Can you use 100% mild malt or amber malt to make an English barleywine? If you have done so, how did it turn out?
I don’t know about either of those malts specifically although at 27L I don’t know how much diastatic power the amber malt will have left. The mild malt should convert just fine, maybe take a bit longer.
I made a 100% munich english barley wine once and it was okay. super malty. a bit too sweet but that might not have been entirely the fault of the munich.
I’d go for it with the mild malt. There is an old Barclay Perkins recipe from the late 1800’s that uses 100% mild malt for a strong (XXX) ale.
Amber malt is pretty potent stuff at around 10% of the grist. I don’t think I’d go far above that in any recipe.
^^^^^ Good at ~ 10%, but I can’t see using much more, definitely not the whole grist.
Just make sure you mash long and low. A pound or two of pale ale malt wouldn’t hurt as an insurance policy for some extra enzymes.
Ron Pattinson has many historic recipes that use NA malt to get more enzymes and nitrogen into the wort.
The 100 percent mild malt barley wine sounds intriguing. The 100 percent Amber malt BW sounds terrible.
How does this sound:
Mild Malt 9 kg (88.2%)
Amber Malt 1 kg (9.8%)
English Dark Crystal 100g (1%)
English Extra Dark Crystal 100g (1%)
EKG 60g (5.4% AA) @ 60
personally I’d skip the crystal. I liked the 100% mild malt idea. I would go for it. bitter with something neutral and hit it with some EKG and challenger late. maybe some fuggles just to annoy Denny.
An English barley wine with just Pale Ale malt ends up with plenty of malt character.
I recommend a big pitch of 1968. I can’t get enough of that yeast.
It performs very well for me in big beers and just took a RIS down from 1.094 to 1.020. Tastes great now, but needs to age.
+1 to everything here
That’s what Fuller’s Golden Pride is supposed to be comprised of. I made it once with all Pale Malt and it turned out exactly how I’d planned, but lighter in color than the BJCP guidelines suggested.