Finishing my first barley wine! - questions..

[GabrielKnight]

I've completed primary fermentation of Youngs barley wine kit. It tastes great but has a lot of yeast and gunk mixed in. I want my end result to be considered a 'real ale' i.e. to Camra standards.

1. Clearing

a) I understand that filtering is not acceptable to Camra standards but that chemical clearing is. Do people normally clear barley wine or is it supposed to be served with yeast / gunk in situ?

b) If its supposed to be clear, but still be in a condition of secondary fermentation, how can I clear it easily without degassing?

2. CO2 levels

Lager style barley wine eg Special Brew / Gold Label is sparkling (added CO2), but with Youngs style of barley wine should I add some more sugar to get it a bit more fizzy again or serve it as it is?

Thanks in advance!

[Benson_JV]

To me barley wine should have slight Co2 but no where near lager amounts.

[GabrielKnight]

I thought so - the effervence as it is seems about right, but I wanted to make sure.

I'm afraid I can't wait much longer to start drinking it - it tastes too good already an I hate buying beer while I've got some on tap! I use polypins because they kept my 5% beer nice for 3 months last time and the beer improves as you get through it. This is a 48 pint batch so I can start another lot now and start that aging while I drink this lot.

I think I will do the following for now - let me know what you think:

1. Siphon the primary grog into polypins to get it off the trub

2. Use chitosan to clear. Will this work without degassing? I don't really want to degass because the beer currently has a nice, light effervence.

3. Stir in some sugar if the beer loses too much effervecence later. You can do this in a polypin so long as you remember to let out extra gas every few days. I obviously haven't put any stabalisers in at any point but will fermentation start again when most of the yeast has been left behind in the trub?

[Digby Swift]

Use chitosan to clear. Will this work without degassing? I don't really want to degass because the beer currently has a nice, light effervence.

I am unfamiliar with chitosan but you can use gelatin or isinglass finings in your polypin and then rack the beer ontop of them to ensure thorough distribution. This will drop it bright and you won't lose the condition. What yeast did you use? A lot of yeasts will settle naturally and don't really need fining as when the beer has cleared it will have matured to a nice point. Stronger beers benefit from longer maturation times than that of weaker beers. Some yeasts however are a bugger and need to be fined in order to make them drop clear in a suitable time frame. I have never used a yeast that took longer than 4 weeks to clear to a good level except windsor which I fined to make it look nicer.

3. Stir in some sugar if the beer loses too much effervecence later. You can do this in a polypin so long as you remember to let out extra gas every few days. I obviously haven't put any stabalisers in at any point but will fermentation start again when most of the yeast has been left behind in the trub?

Fermentation will start again as there will still be loads of live yeast leftover, if you add sugar it will ferment all of this. The beer will continue to slowly perform a secondary fermentation on any residual complex sugars left in the beer without adding any primings. If you like the carbonation level now don't bother priming it. You may lose a bit of carbonation when transfering but this should build up again soon and then if you find it doesn't you can bung in some primings.

If you put any additives or whatever stabilisers you're talking about it will not conform to the camra real ale definition as you will kill the yeast by doing this, then you won't get any secondary fermentation.