RIS Brew Day for a Barrel

[Pappers_]

Had a brew day yesterday with two friends and my oldest son, making our batches for a group barrel brew. This batch is an RIS, hit our OG spot on (1.100) We've got a porter in the barrel now, we'll empty it in early May and serve one keg of it at the AHA conference - stop by the Brewers of South Suburbia booth on club night if you want to try it or seven other barrel-aged beers we're bringing.

Then we'll put the RIS in the barrel and let it sit for a year-ish. The barrel began its life as a Jim Beam barrel, then was used by Goose Island once for a Barleywine before I got it.

For the RIS, we used a yeast slurry from a local brewery, Hailstorm. It was the San Diego strain and that stuff is dynamite. Pitched it at 5 pm yesterday and by 5 am today, I needed to empty out the blow-off jug and clean the blow-off tubing. It just exploded.

 

[Pappers_]

5.5 gallons
70% efficiency
OG 1.100

19 lbs Pale Malt
1.5 lbs Roasted Barley
1 lb. Special B Malt
1 lb. Chocolate Malt
0.5 lb. 80L Malt

1.5 oz Magnum fwh (13%)
2 oz. East Kent Goldings 15 min (7%)
2 oz. EKG 10 mins
2 oz. EKG 5 mins

San Diego Super Yeast

Mashed at 156F

 

[Unferth]

Looks nice. I can never get 70% wit hat large a grain bill.

I'm thinking of doing some long term beer ageing as well on oak. I've bulk aged wine before, but not a big beer. Do you plan on continually racking it until it's not dropping as much lease before putting it in the barrel? Or is lees not a concern for taste?

 

[Pappers_]

Everyone in the group racks once, from primary to secondary, before we get together and rack into the barrel.

 

[mbbransc]

Looks nice. I can never get 70% wit hat large a grain bill.

I'm thinking of doing some long term beer ageing as well on oak. I've bulk aged wine before, but not a big beer. Do you plan on continually racking it until it's not dropping as much lease before putting it in the barrel? Or is lees not a concern for taste?

Me either. Did an imperial stout a little more than a week ago and based my recipe on 65%; I got 53%. I had to add 1.5# DME to get the gravity to 1.100.

 

[Pappers_]

Me either. Did an imperial stout a little more than a week ago and based my recipe on 65%; I got 53%. I had to add 1.5# DME to get the gravity to 1.100.

Yes, if I was doing this on my system, for a beer this big, would set my calculations at 60% efficiency. This was a group brew, on a friend's system, and he said 70% is what we should expect and he was right.