Biab Barleywine

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Yeah that sounds pretty right. Even beyond 90 minutes is probably not adding much.

I believe you are correct but Manticle was talking about something completely different. He suggested that a boil longer than 2 hours might degrade the bittering compounds that are already in the wort, he said nothing about adding bittering compounds in the period after 2 hours boiling. Indeed it is an interesting point and would make a good side by side comparison.
 
120 minutes is about the maximum time you want to boil hops before the bittering effect starts becoming lost due to changes in the compounds.

That's from what I've read, not tried so might be interesting to do a small batch one day and test a side by side.

It should be fine to run the boil for 30 minutes before the first hop addition and then go for another 90 minutes, right?
 
I've started experimenting with dark and light honey to boost the OG of my bigger BIAB beers, and I think it could work well in a Barleywine.

I now prefer using honey to simple sugars, as I feel it can add more depth of flavor, and also allows you to balance colour better than dark sugars can - give it a go :icon_cheers:
 
I'd mash high and pour a bucketload of candi syrup(s) in it, but that's just me. It's the most delicious way to add alcohol ever.

All malt big beers are just too "thick" for my liking. I reckon the Monks got it right with all the sugaz they use.
 
Thanks for the idea OP, but that's where the fun stopped......

Decided to do an American barley wine to use up some malt and see how BIAB would stand up. Brew day was going along OK until i hoisted the bag and about 4 kg of grain poured out the side and back into the kettle, didn't tie in section of the bag :angry: After a short period of running around like the bloke in dads army, Don't panic, Don't panic!!! \permission was granted!!i came up with a plan to take a simple 1V and turn it into 5...... what a bloody mess and took about 5 hours.

Long story short, recovered from the mayhem to achieve 60% of 1.105 into the fermenter, no sparge etc, just a 2 hour boil, so all in all turned out ok.

IMAG0203.jpg
 
Why isn't that maid wearing a little white cap thing and pink stilettos?


OK thread officially derailed.
 
It should be fine to run the boil for 30 minutes before the first hop addition and then go for another 90 minutes, right?

Absolutely. Run the boil for 200 minutes before the first hop addition if you need to - you will get boil-off/evap, darkening of wort, concentration, maillard reactions and protein and tannin precipiation, SMM conversion and DMS reduction etc.

It's just the hops you don't want to overboil - before adding you can go for broke.

Please note: My understanding of this comes from reading the Classic Beer Styles book 'Barleywine' as I've never personally boiled hops for 120+ minutes to verify what they suggest.
 
I ended up brewing this a few months ago and haven't gotten around to posting yet. Overall I was pretty happy with it and can confirm that these high gravity beers can be brewed via BIAB. However there is significant increase in time and expense.

Grain Bill.
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7.00 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White)
1.50 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White)
0.50 kg Crystal (Joe White)
0.20 kg DME Golden Light (Briess)
0.25 kg Candi Sugar, Dark

I mashed at about 64C for 90 mins. Lifted that bag out and let it drain into the kettle as I brought the remainder up to the boil. I estimated that I would hav around 25 litres at the start of the boil with the aim of reducing it to 20. I let the boil run for 60mins before the first hop addition and then for 60mins after that.

I was aiming for 20 litres into the no-chill cube and think I went just under that. So all was fine on brewday and I calculated a SG of 1.097 which should have given me a mash efficiency of 65% which is more than I expected, especially considering that I lost some wort to the ground when draining the bag. However when I cam back the next day to put the wort in the fermenter with the yeast I noticed an obscene amount of trub in the cube. I ended up with around 16 litres in the fermenter which knocked my efficiency down to about 55%!

Fermentation went along smoothly except for one point where the temp rose just above 20C. This was only brief, I think it was caused by an extremely vigorous fermentation.

ABV is just over 11%. I hope that the yeast can cope and that the bottle conditioning will work. I used Wyeast 1028 and it says that it can tolerate around 12% ABV so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

It is still in the bottles now and I haven't had a taste. Will post again when I do.
 
Trub won't affect your mash efficiency, only your into-fermenter efficiency.
 
[SIZE=10pt]Digging up an older thread here rather than starting another. FYI, I am a BIAB brewer. I brew primarily in a 40L Birko urn but also have a couple of the trusty 19L BigW pots. I’m looking to brew 20L of Barleywine.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]I’ve done a fair bit of research on BIAB Barleywine and have come across a couple of different approaches that would work with my setup. [/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Method 1 - the double mash, i.e. mash 5kg of grain in the urn. Remove the grain, maybe a small sparge in a BIG W pot, then mash the second batch (4 - 5kg) in the wort left in the urn. Based on this method, I’d sparge the second mash in particular and aim for a bit more of a preboil volume and go for a 2hr boil in the urn.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]Method 2 – Concurrent mashes in 2 vessels, i.e. mash 6kg in the urn and another 3-4 kgs in a Big W pot with a second bag. Then do a concurrent 2 hour boil in 2 vessels (the urn and a big W pot). I’d have to do the math on this but by doing a double mash I’d end up with a much larger pre boil volume. This would be offset by the fact that I’m boiling 2 vessels so have a much higher boil off rate. The aim for both would be to have around 20L in total going into the fermentor. I wouldn’t be doing full volume mashes in both vessels or I’d have to boil for too long to end up with 10L of wort post boil in each vessel. I’d split the hops into the 2 vessels.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10pt]I’m sure both are feasible but does anyone have any suggestions on which method would be best?[/SIZE]
 
bump for evening crowd
 
Historically they would just keep the first third of the runnings (best extract point) for a Barley wine and the rest would be kept for a small beer.
You need to do your brew calcs but it aint hard, and you end up with two beers. Some call it party gyle I just say make a big beer and a small one.
Sorry, my not reading properly!
Ok second thoughts its BIAB, do a big boil off, like 50%, still do the calcs, long boils suit these beers.
 
Big 78 Sam. How'd you go with this. I'm planning a Biab barley wine soon (after I brew a low grav pale ale to get a nice yeast cake) got a good recipe?
 
I'm thinking about having a crack at one early next year for next years Christmas. So far the plan is to mash 5kg at 2.5L/kg at 67, mash out and then sparge at 5L, then repeat for another 5kg. Combine mash and boil for based upon pre-boil gravity to attain around 10-11% and then sparge the rest of the grains in attempt to get another beer out of the left over sugars. This is based on 60% mash eff. which may be an over-estimate. I'll keep researching to come up with a decent grain bill and hop schedule.
 
I'm a birko guy and when I'm doing big beers (10kg or so) I do the double mash method. Efficiency for me comes down to about 65 - 70 but I get good beer at the end anyway.

2c
 
hwall95 said:
I'm thinking about having a crack at one early next year for next years Christmas. So far the plan is to mash 5kg at 2.5L/kg at 67, mash out and then sparge at 5L, then repeat for another 5kg. Combine mash and boil for based upon pre-boil gravity to attain around 10-11% and then sparge the rest of the grains in attempt to get another beer out of the left over sugars. This is based on 60% mash eff. which may be an over-estimate. I'll keep researching to come up with a decent grain bill and hop schedule.
For my one and only English Barley Wine BIAB to date, I went with a smaller final volume (targetting 9 litres, ended up with 8 1/2 after racking to a demijohn). Just under 5kg of grain. 90 minute boil, hopped from 60 minutes to about 70 IBU. Was just manageable as a stovetop brew for me. Did this back in winter, with Nottingham as the yeast. Seems to be progressing well in bottle. Rasin & melanoidin flavours are there. I plan to crack into them next winter.
 
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