Carbonation in a Barrel

A close cousin of mine is having his wedding at the "Enchanted Barn" in Wisconsin and I thought it would be cool, in keeping with the decor of the place, to bring some beer and dispense it out of a barrel. I brewed up a batch of ESB, a beer i felt would be appropriate, and let it primary for 3 weeks. While it was happily fermenting, I picked up one of the 5 gallon whiskey barrels from adventures in homebrewing. I drilled a hole for the keystone and also enlarged the hole for the bung. My plan was to allow the beer to carbonate in the keg and also allow be to dispense out of it. Then night before i was going to fill it I inserted the bung and filled the barrel to let it expand. It leaked initialy but stopped leaking after leaving it over night. I then melted and coated the whole thing with a thin layer of parafin wax, thinking that it would maybe make the barrel a littler more air tight to help in carbonation. Once to barrel was waxed, I emptied it and added geletin finings and 1/3 cup priming sugar. I then hammered in the keystone and placed it on the rack. The wedding is in two weeks so i will report back once its tapped. I just thought i would post this so if anyone else is thinking of doing something similar they can see how i did it.

thats pretty sweet man. however, i have to question just where in the eff you have this sweet arsed barrell sitting. is that pink wall paper and old lady pictures?!
great barrell tho, hope it comes out tasty.

It's in my laundry room. I told the wife I'd paint it any color she wanted as long as she didn't ask me to do the laundry. The old lady pictures are actuall Marilyn Monroe.

haha, nice. that is a sweet barrell. hope it turns out well!