Bottled an English Barleywine today, should I have added more yeast?

[forstmeister]

So, today I bottled a barleywine that has been aging since December. It was aged on whiskey-soaked oak honeycomb for about 1 week before bottling. I didn't have any yeast around, so I added a little extra priming sugar than I normally would have for the style.

Details:
2.5 gallons, came in at 10.5% abv
added 1.6 oz of cane sugar in solution to bottling bucket (I used tastybrew's priming calculator and it advised me to use about 1.3-1.4 depending on volume and temp.)

I have never brewed, let alone bottled, a barleywine until this one. I plan on letting it age for at least 4-6 months before drinking the first one.

Is it even going to carbonate?

 

[Weezy]

Two concerns come to mind...age & abv...both of which are the enemies of the yeasties. You have one of two strikes working against you. It's not old but the ABV is high. The yeast are tired from that big of a beer and struggle to survive in a high ABV environment afterwards. Big beers are ideally bottled with sugar and yeast. But it might be ok, its just not ideal. you might want to test on in 3-4 weeks. You could warm the bottles in the ferm chamber to try to help the yeasties out.

 

[2bluewagons]

I have my fingers crossed for your BW, as it sounds awesome. But my first (and only to date) BW was similar to yours, and did not carbonate. I did a 3-4 week primary, then secondary with dry-hopping and then cold crashing for a total of 3 months before bottling. I even added a bit of Notty yeast cask from a batch of cider to the bottling bucket, although probably not enough.

So, totally hoping yours will be different. But if not, all is not lost. Mine ended up at 12.2 ABV. When blended with soda water, it gets some carbonation and makes for a pretty darn good pale ale. Lots of the big maltiness that you'd expect from a BW carries over even through the dilution. We have a sodastream so I make sure to get the water really fizzy before mixing with the BW.

Good luck!

 

[forstmeister]

Thanks 2bluewagons. I am hoping that after about 6 months in the bottle I will get a little carbonation. This beer was really an experiment to see if I could make a good barleywine. If it doesn't suck I consider it a win. Especially since I only did 2.5 gallons and it basically cost as much as a 5 gallon batch of pale ale.

 

[forstmeister]

Update: I had a half full bottle that I kept as a test to check on carbonation. Last night, 10 days after bottling, I opened it (after drinking too much...) to check it out. To my delight it was well carbed! It still requires aging to let the flavors mellow but it is delicious. Somehow I am picking up vanilla notes when there was none in the recipe or in the aging process though.