Oak Barrel Brewing

[cakeface]

I have been continuous brewing with a 2.2 gallon beverage dispenser, but have ordered a new 5 gallon american oak barrel to kick up my bootch brewing. Does anyone have any experience or suggestions for this endeavor? I just bottled my second ferment in empty G.T. bottles, nice and fizzy, very good flavor (berry ginger and hibiscus ginger). Anyway i have 3 scobys in my glass brewer and added more sweet tea so I can prepare.
Planning on arriving this Wed (4/29/14) figure to wet seal it for 2 days, and bought campden tablets to sanitize. Am I forgetting anything? Will 3 scobys be enough? figured i'd use 1 gallon of starter and 3-1/2 gallons of sweet tea for starters?
Thanks!

 

[zipper8650]

no experience with oak for me but speaking with a brewer recently that uses full oak barrels; he said it takes a few batches for it to come out exactly what he wants so dont be discouraged at first, he said it gets better the more you use it, good luck!!!

 

[kyt]

Will 3 scobys be enough? figured i'd use 1 gallon of starter and 3-1/2 gallons of sweet tea for starters?
Thanks!

1:3.5 should work out fine, but the scobys are unnecessary. You can toss them in there if you want, it's not going to hurt anything. It'll just add a few more bugs than what's already in the finished KT.

 

[cakeface]

Thank you so much! I can hardly wait for my barrel to get here and start my prep on that.

 

[cakeface]

...oak barrels; he said it takes a few batches for it to come out exactly what he wants so dont be discouraged at first, he said it gets better the more you use it, good luck!!!

thank you zipper, I hope it isn't completely undrinkable for the first couple of batches. I do have a kombucha jones, I only have backups for about 2 weeks @ 1 bottle (16oz) per day.

 

[kyt]

Currently working some KT at the moment ;-)

 

[cakeface]

Got my barrel AND it fits under my cabinet! Big bonus. Well here goes the big experiment with oak. Oh yeah, my spigot smells like a smokey bourbon! The barrel is new but maybe the spigot is not?

 

[zipper8650]

looks great! Not undrinkable at all, he just commented that it got better the more he used them