Club Barrel

I stuck a theif in my carboy and sampled my baltic porter today and it is going to be an amazing beer! I hope everyone elses is coming along just as well as mine is.

BDG Pick up tonight! 7pm! At 142 Dolan Drive!

Remember, as discussed at the August meeting, the Bier de Garde pick up date is August 20th, 7PM. If you can't be there to pick up your share, please be sure to drop off a vessel before hand.

With some adanced notice - any day during the week(end) should work for me..

Oh, sometime in the next few weeks I suppose. Whenever folks want to come grab it. Are weekends better? Evenings or Afternoons?

When were you thinking? This weekend?

Friday or saturday work for me..

What day works for everyone to pick up their Bier de Garde? It's about done.

We should probably get the ball rolling on this one. I think the Bier de Garde will be done sometime in August-September. We'll want the next batch ready to dump in.

I'll get the recipe posted.

Now your talking! I'm in for the baltic porter

Michaeljeffreythomas wrote:

Baltic Porter would be fine with me.

We should do a big group order like last time.

I'm In!

Baltic Porter would be fine with me.

We should do a big group order like last time.

Yeah, we should definitely start brainstorming. Its best not to let the barrel sit empty too long. 

I like the idea of something malt forward. It'd be just in time for cold weather. A stout, or a special porter would be good. I know that the club has a pretty darn good recipe for a Baltic Porter, but I'm just a little biased on that one.

I have to agree with Ivan on this one. A stout would be fine, though maybe something a little different like a _____ porter, or even a Baltic Russian Export style porter could be fun, too.

At first I though Thomas was just getting a little too excited but we really should, that way in a month and a half-ish when we are ready to empty the barrel we have something to put right back in to so there isn't the headache of keeping the barrel wet. Do we want to do a stout next? I also think a authentic English style IPA would be cool, but that could be more of the last batch in the barrel where everything has mellowed with the oak and the wine flavors.

I think we should start thinking about what we are going to do next?

Michaeljeffreythomas wrote:

How is the beer ageing?

I don't know if I can wait 8 months!!!!!!!!!

It's okay, Mike. You only have to wait 2 months or so from the date we put everything into the barrel. We're just doing some barrel-aging. The long term barreling is intended for sour beers, which this isn't (hopefully)! : D

How is the beer ageing?

I don't know if I can wait 8 months!!!!!!!!!

Mine was about the same in look, hydro and about 5.5 going into secondary

Adam

Agreed. Low flocculation yeast + Adjunct grains definitely contributes to more fines, thus solids remaining in suspension..

Thanks!

MadisonJ wrote:

MadisonJ wrote:

Brewed and ready to take a reading tonight before transferring into the secondary.. I tried for 6 gallons but ended up with about 5.5 gallons..

I'm right at 5gallons-.

How has other folks' BDG’s turnout? I transferred mine from the primary to the secondary last night. Took a gravity reading and it was 1.01 which is right in the ballpark considering I didn’t add any candy sugar to the recipe..

Is the beer supposed to have an cloudy pale orange appearance? Just wondering as this beer is unlike any other pale ale I’ve brewed before – could be the yeast strain? At first I thought the batch was contaminated – but its tastes fantastic so I don’t think it is..

Thoughts?

No worries...in any case, that biere de garde yeast is known to be low-flocculation and can stay in suspension for a while (which is probably one reason why they store it so long). The other contributor is probably a lot of the residual proteins left behind by all of adjunct grains that are part of the recipe. If it tastes good, you're fine! The haze is just part of that old world charm!

MadisonJ wrote:

Brewed and ready to take a reading tonight before transferring into the secondary.. I tried for 6 gallons but ended up with about 5.5 gallons..

I'm right at 5gallons-.

How has other folks' BDG’s turnout? I transferred mine from the primary to the secondary last night. Took a gravity reading and it was 1.01 which is right in the ballpark considering I didn’t add any candy sugar to the recipe..

Is the beer supposed to have an cloudy pale orange appearance? Just wondering as this beer is unlike any other pale ale I’ve brewed before – could be the yeast strain? At first I thought the batch was contaminated – but its tastes fantastic so I don’t think it is..

Thoughts?

MadisonJ wrote:

Brewed and ready to take a reading tonight before transferring into the secondary.. I tried for 6 gallons but ended up with about 5.5 gallons..

No issue there - you should still end up the requisite 5 gallons to contribute after racking off the trub.

Brewed and ready to take a reading tonight before transferring into the secondary.. I tried for 6 gallons but ended up with about 5.5 gallons..

travis.posey.1291 wrote:

I brewed mine over the weekend. This was my 1st attempt at all grain...the right way . I used Wyeast 3724. The fermintation took off right away as I had a starter going since Big Brew Day. The fermintation was so strong I had to release the pressure on the lid as it was flexing. All is good now and looking forward to transferring to the secondary on Friday 5/17.

Just a word to the wise: be sure to take a gravity reading before transferring it to secondary. 3724 is notorious for petering out around 1.030-1.040 and taking several weeks to complete. The other key is to jack the temp up to 90-93° (my apologies if you already knew this). You may have to add an additional dry yeast to finish the fermentation process.

I brewed mine over the weekend. This was my 1st attempt at all grain...the right way . I used Wyeast 3724. The fermintation took off right away as I had a starter going since Big Brew Day. The fermintation was so strong I had to release the pressure on the lid as it was flexing. All is good now and looking forward to transferring to the secondary on Friday 5/17.

I brewed the barrel brew yesterday, was fermenting well this morning before I left for Chase Lake NWR and plan for it to be ready to move to secondary next week with plenty of time to be ready to transfer on the 6th.

Randi and I did a marathon 15 gallon brew session Friday night, from 7pm until 12am! It was a lot of fun to dust off the old Sabco and give 'er a good run. : D We did a double batch of the Biere de Garde with a blend of the Wyeast BDG yeast and Wyeast 1388. They're playing together nicely and making some great smells, took off quickly too. For a nice, easy, ageable French/Belgian style beer, I love this recipe - can't be beat!

We're going to put all 10 gallons into the barrel, donate some to the Ofest contribution, sour some and keep the rest on tap or age in bottles. Some of you may be thinking, "Well, that's not 15 gallons." and you'd be right. The other 5 was a partigyle that came from the second runnings of the first double batch (added some extra rye and oats for fermentability) to make a nice, light lawn mower beer. We did some first wort hopping and the rest was additions with 20 minutes remaining to flame out. We included Pacific Jade, Wakatu and some Sorachi Ace for the finishing. It should even out after one week of fermentation but retain some great flavor and aroma without the bitterness. For those who are curious, we used S-04 and it's doing just fine. Should be a flavorful little beer, weighing in at about 1.035-1.038.

Anyway, can't argue with investing about 5 hours of brewing for 15 gallons. Sounds like everyone else's is going well too, so that's great to hear! : D

Brewed mine last Tuesday night. I made sure to allow for extra after trub loss so should have 5.5 to 6 gallons when finished.

I just transferred my part yesterday to secondary. It really turned out great! I have a full 6 gallons.

How is everyone else coming along?

Does the sign up look like we will need to make 5 or 10 gallon batches? I already ordered ingredients for a 5 gallon batch but if I need to make more I will need to order more.

Great. I wanted to brew it there.

I would think so. I'll just set a deadline for participants to have their information to me by end of Thursday and I'll place the order right away. If we get it early enough, I can bring the supplies to the May meeting. If they come after Thursday, I'll just bring them to the brew site or folks can pick them up.

Can we do this in time to brew at Big Brew Day?

I think what we're going to end up doing is taking orders for a bulk order. There are a few guys not interested in ordering together, but there are a couple that are, so we'll just take an order, have the club cover shipping and charge you the cost of ingredients. I'll contact the individual participants once sign up is done.

Do we know if people are going to do a group buy for ingredients yet?

The recipe, the brew dates, and the sign up form for the first barrel brew have been posted here: Biere de Garde Recipe/Club Barrel Aging Announcement & Sign Up

I can weld it up for you if needed

If you need an impact driver for the lag bolts let me know, I have one you can use.

I think Randi is making the stand for it with 2x6s and lag bolts this weekend. The barrel is 120 lbs dry and I believe about 600 wet, so we have to make sure we do a good job on that stand or we'll have a huge mess in our basement!

Have you tested the barrel yet?

It has arrived!

Barrel is scheduled to arrive this Tuesday. It's slow moving freight since it weighs 120lbs empty. We'll start a discussion on what the first barrel brew should be shortly.

The club barrel should be here the end of this week or the beginning or next.

I thought it was ordered and on the way.

Did we get this barrel yet?

Any news on what Barrel we are getting yet?

Igraf wrote:

It looks like we have enough interest to get the barrel filled. How do we want to proceed with deciding on what kind of barrel and what to fill it with?

Agreed, it's great to see the positive response so far. At this point, we've only gotten 7 votes on which barrel the club should procure, so we're leaving the poll up a bit longer to get a more definitive response. We also proactively contacted the barrel company for shipping quotes and are waiting for a response at this time.

It looks like we have enough interest to get the barrel filled. How do we want to proceed with deciding on what kind of barrel and what to fill it with?

You'd really enjoy it. It's a very fun experience!