Barleywine stuck at 1.060 ... help please??

My vote is brew a 1.040 IPA mashed at 150, and blend them. Maybe 1/2 and 1/2 ratio. Pitch that super high ABV tolerant yeast, let it sit for a day or 2, and then blend them. Your small IPA will basically act as another starter.

 

I agree that blending with a lower gravity beer is the best way to salvage this batch. Just pay attention to the resulting IBU's.

The main issues with your original approach have already been identified in this thread, but here is my somewhat repetitive feedback anyway...

1. A paint stirrer used for 30 seconds won't give you adequate dissolved oxygen for a beer that big

2. Even if you did adequately oxygenate at the beginning, it would have been advisable to add a second dose of oxygen at the 10-18 hour mark for such a large beer

3. London Ale yeast can not come close to the type of abv you were shooting for

4. San Diego Super Yeast is more alcohol tolerant, but might have only gotten you down to 1.030 if you did everything perfect (including pitching enough of it to ferment the entire batch with only it, which you didn't considering some of your yeast cells were london)

OG: 1.144 and FG: 1.030 would be about 15.4% abv and 77% apparent attenuation

As per whitelabs...

WLP013 alcohol tolerance = MEDIUM
WLP090 alcohol tolerance = HIGH

Question:
What are the alcohol tolerances listed on your yeast pages? Please define them for us.

Answer:
Alcohol tolerances are as follows:

+ Low is 2-5%
* Med-Low is 4-8%
* Med is 5-10%
* Med-High is 8-12%
* High is 10-15%
* Very High is 15% +

 

Pitching a small beer onto a large yeast cake will work, but isn't ideal. First off, you will have too much yeast. This can increase acetaldehyde, decrease esters, and possibly lead to blowing krausen through your airlock Second, there will be trub (including potentially autolysed yeast) mixed in with the yeast cake and fermenting a second beer on it can cause off flavors. Third, the yeast in the cake is very tired and stressed from handling the high ABV fermentation it just completed.

You can resolve the first problem by just pitching a portion of the yeast cake into a different fermenter with your new batch. You can resolve the first and second problems by washing the yeast first and then pitching a portion of it in the new beer. You can resolve all three problems by just using new yeast.

NOTE: Don't get me wrong, I repitch on yeast cakes from time to time. I just pitch a bigger beer onto a yeast cake that originally fermented a smaller beer. I also try to avoid doing so with a beer style like a barley wine or RIS because they take a serious amount of conditioning time. Those beers are such an investment in effort, time, and fermentation chamber space, that I don't want to undermine their potential. Now brewing a pale ale and then putting a DIPA onto that yeast cake is more of the way I would go.

 

Sure just realize that if you make the same volume, the best you can hope for is an average of FG #1 (1.060) and FG #2 (probably 1.010 at best) so 1.035 combined. So, if possible, you might want to consider brewing a second batch that is larger in volume than batch two.

 

Keep in mind that your ABV will also be averaged between the two batches.

 

I say it, it gets ignored but some else proposes the idea and wham everyones on board.


lame

 

I'm guessing that, when you typed this, you were too distracted by your wham-burger, french-cries, and whine-ekin to realize that vrbulldog22 made the blending suggestion a good 7 hours before you did?