Operation Whiskey Barrel

Fellow Monksters,

I have been looking into the logistics of said whiskey barrel.

The price for the Whiskey barrel from Maine (guy El Hefe JR found) is great BUT we need to find out how long they have been emptied. Once they have been emptied the clock ticks for infections etc.

We can get a Whiskey Barrel direct drop ship from Jack Daniels for $95 plus shipping But how much does it cost to ship a whiskey barrel from Tennessee.

On to more fun things it will take roughly 10 batches of beer to fill. We could store finished product at Brewtopia in the cellar (locked room) for a year. once it is done we will need to pump out to bottling buckets and either Keg (10 kegs) or bottle with priming sugar all very doable but we would need all hands on deck.

Having said all this I am ALL IN. This is by far one of the coolest things we could do as a club and it certainly would set us apart from the crowd (in my opinion)

I will contact the guy on Craig's list and get some more info and do some more looking.

Mr Cellar

sweet, didn't even think about the time it sat etc. When you mentioned the 10 batches my mind sort of kicked off thinking about yeast, I can't even imagine how much yeast that would be, maybe it's a good thing many members are building stir plates! Another thought would be fermentation space...or do we ferment in buckets and just age in barrel?

I was always kind of envisioning that the ten batches were primarily fermented at home, then all blended in the barrel to age. Like you were saying thats a ton of yeast, and we probably dont want to try and rack off a cake that big, especially since the barrel will be stored on its side(assuming thats where the bung hole is and were not expected to try and open the top of the damn thing)

If we can get the practical shit aside, another question raised is:
What do we fill it with?

I know there was discussion of an IPA, but in my own experience hoppy beer doesn't really keep for a year. Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine has a nice ring to it, but me and Mr.C were talking about an Imperial Stout.

I personally wanna sour the barrel something fierce! But i'll save y'all the turmoil

I think a barleywine in there would be just too much stuff going on, I would imagine the barrel is going to release alot of alcohol while aging. I thought I heard some where that a gallon of hooch will remain in the wood?
The only bourbon barrel beer I have ever had was a Bourbon barrel porter from Boulder beer co, and it had TONS of bourbon flavor (and kick).
I think I would be ok with a stout or porter going in there. Maybe chuck in some espresso or vanilla?

I have had quite a few bourbon stouts this year, and they all have quite a kick to em. Dark beer is probably the way to go, for stability and what not. Adding vanilla might be cool too, to enhance the natural vanillins that will cone out of the oak. All that said, even after we age the beer in the barrel for a year, it might need extra time on the bottle to condition even further

We also threw out the idea of maybe brewing a few different recipes and blending them in the barrel, it's something firestone walker does real well, but we may not want to get too too dilly our first run on this

Ya when I first was t.hinking about this I was thinking something BIG imperial stout, BIG porter, etc. something that would benefit from age. I have heard something like a 120 minute gets better with age almost sherry like probably what funkmeister was thinking about.

I'm going to continue looking for the best place to get a barrel but we should continue to banter the recipe about and figure logistics

If 10 people brewed a 5 gal batch and we met we could rack off yeast into bottling bucket and then pour into barrel

After a year or whatever we decide we cold pump into bottling buckets and keg or bottle

We should really think about the first batch cause that's the batch with the bourbon well only get one shot with that

Mc

I agree it should be something BIG! The bourbon being soaked in the barrel should be enough alcohol to keep contamination out, but having a big boozy beer wouldn't hurt either. If we do fill it with something BIG and boozey, we might have to do what Brooklyn did, and add champagne yeast back at bottling time to make sure the yeast can survive long enough to carbonate(given the fact we bottle carb some instead of force carb)

Has anyone here brewed an Imperial Stout? I personally haven't, but I do have a "clone" for Kate the Great from Portsmouth Brewing Co. It's a rather involved recipe, but might be fun to try out. If I find it I'll throw it up here for review.

I brewed a version of Jamils Russian Imperail stout. It was almost too roasty and I didn't even want to drink it for about a year, but then the acrid seemed to smooth out and it was quite nice. That may work for something like this, although I would probably reccommend cutting down the roasted barley a bit. I wondered if it maybe had something to do with my water profile.

If you need water for doing dark beers, talk to el hefe, had great luck brewing stouts with it.

Yea I think we gotta be careful with making the beer too acrid. The bourbon bite with an overly burnt stout may not be too pleasant haha.

Also being an imperial, if anyone is going to brew this extract that'd be a LOT of extract

I think we should still consider an imperial IPA - let the sonofabitch age in the barrel, and when we keg - dry hop it, bitches!

IPA! -IPA!-IPA! -IPA! -IPA!

Ya I agree that an IPA would be great on wood similar to a Oaked bastard BUT I don't think we should do it with the first beer that we brew because the first beer will get the advantage of the bourbon in the wood and I don't personally think of bourbon and IPA together - after the first beer I think we could do an IPA or anything else we think. That's also the Beauty of this thing is that we could use over and over again.

But this is only my 2 cents now whatever we decide is fine with me.

With proper care, we'll able to age everything from a cream ale to a lambic in this barrel. The beauty of oak, it never really goes bad

We gotta make this happen. The sooner we start the sooner we can partake of its splendiferous fermented liquid ambrosia.

This IS the Glorious Homebrewing Revolution in all its united proletarian splendor.

So at the last meeting we discussed making the first batch a large imperial dark beer. We also discussed getting volunteers to chip in on the actual price of the Barrel. Funkmeister is to check on cost of barrel plus shipping to brewtopia so we can figure out cost. The barrel would be property of the club. We would purchase after we:

A) have decided on recipe

B) have signed up volunteers that will committ their best effort at brewing this recipe 5 gal.

C) all volunteers brew this recipe and Primary ferment

D) we are ready to fill barrel.

We also discussed whether or not to force carb or bottle condition Funkmeister and I will bottle condition our shares for long term storage I'm hoping this beer will get better and better with age. But I would think it will be left to the volunteers to evidence on their batches.

Please if I have forgotten anything or my memory has escaped me let me know. Once we are agreed I will start a thread for barrel share pledges, barrel recipe thread, volunteer thread

Mr cellar

I'm getting ready to to run a test batch of this recipe here. I'll be doing a three gallon version of this, but this is what the 5 gallon recipe would be.


13 lbs Maris Otter
1 lbs Flaked Barley
1 lbs Brown Malt
1 lbs Carafa II
1 lbs Crystal 60L
.5 lbs Chocolate

1 oz Magnum @ 60 min
1 oz Goldings @ 10 min

Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast

Probably won't be ready for a little bit, butif anyone has any suggestions we could collaborate, just wanted to get something going to move this project forward.

Another thought, for anyone who wants to do this extract, we're looking at around 12 lbs of LME, so maybe we could encourage some partial mash? Or with the nailers demonstration possibly some BIAB.

Is that for the Porter comp? Looks somewhat similar to what I brewed this weekend for it, just bigger.
I did a 10 gal batch with 5 going on a Irish Ale cake and 5 going on a Thames II cake. I had used Crystal 60, 120, pale choc and a touch of roast barley (didn't have enough pale choc ) but only used 19lbs of MO for an OG of 1050 which I overshot by a tad.
I think that recipe looks tasty! Especially with the flaked barley. I really like the velvet that adds to mouthfeel.

Yea lookin at it now I think it could be lacking some roast, so I'm gonna throw in 4 oz of roasted barley and 4 oz black patent to the mix. Just a trial run, if it comes out decent I'll do some minor tweaks and we can vote on whether or not we want to use the recipe for thew whiskey project.

I wanna get this show on the road! I love bourbon stouts, especially strong ones

Brewed this up, and is looking great! I actually took a gravity reading, started out at 1.091. Had a TON of blowoff, can't wait to give this one a try in a few days.

hay funkmaster as you know i'm getting ready to brew this stout.having never brewed a high gravity beer before i what one onder the belt before comitting to barrel prject.my question is i put your recipe in beersmith and it has the ibu's at 37.9ibu witch shows it to be low for the style.is this to account for the whiskey in the barrel.i'm thinking to up the ibu's to 50 ibu,whitch is at thebottom of this style but don't want a stout showing to much bitterness what do you think.thanks HB.

Yea exactly, I wanted a real big malt profile that would be balanced more from the bourbon than the actual IBU. feel free to a hoppy version, I'd like to see how that comes out in comparison.

A little advice on brewing imperials, dont be shy with the yeast. Get a big starter going, and make sure you use a blowoff tube, they get messy quick!

thanks funkmaster thats what i thought.i think i'll go with 50 ibu for this and adjust back to 38 ibu for the barrell project.for the yeast i was thinking 1.5 l but maybe 2l for the starter.thanks HB

Unfortunately I lost this batch. Should have bottled sooner, the airlock went dry and the wild yeast that thrive in my apt went to town on it. Ill have to convince mr c to brew this one at his place where it'll be safe from the funk

So I already told our cellar master, but the barrel itself will not be as expensive as I originally thought. 95 for the barrel, and 80 on freight for a total of 175! We should have 2 different samples to try at the next meeting of imperial stouts, and if everyone likes them I think we should go for it. The sooner it's racked onto bourbon, the sooner we can consume the stuff!

That is awesome news! Can u say who the distiller is? I wonder if we should taste there stuff as well?

Good ole jack Daniels barrel. And I of confused, I had a porter go sour, and my original stout was fine. Got it bottled tonight, should be good! I'd be more than fine with bringing a bourbon sample to try side by side with the beer