My barley wine is sitting at .035. OG was 1.120 5 weeks ago. Lots of sediment in secondary. Temp 68. Should i wait more or do something to get it lower? Looking for .026. I would prefer to bottle instead of bulk aging. Thanks!
You’re at 70.5% apparent attenuation. What yeast? Grain bill? Mash temp?
At nearly done you could rouse the yeast and bump temp to 72° ish. Might get a few more points
Without knowing the specifics (grain bill, yeast strain, mash temp, pitch rate and dissolved oxygen amounts), I’d say you’re finished, especially since it’s been 5 weeks. Have you measured a drop in FG over a few days time? If not, I’d say you’re definitely finished with that initial pitch.
1.035 from 1.120 isn’t bad, it’s nearly 71% attenuation, which is pretty good for such a large beer. Consider that the beer is around 11% alcohol, which is a toxic environment for a lot of yeast strains.
Getting large beers to ferment low is a challenge. Common tips are to pitch the proper amount of yeast. This beer needed around 600 billion healthy yeast cells for a 5 gallon batch. Also, its recommended to inject pure O2 prior to inoculating and around 12 hours after inoculation to ensure there’s enough available oxygen for the yeast to synthesize sterols and fatty acids in order to build strong cell membranes. It’s also common to turn the heat up after primary fermentation has slowed down to really crank out those last few points to increase the yeast activity.
+1. That’s what I would do. If you rouse and there’s no change after a week @ 72F or so, then I’d call it done. You should post your recipe as said.
I am VERY satisfied with a 1.035 FG for an English BW. IMHO it’s the sweet spot. American BW I like a bit drier.
That said the beer is done when the beer is done. But to say where your beer is the recipe and process, mash temp, mash length, rousing routine, size of pitch (I like to use an entire yeast cake for this) all matter.
Grains was 45% pils _35% maris otter _ 3% special b 180 and dark candi syrup and lyles golden syrup. Got recipe on this forum and did it a few months ago no prob. This is first time i havnt dropped to final gravity. 3 gallon batch. Belgium abbey II 1762 3 litre starter. Mashed around 152 but it was 35 degrees so had some fluctuation and had to keep adding heat. My new stir plate would have been handy for this batch. Think tomorrow i will rouse yeast and bring temp up 7 degrees or so. Thanks for idears
Starter might have been a bit small. You can certainly try rousing and raising the temp a bit, but since it’s 5 weeks out the yeast may have given up the ghost. Still, FG is where the yeast decides it should be, not the recipe. 1.035 is perfectly acceptable for a beer of this size. How does it taste?
This was my question, how does it taste, is it still sweet or does it taste done?
Get a growler of slurry from a friendly local brew pub. and pitch the entire growler. The idea being a FULL working population of fresh yeast. The variety is not as important as the size, the basic fermentation characteristics of you indended yeast are already there. You are not pitching to grow yeast, you are adding yeast to possibly finish fermenting to your final gravity.
I think it tastes great. A little bitter of course but aging will take care of that. Recognize the recipe erockrph? Thanks for all the ideas. I was worried about bottle bombs more than anything else
Then you can do a fast ferment test to see if there are fermentables left. No fermentables, no bottle bombs, no matter what the FG.
I do 
Glad it worked out for ya!
+1 to Denny’s suggestion about the fast ferment test if you’re worried about bottle bombs.
Is this like a hybrid? a Barley-Quad-Wine?
Good idea on fast ferment test. I had to google that. If it aint on google it doesnt exist. There was alot of discussion on the style in original post here https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=12743.0
Bingo. When I first brewed this I was shooting for a cross between Thomas Hardy’s Ale and La Trappe Dubbel, but leaning more towards the English Barleywine side. Sort of like an English BW with some of those dark Belgian flavor characteristics. It actially ended up more like right in between the two - fuller than a Quad, but not as heavy as a big English BW.
It sounds like Rodmanxxx’s version may end up closer to what I was shooting for in the first place. Mine went 1.110-1.026 and drinks like a big red wine. At 1.035 it may drink more like a sherry, and that’s not a bad thing.
So i brought temp up for 2 days n roused yeast then let temp drop back to 68. Still 1.035. Will bottle on saturday. I think u right erockrph i definitely get a more sweeter sherry as opposed to dry red wine in it. Cant wait till next year to taste this again.
I would have given it longer than two days at a higher temp. IME, the yeast work more slowly at the finish of really big beer particularly if it seems as though it might have stalled.
I brewed a quad about two years ago (Denny’s 400th recipe and for my 40th) that seemed to stall at around 1.035, IIRC. It may have been in the high 20s. Given time, gentle rousing, and some warmth it finished in the teens. I think it took about two months to get to a steady terminal gravity.
I’ve only had bottle bombs once, and it was really only one bottle that cracked the rest are just grossly over carbonated, and that came from bottling a big beer when I thought it was done and it was not. I put most of it into champagne bottles and those are fine but one swing top grolsch bottle broke open at the bottom.
Ya I guess I should have given it more than 2 days at the higher temp. But it did not move down at all, still at 1.035. I misinformed on the estimated final gravity, according to beersmith it should be 1.029, so I am calling it done with the yeast that is in there right now. I don;t really want to add more yeast as others have suggested (good ideas though, including bonjour idea of getting slurry from my local friendly brewery). I would prefer the sweeter taste I am getting now. My new concern is bottling and not getting any carbonation. Since the bottles will be sitting for at least a year, do you think I will get any carbonation? I was planning on 2.2 vols.
If you don’t think i will get carbonation, then is the next best thing to add a pinch of dry yeast to each bottle. That scares me. And if so, what yeast, would us5 be better than champagne yeast which would dry it out more?
Oy, thanks man!
A fast ferment test definitely needs to be your first step here. Bottling a beer that may have stalled is just plain dangerous. And with the beer being racked off of most of the yeast, there’s little chance that a stalled fermentation could be restarted.
FWIW, Beersmith isn’t actually estimating an FG. It’s just using the attenuation level that you set (or the default if you haven’t changed it). The recipe isn’t taken into consideration.
Assuming an FFT shows that it hasn’t stalled and can be bottled, I would definitely add fresh yeast. Dry is fine, just rehydrate about one gram and add it to the bottling bucket. Don’t throw the dry yeast directly into a high-gravity beer though. Strain doesn’t really matter for this, so I’d pick something flocculent like Nottingham or S-04.
And the idea that champagne yeast will dry out a beer is a myth. It can’t attenuate any sugars that brewer’s yeast can’t also ferment. If there’s a gravity drop after repitching with champagne yeast, it’s because the initial pitch stalled out above the attenuation limit of the wort.
I think this myth comes from the idea that champagne yeast has a higher listed alcohol tolerance than beer yeast, so if a beer yeast gives up because it has passed its alcohol tolerance, then (theoretically) the champagne yeast can keep going.
I think this idea is flawed because a) most beer strains can go quite a bit higher than their published tolerance if they are taken care of properly - well beyond the alcohol level all but the largest of barleywines and b) unless you pitched a big, healthy, hungry starter, I doubt even champagne yeast are going to be happy when pitched into beer that is already 12-14+% ABV - if that is truly the reason the original yeast gave up the ghost.
If you really thought that you maxed out the alcohol tolerance of your original yeast, then you’d probably be best off with something like eau de vie or distiller’s yeast. But even then, I’m not sure if they’d be much help if they’re not getting to the party until the beer is already in the double-digits.