# Barley Wine - I'm going for it!



## BigDaveK (Jan 4, 2023)

The first of my grain wines.
One lb of flaked barley, some raisins, and potato water.
Simmered briefly. I wasn't expecting it to soak up so much water...ALL the water! I knew the only way to get an SG measurement was to use a brew bag, taking samples between the bag and bucket. It PLOPPED into the bag as one giant mass.
BTW, it tasted wonderful at this point. Little bit of milk and I'd eat a bowl.





I added some of the sugar and pectic enzyme to a bit of water and was surprised the whole thing turned to soup in about 3 hours.




Transferred to secondary this morning.
Still tastes wonderful. Sweet barley flavor. Reminded me of a breakfast protein drink...with a little alcohol.
With the delicious flavor I'm hoping this turns out well. Unfortunately what I've read says to age for two years


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## vinny (Jan 4, 2023)

Well, you are still in the lead for creativity. 

I assume this one didn't come out of the back yard?


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## BigDaveK (Jan 5, 2023)

vinny said:


> Well, you are still in the lead for creativity.
> 
> I assume this one didn't come out of the back yard?


Blame it on the weather.
I still have raspberries, mulberries, and ground cherries in the freezer but beyond that my foraging is on hold for a while. I temporarily need other sources for uncommon ingredients. And the barley at 2 bucks a pound won't break the bank.


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## wineview (Jan 5, 2023)

When I was brewing beer I found quite a few Barley Wine recipes. It’s not a wine but rather a high alcohol English Brew. The grains provide a dark reddish tint and can be stored for up to 25 years. I recently opened my last bottle that was 16 years old. If you want to try a commercial brand Old Foghorn comes to mind.


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## vinny (Jan 5, 2023)

BigDaveK said:


> Blame it on the weather.
> I still have raspberries, mulberries, and ground cherries in the freezer but beyond that my foraging is on hold for a while. I temporarily need other sources for uncommon ingredients. And the barley at 2 bucks a pound won't break the bank.


Oh, I'm not judging, just clarifying. I haven't seen any wheat or barley fields in your pictures.


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## BigDaveK (Jan 5, 2023)

wineview said:


> When I was brewing beer I found quite a few Barley Wine recipes. It’s not a wine but rather a high alcohol English Brew. The grains provide a dark reddish tint and can be stored for up to 25 years. I recently opened my last bottle that was 16 years old. If you want to try a commercial brand Old Foghorn comes to mind.


When I was researching this wine online it was very frustrating because 95% of the results were for beer. Who knew that most people think "barley wine" is a beer?! Not what I wanted. Got my starting point from some of my older books. This is definitely wine and not beer.


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## BigDaveK (Jan 5, 2023)

vinny said:


> Oh, I'm not judging, just clarifying. I haven't seen any wheat or barley fields in your pictures.


Oh, you can certainly judge - I am. My goal is to approach 100% from the yard. Probably not possible but I'll get close. In the spring I'm planting elderberry and aronia berry for sure, not sure what else just yet.

I do have wild wheat and wild oats. The latter is begging for a joke.


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## wineview (Jan 5, 2023)

BigDaveK said:


> When I was researching this wine online it was very frustrating because 95% of the results were for beer. Who knew that most people think "barley wine" is a beer?! Not what I wanted. Got my starting point from some of my older books. This is definitely wine and not beer.


We may be talking about two different products. All I can tell you with 100% certainty is that Barley Wine is in fact an ale.


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## BigDaveK (Jan 6, 2023)

wineview said:


> We may be talking about two different products. All I can tell you with 100% certainty is that Barley Wine is in fact an ale.


Semantics.
I agree that "barley wine" or "barleywine" is generally associated with a high ABV ale. It sounds interesting and I wouldn't mind sampling a bottle. I'm not using malt or hops, barley is the main flavor ingredient, the procedure is for wine, hence, barley wine.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 6, 2023)

Just a point of clarification. To make a WINE from barley - or indeed, any grain, you simply use the grains as the flavor element. You ferment ON the barley but you are not fermenting the grains, you are fermenting simple sugars that you add to the must. To make a barley wine , you need to have malted the barley to activate the enzymes that can break down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars that the yeast can ferment. The key difference between ale and barely wine is that the ABV of the latter is more like a wine than a beer. For barley wine, you ferment the barley, itself. 
Wines made with (rather than from) grains can taste delightful.


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## Raptor99 (Jan 6, 2023)

@BernardSmith If I understand you correctly:
* Barley Ale = fermented barley with lower ABV like beer
* Barley Wine = fermented barley with higher ABV
* Barley flavored wine = wine fermented *on *barley as a flavor element

For the first two, you need to malt the barley to convert the carbs into sugars so that they can be fermented.

Does that sound about right?


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## Raptor99 (Jan 6, 2023)

Apparently malting barley is a fairly involved process: How to Malt Barley (with Pictures) - wikiHow

I don't make beer, so I am unfamiliar with the process. Will "mashing" release sugars from barley? Is it necessary to first malt the barley and then "mash" it?


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## BernardSmith (Jan 6, 2023)

That is precisely my understanding. If you don't have any malted grains (and barley has a high enough diastatic power to break down the complex sugars of other low diastatic grains) then you need to add amylase enzyme to do the work of producing simple sugars that yeast can ferment. If you simply crush barley or even if you make a tea from barley grains the sugars are not accessible to the yeast so you need to add simple sugars and the grain is the source of flavor - and not the alcohol. It's like fermenting ON flowers (hibiscus, dandelion, heather).


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## BernardSmith (Jan 6, 2023)

Raptor99 said:


> Apparently malting barley is a fairly involved process: How to Malt Barley (with Pictures) - wikiHow
> 
> I don't make beer, so I am unfamiliar with the process. Will "mashing" release sugars from barley? Is it necessary to first malt the barley and then "mash" it?


Malting is simply allowing the grains to sprout for a few days. You might soak the berries for a two or three days and then allow them to drain but keep them wet but not covered in water. After another three days or so, they will have sprouted and produced tiny roots hat sprouting activates the enzymes that allows the seeds - the berries to make use of the carbs. To make use of the carbs as food for the growing berries, the carbs are converted into simpler sugars. Malting then starts the sprouting and then with heat, stops it, hopefully producing the maximum amount of sugars before the sprouted grains consume too many of them as they grow larger. You can simply place the sprouted grains on a baking tray and place in an oven and bake at 350 F for a length of time to produce the amount of darkness and so flavor profile you want. The longer you cook the grains the more sugars you will have caramelized and so make them unaccessible to the yeast. The maltser controls the temperature and length of time they cook the sprouted grains to produce the specific flavors they want and brewers grind the malted grains and make a mash to extract the sugars...


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## BernardSmith (Jan 6, 2023)

Raptor99 said:


> Is it necessary to first malt the barley and then "mash" it?


Short answer is , Yes. But if you buy your barley from a LHBS or buy DME or LME the barley has already been malted. Barley for food or barley flour is not malted but barley for brewing, will have been, unless you are growing or buying your own grains to malt.


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## BigDaveK (Jan 6, 2023)

@BernardSmith thanks for the info. I'm not a beer drinker or brewer either. I've heard about malting and roasting and boiling. I don't want to know any more - I have enough hobbies.  

And I _did_ add amylase enzyme. I add it to _all_ my starchy wines- like potato. What piqued my interest was seeing many old recipes with potatoes, barley, and wheat as a smaller-quantity secondary ingredient. I don't have anything out of bulk yet to truly judge flavor but every ferment that had starch was _very_ robust.


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## Ty520 (Monday at 4:50 PM)

FYI, from what i recall, >10.5% abv is the legal threshold in most US jurisdictions that defines it as a "wine" - below would be a 'malted beverage' if grain based...or a cider if pomme based, etc...for other fruits, they use a pretty boring term of, "wine based drink". French farmers have a 'session' grade wine made from left-over pomace called 'piquette'.


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## Raptor99 (Monday at 5:25 PM)

We used to have some Korean friends who gave us roasted barley tea. It was very nice. I don't think they used malted barley, and anyway it wasn't fermented. It had a very nice flavor, so I think that roasted barley wine might be good, even without malting or adding amylase enzyme. The barley would contribute flavor, but not sugar. OTOH why not add some amylase enzyme as well?

@BigDaveK When you add amylase enzyme, how do you measure OG? Do you let the enzyme work first, then measure OG? 

I found this article: How to Use Amylase Enzyme - Beer Snobs Apparently the amylase enzyme works best around 150 degrees F. Several articles recommend holding the mash at the correct temperature for 1 hour. There is also alpha and beta amylase. It seems like most people are using alpha.


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## BigDaveK (Monday at 5:32 PM)

Ty520 said:


> FYI, from what i recall, >10.5% abv is the legal threshold in most US jurisdictions that defines it as a "wine" - below would be a 'malted beverage' if grain based...or a cider if pomme based, etc...for other fruits, they use a pretty boring term of, "wine based drink". French farmers have a 'session' grade wine made from left-over pomace called 'piquette'.


Yes, so many commercial "fruit" wines say grape wine with flavor added. That's one reason why I like to make my own.
And my barley wine started life at 1.095 so 13%+ is certainly within reach.
I'm so glad I'm doing all this just for me and don't have to deal with the mountain of laws and regulations.


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## Ty520 (Monday at 5:53 PM)

BigDaveK said:


> Yes, so many commercial "fruit" wines say grape wine with flavor added. That's one reason why I like to make my own.
> And my barley wine started life at 1.095 so 13%+ is certainly within reach.
> I'm so glad I'm doing all this just for me and don't have to deal with the mountain of laws and regulations.




i regularly think of all the missed opportunities there are because of the dumb laws that don't allow cofermenting so many of these ingredients


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## Ty520 (Monday at 5:58 PM)

Raptor99 said:


> We used to have some Korean friends who gave us roasted barley tea. It was very nice. I don't think they used malted barley, and anyway it wasn't fermented. It had a very nice flavor, so I think that roasted barley wine might be good, even without malting or adding amylase enzyme. The barley would contribute flavor, but not sugar. OTOH why not add some amylase enzyme as well?
> 
> @BigDaveK When you add amylase enzyme, how do you measure OG? Do you let the enzyme work first, then measure OG?
> 
> I found this article: How to Use Amylase Enzyme - Beer Snobs Apparently the amylase enzyme works best around 150 degrees F. Several articles recommend holding the mash at the correct temperature for 1 hour. There is also alpha and beta amylase. It seems like most people are using alpha.



for reference, barley has a max theoretical (important word to remember) potential of about 25 points per pound per gallon (most other grains are around 30-35 ppg), so when trying to put together your recipe, that should give you a base line to know what gravity you could possibly expect - but then you have to factor in the fact that extraction of sugars from grains, whether through mashing or enzymes, is never 100% efficient...i doubt you could get anything more than 80% on a perfect day.

Alpha is pretty easy to acquire at home brew shops, but I've never had any luck getting beta.

I have no idea how it would affect grains other than rice, but another interesting option to try would be Yellow Label Angel yeast used for making kojii, which doesn't require heat.


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## BigDaveK (Monday at 6:07 PM)

Raptor99 said:


> We used to have some Korean friends who gave us roasted barley tea. It was very nice. I don't think they used malted barley, and anyway it wasn't fermented. It had a very nice flavor, so I think that roasted barley wine might be good, even without malting or adding amylase enzyme. The barley would contribute flavor, but not sugar. OTOH why not add some amylase enzyme as well?
> 
> @BigDaveK When you add amylase enzyme, how do you measure OG? Do you let the enzyme work first, then measure OG?
> 
> I found this article: How to Use Amylase Enzyme - Beer Snobs Apparently the amylase enzyme works best around 150 degrees F. Several articles recommend holding the mash at the correct temperature for 1 hour. There is also alpha and beta amylase. It seems like most people are using alpha.


Barley definitely has a nice flavor and I plan to experiment with it more.

Yes, the amylase should convert the starch to fermentable sugar and I add it to all my wines with starchy ingredients. I always try to give pectic and amylase enzymes a few hours to work before adding yeast. My "official" OG is measured just before adding the yeast.

Ah, beer and wine making are different and I don't know too much about beer. I've read enzymes are destroyed around 120F _wet_ heat and 150F _dry_ heat. With wine making we're usually interested in the _wet_ heat.


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## Raptor99 (Monday at 6:13 PM)

BigDaveK said:


> Yes, so many commercial "fruit" wines say grape wine with flavor added. That's one reason why I like to make my own.


That's what I discovered. They are usually very sweet as well. I consider them to be fake fruit wines.

One winery near me that makes real fruit wine is honeywood: Honeywood Winery - Salem OR. Some of their wines are available in my local grocery store.


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## Ty520 (Monday at 6:21 PM)

Raptor99 said:


> That's what I discovered. They are usually very sweet as well. I consider them to be fake fruit wines.
> 
> One winery near me that makes real fruit wine is honeywood: Honeywood Winery - Salem OR. Some of their wines are available in my local grocery store.



i will admit that in some circumstances, I have found that combining fruit can be advantageous - for example, i have found peach wines and peach meads to be somewhat one-dimensional, but I recently did a peach pyment that i was very pleased with.

but per my original comment, the term "wine based drink" is a catch-all legal term for what would be a 'session' wine in laymen terms, regardless of the fruit composition.


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