Batch No. 55 - Theme from the Barrel No. 2

Theme from the Barrel No. 2

Brewed - June 3, 2012

Style - Imperial Porter

Ingredients:

• 11.0 lbs. American 2-Row
• 9.0 lbs. Maris Otter
• 5.0 lbs. Rauch Malt
• 3.0 lbs. Midnight Wheat
• 2.0 lbs. Crystal 60L
• 1.5 lbs. Sugar in the Raw
• 1.5 lbs. Chocolate
• 1.0 lbs. Crystal 90L

• 1.25 oz. Centennial (90)
• 0.75 oz. Cascade (90)
• 0.75 oz. Cascade (30)

• Safale US-05 Dry Yeast (3 packs / no starter)

OG - 1.092
Primary – 25 days
Barrel - ?? days
Secondary - ??? days

Transferred to the barrel -June 28, 2012

Kegged - ???

FG - 1.021
Attenuation - 77.2% 
ABV - 9.3%


Notes:

• Finally brewing one of my favorite styles, an Imperial Porter
• Fermented beer will be dumped into my 7.5-gallon Rye Whiskey Barrel from Woodinville Whiskey Company, which was recently emptied of the American Barleywine
• I'm hoping to get one more good turn out the "fresh" barrel and fuse the imperial porter with the rye whiskey notes; afterwards I will strip and clean the barrel to either use for a few fresh oak beers or turn it loose for sour beers 
• Barrel was rinsed with warm water after transferring out the barleywine and then I burned a sulfur stick in the barrel to prevent microbial growth while it sits for approximately 3 more weeks until the new imperial porter is ready; ideally I would have been more on top of this to have it ready closer to the emptying of the barrel, but I've been busy with NHC beers and the barrel flavors really took off into the barleywine the last 1.5 weeks before transferring it out
• Mash at 152° for 90 minutes
• Turbinado Sugar was added into the boil @ 30 mins to help bump ABV and fermentability
• 90 min boil
• First time using Midnight Wheat malt and the wort had a gorgeous chocolate cappuccino layer as it approached boiling
• I got a normal ~ 10 gallons with this batch, so unlike the barleywine where I used 100% for the barrel, I will have ~ 2.5 gallons of base beer to compare to the barrel-aged version

Updates:

• Hydrated the barrel with water for 2 days prior to transfer
• Transferred to the barrel on June 28, 2012
• Gravity at transfer was 1.021 for a 9.3% ABV
• Transfer to the barrel much easier the 2nd time around!!
• The barrel is definitely bigger than the listed 7.5 gallons; closer to 8.5 gallons and will measure it next time I clean it out

The Barrel Room is born ;)

Barrel aging on my own is now a reality!!  Last week I purchased a 7-gallon oak barrel from Woodinville Whiskey Company that was recently emptied of their Rye Whiskey.  For the first use, I will be filling it with the American Barleywine brewed last weekend.  The hope for this first use is to age the Barleywine in the barrel and extract oak and rye whiskey flavors.  Then soon after that is transferred out, to get a 2nd use of it with perhaps an Imperial Porter.  After that I think most of the rye whiskey flavors will be stripped out and then the barrel will have to be cleaned-up for future use as a sour barrel or maybe even some oak-aged saisons (yum!!).  I know plenty about drinking barrel aged beers but next to nothing about making them and using a barrel, so this is very exciting and there will be plenty of updates to come!!     

Batch #47 - Theme from the Barrel No.1

Theme from the Barrel No.1

Brewed - March 10, 2012

Style - American Barleywine (Barrel-Aged)

Ingredients:

• 26.5 lbs.Maris Otter
• 2.00 lbs. Munich 10L
• 1.50 lbs. Sugar in the Raw
• 1.35 lbs. CaraMunich
• 1.25 lbs. Crystal 120L
• 0.50 lbs. Dextrose
• 0.40 lbs. Special B
• 0.30 lbs. Chocolate

• 1.0 oz. Millennium (90)
• 1.0 oz. Magnum (90)
• 1.0 oz. Perle (60)
• 2.0 oz. Centennial (0)
• 2.0 oz. Amarillo (0)

• Wyeast #1056 American Ale (slurry from Schooner)

OG - 1.113
Primary – 45 days
Barrel - 34 days
Secondary - ??? days

Transferred to the barrel - April 24, 2012
Kegged - ???

FG - 1.032
Attenuation - 72%
ABV - 10.6%


Notes:

• A big, bad barleywine for my first barrel filling
• Part 1 of a Parti-Gyle batch; not quite the traditional method where I designed one overall beer and mash to get two beers (one strong and one weak), but this was more about designing the barleywine that I wanted and then using the 2nd runnings to make a low-ABV beer for the upcoming Yard Cask Fest
• Fermented beer will be dumped into a 7-gallon freshly emptied Rye Whiskey Barrel from Woodinville Whiskey Company
• Only brewed an 8-gallon batch due to the limit of the mash tun (can only put in ~ 33-34 lbs. of grain) and wanting the finished beer to be in the 11% ABV range  
• Mash at 149° for 90 minutes
• Sugars added into the boil to help bump ABV and fermentability
• 120 min boil
• Estimated IBU's ~ 98
• Ferment in the low 70's for hopefully 2 weeks and then transfer into the barrel
• Long, slow ferment; 45 days in the primary; re-pitched with some dry yeast
• Transferred to the rye whiskey barrel on April 24, 2012
• Had to top off the barrel with ~ 0.4 gallons of Shores of the Baltic Sea, which also happens to be fermenting really slow but as of April 24th is ~ 1.025
• 34 days in the barrel - transferred on May 28th