Need help with barleywine recipe & sparge amount

[BrutalBrew]

I need help with my first barleywine AG. I have a few problems to work out. First here is a list of equipment to be used and my recipe. Plus my targets.
10g igloo round cooler= MLT , 5g igloo round cooler= fly Sparge
2 x 6g pots. immersion wort chiller.
Im trying to use brewtarget for the first time so I hope someone might crunch numbers and tell me if my calculations are correct. Also if my recipe is sound for what i am shooting for. I am shooting for a sweet ( not to sweet ) high ABV brew of goodness.
Here is what brew target says this recipe will produce.
5 gallon batch = AG+fly sparge
ABV 11.4, OG 1.117, FG 1.029, IBU 55.4, color 13, IBU/GU .47 (dont know what this is)
Recipe=
10 lbs Maris Outter
9 lbs 2-row
4 lbs Vienna
1 lbs Caramel 60
2 lbs Golden light DME (only can fit 24 lbs in mash, so using some dme)
1/2 lb table sugar
1 oz Chinook 60 min
1 oz warrior 60 min
1 oz target 15 min
x2 Safale S 05
I plan on using 7.5 gallons strike (most I can fit in MLT). mash at 150-155f for 60mins (longer?)
Im confused on how much sparge water to use. I want to extract all the goodies from the 24lbs of grain but dont want to have 15g of water to boil down to 5.5.
some questions
1) Does this recipe look sound?
2) Do my numbers look ok?
3) How long is too long to boil down before causing problems?
4) What should I shoot for on pre-boil amount having 2x 6g pots
5) Is the 15 min target hop a waste of time. I want to taste some hops but want it to have some sweetness also.
I really need some help on this. Ideas? Please help anyway you can. Thoughts, input needed. I plan on 7 day primary, 6 month secondary (at least ) Ive read that this long of fermentation will pretty much make late additions of hops useless but reading barleywine recipes on here I see a whole lot of late addition hops?

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

The IBU:GU Ratio is the bitterness to gravity unit comparison generally if your around .5 your beer is balanced between hop bitter and malty sweet. This doesn't take into account the bitterness imparted by various types of grain so some styles will seem to have high bitterness according to BU:GU ratio but it wont be perceived that way due to the grain bill countering the hop bitterness.

As for the Mashing issue the only real solution I can see would be to split your grainbill and make to 5 Gallon batches back to back and combine it in the fermenter. Not having a large enough pot was the main problem I had when I made mine. That's why I just made a 5 gallon batch and boiled it down to a gallon. but then again you'll have to boil down a large volume of water.

For Sparging I Batch sparge and not Fly Sparge so I cant really offer advice on that. with that said when I batch sparge I only sparge to the volume I know I will need PreBoil. if I want a 5 gallons into the Keg I will Boil off a gallon per hour plus .5 gallons for loss due to transfer/Trub/Proteins etc etc etc so I want 6.5 gallons pre boil so I mash 1.5qts water/LB of grain then measure the volume of my first runnings then sparge with the difference of preBoil-FirstRunnings=Sparge Volume.

If Fly SParging I would assume you would just collect runnings till you reached your preBoil Volume. But I am pretty sure that I've read that fly sparges will collect runnings till they hit a gravity of 1.010 coming out of the kettle then stop sparging there so in that case you would gather whatever amount would be needed then have to boil.

Again I don't Fly Sparge so id look for that info from someone more knowledgeable than I on that topic.

Curious if someone else can come up with a reasonable idea to a work around for doing a 5Gallon batch of Barleywine with limited Pot space

 

[elkshadow]

1) Does this recipe look sound?

To me, the grain bill is too busy. I just finished reading the Classic Style series book on BWs and I recommend it. First I'd ditch the sugar and DME. I'd use one malt for base grain and MAYBE some crystal at a very low percentage of the total grain bill. BWs are so big that everything in the malt bill is exagerrated. Simpler is better. Second, I wouldn't use two different hops for bittering. I'd use 2 oz of one of those and some lower alphas for finishing. Again, simpler is better.

2) Do my numbers look ok?

If you're using 24 pounds of grain and want to mash thick to save tun space, you'll need 30 quarts of strike water which you have. You'll lose about 3.6 gallons of water to absorption so you'll collect a little less than 4 gallons of first runnings. So you'll need about 3 more for sparging to collect 7 gallons to boil down to 5.5.

3) How long is too long to boil down before causing problems?

I think 90-120 minute boils are pretty standard for BWs

4) What should I shoot for on pre-boil amount having 2x 6g pots

See above

5) Is the 15 min target hop a waste of time. I want to taste some hops but want it to have some sweetness also.

No. Finishing hops are important in BWs.

I really need some help on this. Ideas? Please help anyway you can. Thoughts, input needed. I plan on 7 day primary, 6 month secondary (at least ) Ive read that this long of fermentation will pretty much make late additions of hops useless but reading barleywine recipes on here I see a whole lot of late addition hops?

My advice would be to do a lot of research on this style before attempting it. I'm not trying to scare you away from it but BWs are not like other beers. They are taxing at every step of the process. It's not something that you want to just to "wing it" and hope for the best 2 years from now when you start drinking them. There's lots of good info on the web but again I recommend the CBS series book titled Barley Wine by Fal Allen and Dick Cantwell. You can read it in 2 -3 hours and it will open your eyes to a lot of considerations with this style.

Take what I say with a grain of salt because I've never made one. But I've done a lot of reading on them and plan to start making them when I own a house or are staying somewhere long term.

Good luck!