Muntons barley wine kit

[benspray]

Hi All,

New on here (have been reading the forums for a while but only just got around to registering) so hi everyone :)

Going to be starting a Muntons Barley Wine kit sometime in the next couple of weeks, this one will be bottled and left for the winter. I've been using honey and DME in place of sugar in the past, but I was recomended to not bother with DME in this one just use sugar - so I was planning to use 4 medium sized jars of honey (which is roughy 1350g) rather than the 1kg of sugar the kit instructions suggest (sure I read somewhere that honey is only around 80% sugar/fermentibles so this works out roughly right if possibly a bit stronger)

An thoughts? dont want to wait 6 months+ to find out its ****..

Cheers
Ben

 

[rickthebrew]

i`m not 100% but i`m sure your about right with the honey thing - its not completley fermentable and 80 to 90 % sounds about right - i`d go for it :thumb:

i`ve seen some posts about this but can`t find them to post a link :? good luck with the brew :thumb:

 

[benspray]

Yep going to give it a go :)
The Coopers IPA after 3 days (with a 500g bag of medium DME and a 340g jar of honey) is already down to 1.010 so looks like that will be barreled at the weekend leaving the FV free to start the barley wine :)
4 jars (340g each) of Morrisons cheap honey ready to go in

Pretty happy actually as every other kit (all Munton's 2 cans) I've done so far has stopped around 1.015 or higher (the woodfordes Nog reached 1.015 but other woodfordes kits and the Milestone one only got to 1.016-1.018) at least the Coopers getting that far already proves Im not doing anything wrong as I was wondering!

 

[Aleman]

From what I understand . . . Honey is a source of pretty much pure fructose . . . which is 100% fermentable by yeast. . . . the 80% fermentable figure only really applies to the weight as honey contains about 20% water compared to a 'dry' product like table sugar. . . so if a kit calls for using 1Kg of 'sugar' then using 1.2Kg of Honey should give the same Gravity.

 

[rickthebrew]

cheers for the help aleman - a honey AG brew is next on the cards for me (maybe sunday :party: ) :thumb:

 

[corby_brewer]

a honey AG brew is next on the cards for me (maybe sunday :party: ) :thumb:

My last 2 brews have been honey brews, well impressed with the results.

 

[Mbanyard]

I brewed the Muntons barley wine kit with brew enhancer last year. It was out of date so I binned the yeast and replaced with wilko

It needs lots and lots of time in bottles - to lose the harsh flavour - just drank one I brewed in June 2015 and now it tastes great.

I bottled half my batch with a few sterilised oak whisky barrel chips in the bottle. These have gone to another level. As good as anything from Innes and gunn, it's taken on a delightful bourbon aftertaste - one of my favourite beers full stop. Not only my favourite honebrews.

Not sure if it's readily available these days - but worth the punt, even better if aged over wood!!

 

[Mbanyard]

Here a quick photo of my most recent Muntons barleywine

 

[Mbanyard]

And another photo of the oak aged variant I mentioned before