100L american oak barrel aged split batches

I got more than a corny, so it's in 1 full size corny and 1 half party keg. Overall about 23-24l.

Cubed. Pitching tomorrow arvo.

Yeast is pitched, finally. First real brew in the new keggle. Sik!

Looks like I got 81% efficiency with a 10 litre sparge. Awesome. Full volume BIAB kicks arse. If I brewed a 1060 beer with the old 20L stockpot method I've have gotten 12L at 62% efficiency.

Good to hear Paul. Both mine and Petes is kegged and sitting with a head of gas on it awaiting yours completion.
I would say by the way ours fermented it should be well and truely finished by next weekend and maybe you could take it into Duanes or meet me at Kanwal to Christen the barrel.

Yeah mate, sorry for the delay. Good to finally get it down, yo.

If it's done fermenting in time I should be able to drop it off on Sunday. Otherwise Duane's. I'll let you know.

Hows ferment going Paul?
I will be filling the barrel with Petes and my beer this weekend as i need the kegs for another batch and it is currently using 3 of them.

It's been looking pretty done for a couple of days now. Yet to take an FG reading but I'm pretty sure it'll be finished. I can get it over to you or Duane's Friday arvo in a 25 Litre cube. Going away Saturday/Sunday. Otherwise Monday. Let me know which you'd prefer.

Happy to grab it from Duanes Friday arvo

Consider it done dude.

Mate I'll have to drop it off at Duane's in the morning. It doesn't look like I'll have time today.

You want me to drop it off at Kanwal this arvo?

Sure. Give me a bell to organize a time 0foursix8four7fournine3nine.
I can siphon it on the spot and you can take your cube back home with you.

So barrel was filled on Saturday boys.
Good to get some beer in there finally.
Fell a bit short on volume maybe 10L or so but shouldn't bother it too much (Hopefully)

Pete- your corny keg was highly carbonated, smelt fine though so obviously just hadn't finished fermenting.

Paul- what kinds of temps did you get yours upto? Yours seemed to lack a little in the funky saison yeasty taste that mine and Petes had.

Mine- Both batches tasted a little bit different i have a sneaking suspicion that i may have doubled the amount of Spec B in one.

Well time will tell anyway boys i will check on it every few weeks and i can try and get some samples to Duanes so you guys can decide on a pull date.

Imperiallambic wrote:
Paul- what kinds of temps did you get yours upto? Yours seemed to lack a little in the funky saison yeasty taste that mine and Petes had.

I ran mine at 22 degrees + or - 0.9 degrees for the whole 12 days. I did think it was lacking a little bit of funky yeast flavour when I tasted the gravity sample day before cubing but wasn't sure if it was just my imagination. Seems it wasn't as you're getting the same impression. I doubt over pitching would be to blame as it didn't start to show for about 36 hours and no real krausen for 48. I'm wondering if my fridgemate might be slightly out of calibration? Any ideas?

Nah mate who knows? could be a bunch of factors. It still tasted good and will mix in just fine.
Maybe get your thermometer and check your thermostat.

After seeing how much Petes keg was carbed i went to check on the barrel today to see if it was fermenting. 

All good bung was in and nothing on the surface. The wine smell in the barrel has already mellowed alot and the beer smells lovely.

Have you had a taste yet Marc? Whats it like?

Gingerpete wrote:Have you had a taste yet Marc? Whats it like?

No not yet i have moved to Sydney.
I will most likely be coming up the coast next weekend so will pull a taster then.

Pulled a bottle today for tasting.
Have took it into Duane's.
Let me know what you both think.

I'll get in there on Friday and have a go at it.

I had a taste of this yesterday arvo. I couldn't detect too much oak character but a got what I thought was a red wine tannin taste.
Maybe we should bottle this before the tannin gets too much? Any thoughts.

I had a taste on Saturday.
Cold, straight out of Duanes fridge, I couldn't pick up any oak. However when it got significantly warmer (10-15C) I got a lot more oak. Almost too much for balance of the beer.
I couldn't pick up any/much red wine flavour or characteristics except of the oak. who knows though, I am not a very good taster/judge and am easily confused with what I think I can pick up.
Overall though, I am happy with how its turned out. Bit of carbonation to it and a bit of time in a bottle and it should be a very interesting enjoyable beer.

Not sure whether its time to pull it or not. If we go too long, will the oak character will drop as it ages in the bottle? If it will, probably leave it for another month. If the oak is there to stay and won't fade, maybe its time to bottle. Marc, Paul, what do you think?

The next thing to think about is bottling - how do we do it?
I am thinking it would be risky to try and simply prime with sugar - Higher alcohol and long time sitting in the barrel. The amount of viable yeast would be low.
Force Carbonate in a keg and fill with the beer gun? It would work and be easy to control level of carbonation (If its better with a high carbonation or low one), but could be fiddily and extra source of contamination from kegs and gun.
Krausening with a neutral ale yeast? Never krausened before, not sure of how much yeast and wort to add. But would probably work if we could figure it out. I can get some sterile syringes and needles from work to accurately measure volumes of fermenting wort for each bottle if we can work out how much we need per bottle

Gingerpete wrote: If we go too long, will the oak character will drop as it ages in the bottle? If it will, probably leave it for another month. If the oak is there to stay and won't fade, maybe its time to bottle. Marc, Paul, what do you think?

Honestly don't know It's the first time I've oaked anything. If I had to guess I'd say pull it to be safe as I reckon you can have to much of a good thing (oak).

Gingerpete wrote: The next thing to think about is bottling - how do we do it?
I am thinking it would be risky to try and simply prime with sugar - Higher alcohol and long time sitting in the barrel. The amount of viable yeast would be low.
Force Carbonate in a keg and fill with the beer gun? It would work and be easy to control level of carbonation (If its better with a high carbonation or low one), but could be fiddily and extra source of contamination from kegs and gun.
Krausening with a neutral ale yeast? Never krausened before, not sure of how much yeast and wort to add. But would probably work if we could figure it out. I can get some sterile syringes and needles from work to accurately measure volumes of fermenting wort for each bottle if we can work out how much we need per bottle

Bloody good question. I hadn't considered beer gun or force carbonate as I don't have access to kegging gear.

My initial thoughts were bulk prime a cube with a high gravity ale yeast and bottle from there. Upper end of fizziness. In keeping with Saison style guidelines but allowing a margin of error and also for long term strorage as I feel it will take at least six months for the flavours and alcohol to meld together. I realise this doesn't provide a definitive answer but they are my thoughts anyway.

I will be adding a neutral tasting yeast 1-2ml per bottle and bottle carbonating 1 batch and am thinking of kegging the other.

Happy to pull the beer whenever you guys have the time to meet up.
Or i can just put it back into the vessels you gave me??

Being that i now live in Sydney it would have to be a weekend i am on the coast. I will be up there this weekend for atleast 1 day.

If you guys can remember how much you spent on yeasts, spec grains and sugar. Add it up and minus it off what you owe me for the pilsner malt which was $2.40/kg

Next question is who is interested in another refill of a different beer?
Happy to hear suggestions on non sour or sour beers.
I cannot stop thinking about how good a flanders would be in there and am really tempted to infect it.

I think I'll kegs and use my Beer gun to fill. That way I can control the level of carbonation to get an optimal result. You still have my kegs Marc, would you mind filling them up and I can pick them up one weekend?
Happy to lend it out the beer gun too if anyone else wants to use it, its works really well and purges all the O2 before filling.

My total costs were around $20 for the sugar and all specialty grains. I think Duane gave us a fair bit of a discount on what I bought from him, so I'd say we may owe him some bottles of what we make.

As for another beer, I'd be up for it again. Never tried a Flanders Red before - Whats the process with souring and a barrel? do we ferment first with ale yeast, then pitch bugs into the barrel?

What would we do differently this time? What worked well and what didn't of this joint brew? I thought it was a bit of a hassle everyone buying separate ingredients and exchanging them - Maybe next time everyone can organise their own brew and we just bring the finished beer to the barrel? Or even better a joint brew day at Duanes would be ideal. I did enjoy getting on the forum and talking about what we were doing and discussing different ways of doing it.

I think it will be easier to refill my cube and take it home to bottle.

From memory I spent $10.00 on yeast, $3.50 worth of LDME and $5.00 on the Carawheat. All up $18.50.

I was thinking another round of barrel aged brewing might be good. Something like a vanilla porter or Flanders red but at this stage I'll have to opt out as I'm just too busy and would end up fucking you guys around.

If you want to get together for the tapping of the keg and to have a brew or two next time you're up, let me know when you're coming and I'll book it in Marc.