I’m thinking it is about time I brewed an English style barleywine. The last time I brewed one was about 20 years ago and it was an extract batch at that time (BTW I still have some and last time I tasted it was incredible!)
I would like to do an all grain batch with an OG >1.100. Does anyone have any thoughts about malt bills? I was thinking about doing about 25 pounds (~5 gallon batch size) of grain. My thought was to use 100% good maris otter malt. My thought was that this beer will be big enough that there will be enough depth and sweetness of malt without anything else like crystal malts. Does anyone out there have any thoughts?
You can’t go wrong with 100% MO, but if it’s that big, you may want 5-10% simple sugar to help it attenuate. I use Lyle’s Golden Syrup in mine, but that’s mainly just because it’s English. I’m sure plain old table sugar would do you just as well.
I like a pretty dry barleywine but I have to disagree with the sugar. no need. if you mash long and low enough and use the right yeast it could get down to 1.015 which is about as low as I would want it.
My favorite simple barley wine recipe right now is 100% munich, about 25 lbs first runnings only. (second runnings capped with a bit of medium crystal make a nice ordinary bitter as well) mash at ~2 qt/lb at 148 for 90+ minutes no mash out.
last time I brewed the 100% munich I mashed 11.34 kg munich with 38 liters water (recently switched beersmith to metric) Looks like this time I mashed at 153 for 120 minutes (based on that presentation at last years NHC about best fermentability being acheived around there. and ran off about 27 liters.
pre-boil was 1.074 post boil was 1.100. that one actually stopped at 1.030 so it’s pretty malty still.