My last attempt at Barley Wine this year was a "failure", in the sense that really it was a strong ale. If you drank three pints of it you would be in severe trouble, but not as much trouble as you should be for a Barley Wine. Last night I managed to put together my new mash tun. It's only taken me 15 months - lots of procrastinating and lots of things going on. So this morning was the road test for the tun.

I followed the County Beermakers recipe for Barley Wine as I usually do. This time I included the Wheat for head retention. Here's the recipe:

Barley Wine - target 15 litres 1100 OG

6750g Pale Malt    (3750g fine crushed)
 100g Crystal Malt
 100g Wheat Malt

Sparged to 27l

Boil 120 minutes

100g East Kent Goldings 90m
     Protofloc          15m

(ended up adding 10 minutes and half a litre of water)

I made a starter the night before - 1.5l with 150g DME and WLP028 Scottish Ale Yeast. That sat on a stir plate at 19 degrees overnight and looked very healthy in the morning.

I ended up with about 12 litres at 1160 OG, so let's kill some livers. It will be strong. Yes - I need to work on my efficiency because if I ended up with 15 litres it would be under 1100 OG, but still - let's see how it turns out. At least it has the right starting gravity for a proper Barley Wine.