Barrel - Belgian Dubble Recipe

[Shane Phelan]

Started of my slant yesterday, nice little hiss this morning. Will now pich it into 250 mL of wort as per instructions.

BTW: In case any one has not used the rock belgian candy sugar.:

It really is like rock - its a bugger to disolve. Best way is to put the 500 g in a decent saucepan, add wort from the kettle and heat it up separately on the stove with a lot of stirring. That way you can be sure its all disolved. May need to pour off the wort and add more to finally get it all into solution.

Dissolving as we speak! 

[beerfly]

when i first saw the dark ones i thought they gave me a bag of raisins instead

[Shane Phelan]

They still aren't dissolved! Thank christ I didn't do this during the boil. (I don't have them on a stove though, just hot water)

Also (somewhat ironically) I had to dial back the hops a bit as the ones I got from the HBC were 6.5% AA and drove the bitterness though the roof.

[Shane Phelan]

Boil started, I'm a little on the high side with a pre boil gravity of 1.066 which includes the candi sugar which was about 90% dissolved when I banged it in. Pondering maybe adding a bit of water to dilute it a bit.

[Ciderhead]

Usually they are added 5 to 10 minutes from end hence my comment to use some poured off boiling wort in a jug to dissolve them which is done easy enough.

[Will_D]

Well here Goes:

Decided to boil outdoors! (Got away with it  )

10:00 :  Heating the mashin-in water to 76C. Have cuppa then mill the grains.
11:00 :  Sparge started
13:15 :  Hit the rolling boil
14:45 :  End of boil

15:15 : Cooled and oxygenated.

Gravity 1.070 in 25 L

Pitched the yeast

Washed up outside - Brrrr its Baltic outside!

Time for a pint!

[Ciderhead]

Still flying dogs on leads as kites here, will have a go tomorrow.

Btw chaps this thing should be conditioned over 9-10 weeks is the plan to finish fermentation/conditioning in the barrel?

[beerfly]

shiny pellet hops?  how much did you use?

[Shane Phelan]

I used 50g in the end, I get slightly less utilisation when I have them in a hop bag.

[Will_D]

Still flying dogs on leads as kites here, will have a go tomorrow.

Una says: "Hope they are snugged up on the couch under the heat lamp, or somewhere snuggier"

Btw chaps this thing should be conditioned over 9-10 weeks is the plan to finish fermentation/conditioning in the barrel?

From the given timeline its going to be a short individual secondary at home and then a prolonged "all-in" tertiary in the cask.

Comments??

[Ciderhead]

Are we all trying to get 22 litres is that 10x22 will give us a slight surplus and or allow a control?

[Shane Phelan]

Like the idea of the "all-in" tertiary approach. I was initially limiting myself to 19L due to corny size but that is now tied up with cider so I might bring the beer in the old cider container instead. That would allow me to bring 21/22L depending what is left over.

Not everyone is going to have 22L so we might not fill it to capacity. In saying that I think we should do a control regardless.

[Will_D]

Believe me if 10 people say they will brew 22 L of beer you will be lucky to fill the cask!

If there is some left over then great news, pop it in a demi-john , air lock it and use for top ups. If worried about oxidation in the DJ freeze the *ecker!

[Ciderhead]

I was gonna use the drums from the cider as well! I will be trying to get 45L in

[Ciderhead]

Ok the wind has stopped and now I have 3 inches of snow on the ground jeez chilling the wort will be quick!