High Gravity Bottling

My brother and I broke our personal OG record and busted through1.1! OG at 1.126  I normally keg, but we want to bottle this one and age until Christmas.  Should we follow normal procedures or are there issues to watch out for?

There could be issues if the ABV is too high.  But probably you’ll be okay.  Definitely add some extra yeast at bottling time and give it a good while to carb up.

I’ve never had an issue carbonating high gravity beers.  Some have taken awhile, but they’ve all gotten there.

By next Christmas you should be fine.

Rehydrate about 2 g of dry yeast per 5 gal and add it to the bottling bucket along with the sugar. S-04 or Nottingham would be good because they’re so flocculent.

I made a barleywine about 1 1/2 yr ago.  My OG was 1.117.  I added yeast during bottling but I got little to no carbonation.  Hopefully your results will be better.  My next barleywine I make I will consider bottling from a keg.  Just my $.02

Key here is to Rehydrate
do NOT use non - rehydrated yeast at fermentation on a big beer.

at 1.126 you are at the upper edge of being successful with carbonating with a sugar addition at bottling.  it is an iffy thing. I do absolutely suggest force carbonation at 13%+ 1.130+ og.

At this strength, as long as you have healthy yeast, and you keep your bottles at room temp until carbonated, and you let them sit long enough, (keep in mind the bottles will seem to loose carbonation when chilled).  you should be able to bottle carbonate.  I’ve found it usually takes months, not weeks.

To throw a data point out there, I recently bottle-conditioned a 1.122 OG, 14.5% ABV Triple IPA, using 0.5 g of rehydrated Nottingham in a six pack, just to see what would happen. The bottles were fully carbonated after about three weeks.

Are you sure they were fully carbonated, or just carbonated enough?  They could still be going and getting more carbonated . . . just something to consider.

I brewed a 1.112 Barleywine last weekend and plan to force carbonate as opposed to reyeasting prior to bottling. This will assure the proper carbonation level that I would like to achieve.

Yes. :wink:

I’d like to think I’ve done enough brewing, and enough carb checks, to be able to gauge dissolved CO2 by look and feel - certainly within a quarter-volume or so. These were definitely carbed to about the same level as the keg, which is at 2.4 vol.

To the OP- I would recommend force carbing it in the keg and bottling from there.  It would be the easiest and the would guarantee that you have proper carbonation.

Thanks for the info bonjour.  I do still have some of my last barleywine.  The last bottle I tried was relatively flat.  Maybe I didn’t rehydrate the dry yeast before adding it to the finished beer.  When I make my next barleywine perhaps I will try bottle conditioning again.

Cheers!