Barley wine is a magical beer for warming the cockles on a cold winter's eve.
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Helpful Hints
One of the most difficult parameters to control with all grain barly wine is the starting gravity. It is not unusal to get very large variations in the extraction efficiency from batch to batch, for a number of reasons. The best way to control this is by taking a specific gravity reading at the start of the pre-boil, and determining how long the pre-boil should last to get to the target gravity at the end of the boil. This requires some calibration of the boil off, but will yield more consistent results.
For example, suppose the S.G. is 1.080 at the start of the pre-boil, and that we know from previous experience that the boil off rate is 10%/hour. Since the solids in solution remains constant, we simply divide by the new volume to get the new specific gravity. This means that after one hour, we can expect the S.G. to be 1 + 0.80/.9 = 1.089, and after two hours about 1 + 1.089/.9 = 1.099.
For this method to work, it is very important to calibrate your particular brewing equipment.