the beer (don’t try, just don’t worry, this is a big beer) and bottle. Letting the yeast do the priming on this beer is questionable, as it is on any real big beer.
Smart man this is
Our club brewed an over the top Quad (15%) and they tried to bottle condition some of it…FAIL
Hmm, good to know. I just bottled my 11.5% wee heavy. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out.
11.5% should be fine, esp if you re-yeast - 12-13% is the breakpoint, from what I understand.
I’ve learned from trial and error to keg and force carb as Fred has indicated…then use my Blichmann beer gun to bottle the big beers. Reyeasting is hit or miss.
+1
I do the same.
I recently bottled a six-pack of 14.5% beer with some rehydrated dry yeast, just as a test. It actually carbonated fully within about a month. At 18%, I don’t think I would try. I certainly wouldn’t chance it with the entire batch.
Was it really an original gravity of 1.180? Or is that a typo and the original gravity was 1.118?
the abv supports it being 1.180
18+% with a 1.118 would be a fairly dry beer
wished I had seen this a few months ago. After a couple of years of using the beer gun, I went back to try bottle conditioning my Bigs again. Not too happy with it so far.
It would if it was correct.
How do you know your alcohol %? You don’t measure it directly do you?
I bet he calculated it from 1.180, but the real o.g. was 1.118.
you need to chew through 137 gravity points to get ~18% abv.
looks like his calcs are pretty close to me.
Oh, I think his calcs are correct, but he is using incorrect o.g. numbers.
GIGO
Thanks for the help. I will keg and then bottle from keg as recommended. the readings are correct, 1.18 OG and 1.042 FG as recorded by my hydrometer. I don’t own a blichman, but I have bottled before without one for a 8) 8)contest by just letting the beer flow into the bottles with a very low pressure. Do ya think that would work ???
Consider a picnic tap with tubing stuffed in it to fill from the bottom of the bottle.
Fred
Well, my apologies. That’s quite some barleywine. What was the recipe?
also have problems bottle-conditioning big beers but my problems with consistency tend to start w/ OGs around 1090. I do re-yeast upon bottling as well. I’m switching to force carb for big beers.
I do wonder why the Belgian commercial brewers are more successful with this–maybe they are able to keep the bottle-conditioning beer warmer?