Something to watch out for...
I had one user (some time ago) who had serious problems making his first Barley Wine so I thought I would post this as a warning to others...
You will NOT get the same efficiency for a batch of barley wine as you do on a normal brew. Barley wine has roughly 2-3 times the amount of grain that a normal brew would have, but roughly the same amount of mash and sparge water (combined).
The net effect is a loss of 10-15% overall brewing efficiency (i.e. if you normally have 75% efficiency your Barley Wine efficiency might be as low as 60%!).
The net effect - PLEASE lower your brewhouse efficiency by 10-15% from the normal value if you want to hit the correct target gravity.
Another quick tip - if you take second runnings (i.e. after you finished sparging your barley wine) from the spent grains you will still have strong enough wort to make a nice 1.035 (or so) gravity regular beer. To do this is called "Party Gyle" brewing - making more than one beer of differing strength from the same grains.
Cheers!
Brad
I had one user (some time ago) who had serious problems making his first Barley Wine so I thought I would post this as a warning to others...
You will NOT get the same efficiency for a batch of barley wine as you do on a normal brew. Barley wine has roughly 2-3 times the amount of grain that a normal brew would have, but roughly the same amount of mash and sparge water (combined).
The net effect is a loss of 10-15% overall brewing efficiency (i.e. if you normally have 75% efficiency your Barley Wine efficiency might be as low as 60%!).
The net effect - PLEASE lower your brewhouse efficiency by 10-15% from the normal value if you want to hit the correct target gravity.
Another quick tip - if you take second runnings (i.e. after you finished sparging your barley wine) from the spent grains you will still have strong enough wort to make a nice 1.035 (or so) gravity regular beer. To do this is called "Party Gyle" brewing - making more than one beer of differing strength from the same grains.
Cheers!
Brad