What to do with this barleywine?

What went wrong? Was this supposed to happen? Should I throw it out? What do I do now?

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celtgirl
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What to do with this barleywine?

Post by celtgirl »

Did a martial mash barleywine with first runnings from the microbrewery that sponsored our homebrew club on Nat'l Homebrew Day. Original OG 1.120 and initially fermented with White Labs High Gravity yeast, fermented to only 1.065 and repitched with champagne yeast and now is at 1.050 after almost 3 months in the fermenter!

Apparently way too many unfermentable sugars. What can I do with this besides use as syrup for pancakes?

Thanks!
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wottaguy
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RE: What to do with this barleywine?

Post by wottaguy »

Hello Celtgirl...

Barleywines are tricky to make. According to your information what you have now is an Apparent Attenuation at about 53.3% and an ABV of 9.4% or so.
You are correct about the unfermentables in your wort and about the lack of simple sugars to help this fermentation along. It is common and needed that you add some simple sugars to your wort. This is usually done before primary fermentation at a rate of 10-20%. You still can add some simple sugars but you will need to be very careful doing it. A winemakers trick is to create a sugar syrup, say 1LB household sugar to a 1/2 pint of sterilized water, then cool it down to your fermentation temp. Then "feed" your brew only 2 or 3 ounces at a time, then monitor the gravity, and repeat until you reach your desired finished gravity or ABV. This will take patience as you have introduced a champagine yeast into the mix. This process will probably take a month or two to perform, but may be well worth the effort in the end. Also, after adding the liquid sugar doseage, make sure you rouse up the yeast to get 'em going again! You can do this by shaking or rocking the fermenter for a few minutes to get them into suspension again.

Hope this helps and please let us know how you make out!
Good Luck!
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celtgirl
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Post by celtgirl »

Thanks for the tip! I will definitely try that and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Should I definitely use table sugar or can I use corn sugar?
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wottaguy
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Post by wottaguy »

Just use what you have on hand!
Visit my blog @ http://www.wottashomebrewblog.blogspot.com

On Tap:
HL Pale Ale
HL Lite Lager
Bottled:
HL Simcoe Pale Ale
HL Wizeguy Weizenbock
HL Reveur Saison
HL Dry Stout
HL Kentucky Common
fitz
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Unfermentables

Post by fitz »

There ia an enzyme called Amalayze Enzyme that can convert some of you unfermentables to fermentables. Usually this is done prior to initiating fermentation, however, since you are having such a problem with them, it is worth a try. This is usually used to reduce chill haze, however chillhaze is a result of the unfermentables being left in the lighter colored beers.
Good Luck.
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