Group Whiskey Barrel Brew

[tdogg]

Some brewer friends and I are plotting a Barleywine brew to fill a whiskey barrel. We don't have the barrel yet, but we might have a lead on getting a Templeton Rye Whiskey barrel.

I will keep this thread updated as a way to document to the brew and ask some questions of you that have done a big group brew before.

Here's the tentative plan:

We plan on brewing about 10 gallons more than the barrel will hold. The extra can be used to top off the barrel and the remaining portion can be bottled "un-oaked" for comparison, or blended with the oaked beer.

once we figure out a recipe and get all the costs associated with the barrel, shipping the barrel, ingredients, etc, we will split the cost into 5 gallon "shares". if we are brewing 60 gallons, there will be 12 "shares" of beer available. This way all of the people involved will know the approximate cost upfront and no one gets stuck paying more than their fair share.

Recipe: We have a rough recipe figured out. We will finalize the recipe with only 3-4 people before we get the big group involved. I'm hoping this will eliminate alot of squabbling and possible issues with trying to come to a consensus in a big group. So far the recipe is fairly standard for a barleywine, with the addition of some rye. here's the tentative grainbill (for 5.5 gallons):

-5.5 gallons @ 72% eff and 120 min boil

-9# 2 row
-8# marris otter
-3.5# rye malt
-8 oz Simpsons Crystal 50/60
-12 oz briess caramel 80

yeast: wyeast 1056/ cali 001/ safale s-05

OG: 1.104

I will continue to post here as the project develops. Please feel free to share any wisdom that might come in handy for a project like this. Thanks and stay tuned!

 

[tdogg]

any advice? shared experiences from "barrel brews"?

 

[tdogg]

Well we did it! Here are a few pics from my phone. We got a barrel from the templeton iowa distillery and brewed 60 gallons of barleywine to fill it. The brew day went great. Ill try to do a more detailed write up with more pics when I can actually sit down at a computer.

Ill admit, trying to organize this project was kind of like herding cats, but once brewday came it was a blast! Cheers!

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

Awesome!!
Looking forward to the write up

Where did you get all that yeast slurry?!

 

[tdogg]

That carboy full of slurry was from our friendly neighborhood microbrewery. It pays to make friends with brewery owners. He helped us procure the barrel too. When he dumped yeast from his flagship IPA he saved some slurry for us.

 

[tdogg]

Well we finally got around to filling the barrel (a couple weeks ago), and so far so good. we stored the barrel in the basement of the house we brewed at.

The whole process was ablot of fun. Next time we will have the recipe and some other things figured out before we even get people to sign up. another problem we ran into was a couple people who couldn't make it on brew day so they brewed at home. low and behold one of them didn't brew and didn't have anything to contribute on barrel filling day. luckily we had enough... barely.

we are planning to brew a RIS in a couple months so we will have something to put into the barrel on the day we rack the barleywine out. I will be sure to have the recipe finalized well before i get people on board and have a strict "if youre not there on brewday, youre not in the barrel" policy.

I know its not the most detailed write up, but hopefully it will inspire someone to give this a shot. be prepared to be the coordinator, and get people to respond on whatever media you can. i chose mass emails sent to everyone involved just so i could make sure everyone was updated. facebook or texts could work too. if you're asking people to pitch in for the barrel, ingredients, or whatever, get the money up front. it was a fair bit of work but the brew day made it totally worth it! we shared plenty of home brew and some rare/weird micro brews and had a lot of fun.

 

[tdogg]

Update: brewed a Yeti stout clone today to fill the barrel. we brewed with a smaller group of people and it was much easier to coordinate. We will be getting together again in two weeks to get the barleywine out and put the stout in. will update then!

by the way, the barleywine tasted phenomenal. we did have a gallon extra that was aged outside the barrel, the taste difference was huge. the sample from the barrel had plenty of vanilla flavor, and a hint of the rye whiskey. i cant wait to get some carbonated!

 

[Dirty25]

That's really cool. I want to do tis someday.