I want to get one going. Anyone interested?
Idea is we buy an ex whiskey barrel between us, decide a recipe, do a load of brews each to fill the barrel, as it takes about 200L to fill it. (You really need to be an AG brewer for this to work.)
Leave it to age and then get some excellent beer 9 or 12 months later.
Nice idea, much do barrels cost do you know? Also, I'd assume there is more skill required than simply lashing the beer in and just leaving it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tcguhvXvUY&feature=plcp
Sounds good, id be interested
I'm in!
We can age if for whatever amount of time it takes us to collect enough bottles!
A barrel aged imperial stout has been on my list for a while now!
Interesting idea, I was toying with this and ended up with the idea of oak chips soaked in whiskey dropped into secondary or keg.
The South east club has been discussing this and are now looking for a smaller barrel than the normal 55 gallon whiskey cask, they do exist but are rare.
A few things we came up with that may or may not effect others. The brews would nearly want to be fermented in wherever the cask was going to be filled, you dont want to be transporting fermented beer.
We also came to the conclusion it would be more interesting if we all brewed our own recipe and the final brew would be a blend, a true one off.
RIS being our choice of brews as well, everyone design their recipe to a target gravity.
Tucan has that info, I'll drop him a text
I'm in. Who has the space?
QuoteI want to get one going. Anyone interested?
Idea is we buy an ex whiskey barrel between us, decide a recipe, do a load of brews each to fill the barrel, as it takes about 200L to fill it. (You really need to be an AG brewer for this to work.)
Leave it to age and then get some excellent beer 9 or 12 months later.
just curious, why does it have to be AG?
Been chatting to a few guys and looks like we might be able to get a group together to give this a go in Galway, it'd be great if we could piggyback on the barrel order if the source has more than 1 available.
If a few different clubs/areas did it, it'd be a great "national" project for the home brew club
The only barrels I could find for sale in Ireland are in Kilkenny for €40
@ Kilkenny architectural salvage for
The old woolen mill
Beach road
Kilkenny.
But I've no idea of their condition.
Best I could find in the UK was new barrels (100 l ) for £109
(50 l ) for £94
Available from www.thebarrelmakers.co.uk
They have a good range but I don't know if they export
Some words of advice based on our experiences with the whiskey barrel we picked up in Kilbeggan. If you get it fresh from a distillery, having just been emptied and then sealed straight away, you needn't worry too much about sanitising the barrel. We gave ours a quick starstan rinse, which helped to remove some loose charred wood from the inside. If you don't rinse the barrel at all you're likely to get a massive whiskey hit, even with a Russian imperial stout, which was what we used the first time round.
Also, try to get a few bungs. We ended up having to chisel these away each time we opened the barrel so its nice to have a few spare.
My main advice however (and Tube will know what I mean here since he was with us the last time we emptied the barrel) is to use a pump to remove the aged beer. Barrels are big beasts and it can be a serious pain using siphons. The other solution is to set the barrel on its side (which is how the distilleries store them), but this requires a specially built platform. If there is a carpenter here it would be a nice project. Otherwise, store the barrel upright and use a pump.
Other than that I'd say think carefully about your recipe. It's a lot of beer to waste if something goes wrong or you misjudge the bitterness or alcohol level. Our beers always dropped a little further in the barrel so take that into account when calculating your final ABV.
Best of luck lads! It's a great project to get stuck into :)
Im definatly up for this.
I can volumteer to make a durable stand if ye want. I have the workshop and plenty of 4x2 about.
I'm definitely interested in this :)
8 Degrees got some casks off Jack Teeling so maybe he's worth getting in touch with.
I have a contact in Cooley if they're still selling them.
[quote
Thanks for that Kieran. Out of interest did you try Kilbeggan or any of the other whiskey distilleries?[/quote]
I've emailed Jameson to see if they sell their old barrels or have an agent who dose.
So far no reply
QuoteQuoteI want to get one going. Anyone interested?
Idea is we buy an ex whiskey barrel between us, decide a recipe, do a load of brews each to fill the barrel, as it takes about 200L to fill it. (You really need to be an AG brewer for this to work.)
Leave it to age and then get some excellent beer 9 or 12 months later.
just curious, why does it have to be AG?
Had typed a long reply to this and my phone crashed.
The short version:
Extract+hops may be a more consistent way if you are looking for each brewer to make a similar beer, as it takes out the vsriables of peoples equipment/mash temp etc.
That said, I dunno if you would get enough people willing to brew with extract, and you would have to be sure your extract is fresh.
We've been discussing a barrel project at the SE meets, hopefully we can get one going!
I doubt very much that that these would be fit for purpose - but you never know !!
done deal (http://www.donedeal.ie/for-sale/gardenfurniture/4139763)
QuoteI doubt very much that that these would be fit for purpose - but you never know !!
done deal (http://www.donedeal.ie/for-sale/gardenfurniture/4139763)
Ask him if he can fill one up with water for a while, see does it expand and start to hold liquid. Then get yourself some sulphur wicks to do the inside of the barrel.
I'd be up for this. Would be nice to get some smaller barrels and do club taste offs. North co Vs Liffey Vs central boys. RIS or even a nice barleywine.
Couple of points based on our exerience ( Peter has prob touched on some in his comment)
1. Get a fresh barrel, if it means waiting wait. The aim of the barrel isnt just as a wooden fermenter,unless you are going for fresh wood, it needs to become an integreal part of the final beer.
2. Don't rush the recipe formulation. You need to decide what characteristics you want from the final beer. Our recipes took a fair bit of thought and research into how we would get the beer we wanted.
3. It will attenuate. A well repeated comment amongst the three of us is " it'll never attenuate", a disparaging comment thrown at us one evening when we explained the plan. Both beers have come in well below 20.
And as peter said it will most likely drop a couple of extra points in the barrel; just dont expect it to drop 20 points.
4. If there is ANY doubt about a batch bin it. Don't even think twice about it. Do NOT let it near the barrel.
5. The barrel should really be filled in one go. It doesn't need to be full to the brim but make sure it's at least 85%full.
I had been trying to source a barrel for ages but thought 'obviously a standard size one is way too big for a one off brew'. Since that I got an email off a guy from Coillte(who was very helpful), who apparantly supply a lot of wood for barrel making.
Basically he said the best bet was to approach a cooper about the possibilty of reincarnating some used standard size barrels as small 5-6 gallon ones. Which some of them do anyway to sell on as furniture.
So you would end up with a smaller barrel that would have staves from old whiskey barrels.
Group Buy...???
I would suggest that time is the essence ( or rather the destroyer of essence ).
We need a barrel that is still wet inside from the wiskey.
If its allowed to dry out/oxidise then there is the problem.
If we could get the barrel to the cooper and IF he could remake a smaller barrel in about 12 hours then it still won't work.
To make a barrel the staves will have to be re-heated and charred so that they will take up the new shape.
Even if you didn't use the traditional raw oak fire and tried to use steam instead still has the same effect:
Oops! There goes the subtle aromas!!
The only way is to get a big wet barrel and fill it with beer
Will
I was in touch last year with the brewer down in Kilbeggan. I spoke to him on the phone. An american lad. I might give him a shout if no one else has a contact?