Alright folks, this update is a fun one.
On my bucket list of brewing has been to make a big beer. A group of guys I've brewed with on and off with over the years used to do regular homework assignments and one of these was to make a 10%+ beer. Well, this beer hits that mark. On top of that, I decided that it would be an excellent excuse to start a barrel aged beer.
The beer is the clone of New Holland's Dragon's Milk out of the Book of Clone brews. We did a double brew day, which was a bit exhausting. All in all, it was a 12 hour day. I had the nut brown's yeast as the propagator for this beer's fermentation and pitched about a quart and a half of yeast. The beer got off to a good fermentation and was very aggressively bubbling away. The beer smells and tastes pretty good as just a stout. It is big and a bit hot on the tongue from the alcohol.
Filling a barrel wasn't too hard. We sanitized a pump by running a starsan mix through it for a couple of minutes and then hooked it up to the conical and let pumped it out. We were a bit short on brew so I may brew a smaller 5-gallon batch of this and top off the barrel to reduce oxidation. Or I may just let it go since it won't be in the barrel that long. Who knows at this point.
One note on a barrel stand. If you ever build one, I definitely like that I have it tall enough to rack into a keg, and that is on wheels. 15 gallons of beer + a 40lb barrel would not be possible to move and would make kegging a chore if it were on the ground.
On my bucket list of brewing has been to make a big beer. A group of guys I've brewed with on and off with over the years used to do regular homework assignments and one of these was to make a 10%+ beer. Well, this beer hits that mark. On top of that, I decided that it would be an excellent excuse to start a barrel aged beer.
The beer is the clone of New Holland's Dragon's Milk out of the Book of Clone brews. We did a double brew day, which was a bit exhausting. All in all, it was a 12 hour day. I had the nut brown's yeast as the propagator for this beer's fermentation and pitched about a quart and a half of yeast. The beer got off to a good fermentation and was very aggressively bubbling away. The beer smells and tastes pretty good as just a stout. It is big and a bit hot on the tongue from the alcohol.
Filling a barrel wasn't too hard. We sanitized a pump by running a starsan mix through it for a couple of minutes and then hooked it up to the conical and let pumped it out. We were a bit short on brew so I may brew a smaller 5-gallon batch of this and top off the barrel to reduce oxidation. Or I may just let it go since it won't be in the barrel that long. Who knows at this point.
One note on a barrel stand. If you ever build one, I definitely like that I have it tall enough to rack into a keg, and that is on wheels. 15 gallons of beer + a 40lb barrel would not be possible to move and would make kegging a chore if it were on the ground.