Hi all,
I'm mainly a lurker on these forums, love you guys, but I just have to post this.
My girlfriend's dad (who originally got me into homebrewing) just bought a 59 gallon oak barrel originally used for red wine, and he plans to fill it with a sour ale (rodenbach clone), wait a year, and then subtract 5 gallons at a time, refilling with 5 gallons of fresh wort. And of course I will be involved!
The actual details of the brewing are up in the air right now. We're not really sure how to brew that much beer at once. Neither of us has the equipment for an all-boil, not like that would really speed things up. It's looking like it's going to be a 12+ hour brewday for this.
We also need the collective brain of the forum to brainstorm some specifics:
Yeast starter: any ideas? Massive? Has anyone done anything like this before?
Primary/Secondary: Right now we're thinking about a month primary and then racking to the barrel, although we would need like 12 carboys to do this. Would the yeast cake just be massive if we brewed 59 gal of wort and just stuck it in the barrel? Should we spread the brewing process over a couple of months, or will that leave too much head space in the barrel? Are we completely nuts?
I'll follow up with pictures of the barrel, and hopefully of the process as well, in the coming weeks.
siruso
I'm mainly a lurker on these forums, love you guys, but I just have to post this.
My girlfriend's dad (who originally got me into homebrewing) just bought a 59 gallon oak barrel originally used for red wine, and he plans to fill it with a sour ale (rodenbach clone), wait a year, and then subtract 5 gallons at a time, refilling with 5 gallons of fresh wort. And of course I will be involved!
The actual details of the brewing are up in the air right now. We're not really sure how to brew that much beer at once. Neither of us has the equipment for an all-boil, not like that would really speed things up. It's looking like it's going to be a 12+ hour brewday for this.
We also need the collective brain of the forum to brainstorm some specifics:
Yeast starter: any ideas? Massive? Has anyone done anything like this before?
Primary/Secondary: Right now we're thinking about a month primary and then racking to the barrel, although we would need like 12 carboys to do this. Would the yeast cake just be massive if we brewed 59 gal of wort and just stuck it in the barrel? Should we spread the brewing process over a couple of months, or will that leave too much head space in the barrel? Are we completely nuts?
I'll follow up with pictures of the barrel, and hopefully of the process as well, in the coming weeks.
siruso