Barrel Project - Summary Thread

[irish_goat]

Has anyone had a sample yet?

[Cathal O D]

That would be a starting point alright.

[Shane Phelan]

Will we just aim to have a sample obtained for the next meet?
If there is a TOG brewday in the meantime, it shouldn't be hard to get one.

Tom I can post up a sample to you when its taken if you want.

[irish_goat]

Ah don't worry about that, I'll trust the rest of you'se to make a good judgement on it.

[Shane Phelan]

Got a sample of the beer today. Will bring it along to the next capital brewers meet.

Initial comments:
Lots of oak (This factor alone will be the motivating factor to empty the barrel)
Whiskey is there but subtle (thank christ)
Quite roasty but this has mellowed significantly over the last 4 months
Gravity is 1.012 but it seems higher as the body is chewy/velvety and smooth, carbonation will offset this
Not much aroma but then again there was no carbonation to encourage that

[JoeyD]

Sounds promising!

[CARA]

I had a taste on Sunday also. I would highly recommend that this comes out asap as I wouldnt say any more oak would be favourable-we could run the risk of it turning out quite "charcoaly" like some previous commercial examples.

[Cathal O D]

Should we try and get this out of the barrel this week? I can bring down my syphon, steriliser etc. Any particular day....

[Padraic]

Should we try and get this out of the barrel this week? I can bring down my syphon, steriliser etc. Any particular day....

As we don't have a key we will be relying on when someone is there, http://www.tog.ie/ has a calendar and the following things are on:
Tonight - Lockpicking
Friday - Book Club
Monday - Electronics

Or we could wait until the brewday on November 10th?

Where will we be transferring to? Will we all be bottling on the day or will we transfer to cornies?

[Shane Phelan]

I think we will need a pump too...

[Cathal O D]

@Padraic. I imagine we would all just fill into our cornies and bottle ourselves later. Nov 10 should be ok

@Shiny
Your right about the pump, a syphon wont work unless we raise the barrel which would be impossible. We could keep pumping the syphon but that would be a pain.
What kinda pump?

[irish_goat]

Lads I might need to ask a big favour as I dunno when I'll next be down in Dublin. 

[Shane Phelan]

Wouldn't pumping the siphon oxygenate the beer? No idea what pump to use. 

irish_goat, if someone filled a spare keg for you, that would probably be easiest?

[irish_goat]

Yeah that would work. If it suits Cara I could maybe see about giving him an empty corny to take down when he's back up next week.

[Will_D]

But when you empty the cask what are your plans for the empty??