Beer Forum

Hey guys,

I think I need a little help. I'm brewing a barley wine and I probably moved it to the secondary fermentor a little bit early. (the recipe said to move it when the bubbling from the airlock was at 1 bubble to every 3 minutes, we moved it when it was between one minute and one and a half minutes). We've added our Champaign yeast but have yet to see a bubble from the airlock, and we have definitely been watching.

Is there anything we might have done wrong here (aside from having our brew explode out of our main fermentor earlier in the brewing process)?

Thanks,
Jim

What temp have you been holding it at? If you are relying on the champ yeast to be your main workhorse in the rest of your fermentation, did you rehydrate it before pitching?

Its currently at 70 degrees and no we did not rehydrate the Champaign yeast before pitching.

I brew lots of barleywines. I don't pay any attention at all to the bubbling in the airlock. I let them sit on the yeast in primary for a minimum of 3 weeks and usually 4-5 weeks. Big beers like this need all the yeast they can get to finish out. Often rousing the yeast once a week or so helps quite a bit on attenuation. All you need to do is rock it back and forth until you see yeast rising off the bottom but being careful not to splash your beer.

Your beer is suffering a bit from both the early racking and a problem with yeast health. Dry yeast needs to be rehydrated with plain water prior to pitching into the wort, especially with high gravity worts like barleywines. All that sugar in solution will create high osmotic pressure on the cell walls of the yeast and will damage the yeast. Ordinarily a packet of dry yeast will have almost double the amount of yeast you need for a normal gravity beer. One packet is barely enough for a high gravity beer. With the lack of rehydration and the resulting damage, you are underpitched even without having racked off the yeast cake.

Before you panic, take a gravity reading and take a sip of your hydrometer sample. If the gravity is too high and it tastes too sweet you can pitch another yeast. I would make a starter (1.5 - 2.0 liters) with some Wyeast 1099 or Pacman and pitch it into the barleywine at high krausen. These beer yeasts will consume types of sugars the champagne yeast won't so they will have plenty to eat. Let this go for another 2-3 weeks. Letting it go at least this long is important because of the underpitching of the original yeast. Underpitching will lead to the creation of unwanted esters. This second extended fermentation period will allow the yeast to clean up those esters. This cleanup will continue for quite a while after the gravity has stopped dropping so fight the urge to rack as soon as the gravity stops falling.

You beer is injured, but with a little TLC you can nurse it back to health.

Wayne

What is the gravity reading of the beer right now?

Bugeater wrote: careful not to splash your beer.

Is the concern here about oxygen? Once you've had activity and CO2 production the headspace should be pretty well purged of oxygen and filled with CO2 as long as you haven't reopened it recently and as long as you don't have an extremely large headspace.

if you are planning on repitching yeast into your beer to help it attenuate more, you really need to make a small starter with it to get it going before pitching it into your already fermented beer like Bug said. Pitching your new yeast at high krausen point gives the yeast a fighting chance to hopefully consume some remaining residual fermentables and lower your gravity (possibly).

I just repitched on a 1.110 barleywine and got it down to 1.029. I was happy with the taste (not overly syrupy or sweet) and will be kegging it this weekend. A good long aging period will really do wonders for beers like this too.