I'm contemplating a barleywine in the next month or so. I've got a mild that I'm going to ferment with Wyeast 1084 and I'm thinking of just putting the barleywine on the yeast once the mild is in bottles. Here's my issue. I only have a 5 gallon carboy and I'm debating doing a 3 gallon batch. So if I go that route and can't bulk condition, would there be a significant difference? At any rate, I'm not planning on starting to drink this for at least 9-10 months. TIA
Assuming your carboy is of uniform width, the amount of wort/beer exposed to oxygen would be the same until you get up to the neck/shoulder of the carboy. That being said, there will be some oxidation from gravity readings. How much oxidation is a matter of debate. If it were me, I would do the following: Make as much as possible and be prepared for blowoff (you get more beer for the same amount of work/time) Add wort nutrients to help ensure the best possible fermentation Oxygenate with straight O2 prior to pitching and again as you start vigorous fermentation Some people would recommend transferring to a smaller vessel to get your beer off the yeast cake and fill up to the shoulder/neck of the carboy to minimize long term oxygen exposure. Obviously the transfer would introduce O2 with the benefit of getting your beer off the yeast. I wouldn't say that's a bad idea.
If you can't fill the carboy for the aging then I would bottle. I've tried aging with that much head space before, I've tried purging as well as adding anti oxidants, nothing worked, got poor results. I now bottle smaller batches for aging.
Regardless of the batch size, I would primary for 4-5 weeks and either transfer to secondary if I do 5 gallons or bottle if only 3. My question more specifically is: is there a benefit to bulk aging vs. bottle conditioning? Let's say I did 5 gallons and went straight to bottling after primary. Presumably less oxygen would be introduced because there's one less transfer, but would that affect this beer in an appreciable way for better or worse? At the risk of starting another violent thread on the subject: what's the point of secondary if I can (would I?) get nearly identical results if I did primary for about a month and moved straight to bottles?
Ah - I totally missed the bulk vs bottle of your question, sorry about that. I would think that bottling leaves less room for oxidation so long as your technique is solid. Bottling from a keg with co2 purge is obviously idea here. Not to mention you'd free up carboy space once you bottle. In that case I'd likely bottle unless you intended on adding fruit/wood/etc in secondary. I'm of the opinion that primary for one month, then direct to bottles is fine. Other opinions are that the beer will clear more quickly in secondary. I would only secondary if my beer was sitting on the yeast cake for many months. I would say many months = more than 3 for a high gravity beer.
I like to get big beers I intend to age off of that yeast but I think you'll be fine bottling. It is tougher to avoid drinking beers that are already bottled though! In cases like this I do an approximate 3.5gallon batch so when racked it will completely fill a 3g Better Bottle. Or age in a keg where I don't care about head space.
You will get varied positions on this. Even doing a side by side some people would like the bulk and some would like the bottle. I prefer to bottle after four weeks on the yeast. Good luck
Yeah, this might be a straight to bottles scenario. Honestly, I'm not terribly concerned with oxidation since I feel like it can be a positive thing in English barleywine to an extent. I just don't feel like cleaning the carboy. Also, with the weight of the grain + water it'll weigh close to 70 pounds if I do a 5 gal batch. The sad fact is I'm just a little too short to heft my mash tun onto my counter at that weight.
I would definitely bottle it after primary. It may take a couple months to carb up, so you might as well use the aging time to carbonate the beer. Anyway, after your aging period (9-10 months), it's not like you're going to drink it all in 2 weeks. My guess is that you'll drink it over a few years. During that time, the beer will be in separate bottles, and bulk aging won't be occurring. I'd only bulk age if you were planning on storing it on oak for a while (or maybe hit it with brett).
You might also consider buying one gallon glass growlers or a 3 gal carboy to rack over to. Gallon growlers work great for experiments, and I would INSIST that you oak a gallon of your barley wine when you do it this way. You might get a little oxidation on one of the gallon growlers, but you could very easily make sure that 2 gal are filled to the brim on the other growlers.
