The Barrel Project - The Recipe

[Shanna]

Hi paddy

Normally I ferment on 1st floor. Attic is only 1 floor up. The garage would be to cold to ferment.

Shanna

[Shanna]

Hi Paddy B

I am using the stock pot at the moment as I am doing extract brews. Moving to all grain very soon. Offer of stock pot was to yourself to allow yourself participate in a group brew.

Shanna

Yeah that's grand. I'll have no problem heading up for an hour or two anyway.

So are you using the stockpot or your new boiler? Or both?

[Rossa]

How about we get rid of the 30 mins and bump up the Magnun to 50g.

[Shanna]

Sounds good Rossa. Was wondering whether I could skip the brown malt it replace it with crystal? Have figures for the batch spare nearly worked out. Will post later for review. Would appreciate feedback.

Shanna

[Rossa]

The brown is fairly crucial!

[Bubbles]

How about we get rid of the 30 mins and bump up the Magnun to 50g.

Rossa, could you do an updated recipe in BeerTools showing how many IBUs you're getting from that change in hop bill. Just want to make sure we're all singing from the same hymn sheet, so to speak.

[Bubbles]

The brown is fairly crucial!

I agree. There's going to be enough variation due to process, fermentation temps etc. without everyone using different recipes aswell. I might hive off a couple of bottles of my own porter before it goes in the barrel. Would be interesting to do a comparison with others.

[Shanna]

Apologies if this seems like a daft question but what is this beer going to taste like when it comes out of the barrel? I am assuming it will be like a cask conditioned beer but I have no reference point to go by here with respect to carbonation or texture?

Shanna

Edited corrected aiming with assuming above (bloody Android predictive text).

[Bubbles]

Texture-wise, at nearly 10% ABV, it'll be smooth. With the high bitterness, acrid roasted malts and hot alcohol all smoothened out due to the lengthy aging.

Carbonation will be non-existent. Our aim here is only to age the stout in the barrel to draw out the flavours of the whiskey and the oak. It's not to reproduce a cask-conditioned beer. When the aging period has finished, each brewer will rack out their share (minus a certain percentage lost to the atmosphere - the so-called "angel's share") and take it home to be re-seeded with yeast and bottle-conditioned. Or kegged, if you're very brave and have legendary self-control.

[Shanna]

Hi Paddy Bubbles,

That is a good point/pint how do we tell how much is in this thing at the end so that we can divy it up fairly? Even more of a problem how long does it take to bottle 150 litres of beer. I assume we just get the largest bore pipe we can find and drain this like it was diesel ;-)

Shanna

[Bubbles]

I think the easiest way to do it is for everyone to agree on a certain % loss. Off the top of my head I'd say it's going to be about 10%, depending on the length of time we store it.

We can all take our share out (less 10%) and the last person to take theirs out can do some adjustments. (If Shanna is the last and has some porter left over, I think he should be allowed keep as reward for hosting this project for us!) If the person is left short, we can all donate the balance to him in bottled beer. Sound good?

Do we also need to consider putting a batch of unfermented wort into the barrel when we rack into it, to create a CO2 blanket and protect our beer somewhat?

I don't think sanitisation is an issue as the barrel contains 80% liquor, but it's worth asking the question anyway. Might be an idea for Shanna to swirl the residual liquor around in the barrel every so often until we have it filled.

To answer your second question, Shanna, we could take away our shares of stout and bottle it separately at home. I was thinking about this. If I rack my 20 litres out of the barrel into an FV I can bring the FV home and just gently stir in the priming sugar solution and some rehydrated yeast.

On the other hand, a communal bottling session might be a laugh. We could get a bit of a production line going with the sanitising solution, draining, filling etc.

[Shane Phelan]

In terms of losses, if we keep it topped up over the 4-6 months then there shouldn't be too much loss although that would required an extra batch brewed specifically for that purpose.

[Bubbles]

In terms of losses, if we keep it topped up over the 4-6 months then there shouldn't be too much loss although that would required an extra batch brewed specifically for that purpose.

Hmm. I'm not sure how that would work..

We don't want to be opening up the barrel every couple of months and adding more fresh wort as we'll be exposing the beer to infection. Or am I misunderstanding you?

I do like the idea of adding a batch of unfermented wort when we rack into the barrel, though I'm still a little unsure if it's even necessary. I should be able to organise this myself. I can't imagine we'll need more than 15 litres, which happens to be the batch size I'll be using on this. Any leftovers can be taken away by me and fermented as a "control" batch.

I do think it's important to do a secondary/conditioning in a different fermenter. I never do a secondary, but in this instance I think it will be helpful. Racking to another fermenter will help settle out any trub and make sure we have perfectly clean beer going into the barrel.

Even though we haven't hit our total volume yet - does anyone think we need some sort of contingency? An extra 20 litres in case of an infection or some other disaster.

[Shane Phelan]

We would be opening it anyway to taste it and that would be the perfect time to add in a few litres to keep the surface area as low as possible. I was speaking to Dr. Jacoby about it and they said they left around a gallon of head-space so its not critical but at the same time I would hope to try and avoid it getting oxidised if possible.

I like your idea of fermenting one of the batches in the barrel but there are pos and cons to it. While I think it would be a positive addition in terms of flavour and something unique  compared to the other barrels, it kinda makes it pointless going to all the trouble of the other batches doing secondary's to reduce trub when the un-fermented batch is going to crap all over the inside of the barrel anyway... I think the pros outweigh the cons but its just something to be aware of.

[Bubbles]

We would be opening it anyway to taste it and that would be the perfect time to add in a few litres to keep the surface area as low as possible. I was speaking to Dr. Jacoby about it and they said they left around a gallon of head-space so its not critical but at the same time I would hope to try and avoid it getting oxidised if possible.

True. What's the consensus on sampling? Take the first sample around the 4-month mark and see if it needs further aging? We could siphon off a bottle and bring it to one of the SD/Capital Brewers meets.

it kinda makes it pointless going to all the trouble of the other batches doing secondary's to reduce trub when the un-fermented batch is going to crap all over the inside of the barrel anyway... I think the pros outweigh the cons but its just something to be aware of.

Yeah, I thought that too. I suppose we're trying to minimise the trub from 80-90% of the fermented beer going in because we know the unfermented wort is going to contribute plenty of trub. Something to explore alright.