Bottle conditioning a barley wine

fbsf · Mar 4, 2013

Hi all,

My IIPA/Barley wine has been in bottles at room temperature for about 3 weeks now. As I completely failed to bottle a couple of PETs to check on carbonation, I popped one of the glass bottles in the fridge for a few hours and tried it.

It opened with barely a pfft and there was no life in the beer at all. It also still tastes quite sweet.

Should I have added some extra/different yeast for bottling, given it went from an OG of 1.085 down to about 1.018?

graysalchemy · Mar 4, 2013

My 8.5% barley wine never carbonated, however i successfully carbonated a 9.5% scottish heavy and an 8.5% elderberry stout. I put it down to the fact that I bulk aged it for 6 weeks in a fv on a cold concrete floor were as the others I did not. I am sure that it was devoid of yest and thus didn't carbonate. I keep on saying to myself that I will re seed it but never get round to it. Nice beer just no carbonation.

:thumb:

boozy_shoes · Mar 4, 2013

When was it brewed? and where was it kept in the other stages? The beer I brewed 2/1/13 is struggling for carbonation even still and I put it down to the cold weather we had at the start of the year and me being tight with heating. Putting it in the fridge will make it seem flatter too.

In the past i've had a 8.5% Imperial Stout, 8.8% Barley Wine and a 10.2% Barley Wine Condition fine all after 4-6 weeks bulk conditioning. But I did make them april/may when it was a bit warmer. I was going to do my Barley wine for xmas this year soon but I think I might hold out a bit longer.

graysalchemy · Mar 4, 2013

Mine was made in the autumn of 2011 so it was colder though it was kept at 21c for two weeks, once bottled. As I have said never had a problem since due to not bulk conditioning.

fbsf · Mar 4, 2013

It was kept for 3 weeks in the warm to ferment, then moved to the garage (12Â°) for a week, then bottled.

It's then sat in the warmish (probably 16-18) for three weeks. It was very cloudy when I poured it though, so either there is a lot of haze from the hop tea, or it needs to be quite a bit warmer.

I'll take the temp of my airing cupboard and see if that's suitable. From memory though that might be a bit too high...

Shame though, as the hop flavours are coming through lovely - it's just too sweet without the CO2 balancing it!

Bottle conditioning a barley wine

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Bottle conditioning a barley wine

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