Barley wine kit help, please.

[JohnB]

Hi, can anyone help, please? I have a 1.5Kg tin/kit of Young's Barley Wine that I picked up cheap from my local home-brew shoppe, I can't find a manufacture date on the tin, but the "Use by ..." is September this year (2019). I already chucked the little packet of yeast 'cos I'd think it will be worse than useless.

My questions really, are:

a) What yeast should I use with a Barley Wine, please? I have both CML and Bulldog English Ale Yeast, I also have some GV12 but should I get something more specific? I'm out of my depth and searches turn up so much conflicting advice. If I end up making a barley wine, then I want to do the best for it.

b) The kit is a "Youngs" pre-hopped kit. Should I refresh with a hop tea? or boil the wort and add some hops? I have a variety of hops that I could add to the kit. Although still in date, do the contents get "tired" with age?

c) Drastic I know, but should I just chuck it into an all grain brew?

Any help, any at all on this would be really appreciated, many thanks for reading and in advance of your answers.

 

[Dutto]

1. My "Go to" yeast is always Wilko Ale Yeast (aka Gervin-12) so you're in luck! That's what I would use anyway.
2. I believe in following the recipe written on the tin until fermentation is completed. After fermentation is finished I quite often add a Hop Tea before carbonation so I would give it a whirl.
3. Why potentially screw up an AG brew? If it's "off" it will put the AG brew off, if it isn't then it should produce some palatable Barley Wine.

Enjoy!

 

[terrym]

Your 1.5kg can plus an extra 1kg fermentables brewed to about 14 litres (24 pints) should produce a beer of just under 7% (according to the BF calculator). That's within the capability of one sachet of CML Real Ale yeast https://www.crossmyloofbrew.co.uk/yeast-specs
GV12 is fine too but I don't know the Bulldog yeast.
I would use the CML yeast as its cheapest, since you are brewing a kit of unknown quality, and save the others for something else. But be assured that I use the CML yeast as do others on here.
My view on one can kits is that the biggest single boost you can give to them is to have a hop addition of some sort, irrespective of their age, to refresh the hop taste. The impact of dry hopping diminishes with time and since you are likely faced with a long conditiong time I would not do that. Nor would I boil the kit wort. But as @Dutto suggests, a hop tea is fine, perhaps using a typical English dual purpose hop like EKG.
And I would not be adding 1 kg of dextrose to this kit or it will thin the taste, nor would I use additional LME (my view is that it is responsible for homebrew 'twang' especially in darker beers). I would go for 1 kg of amber/medium DME or if you want a more roasty taste, dark DME.
Finally I would put this beer into conditioning/storage for at least 3 months before I even considered cracking open the first one.