Out Of Key Brewing

Recently I had the chance to fulfill one of the items on my brewing bucket list(L), filling a 55 gallon bourbon barrel with beer.  After the November First Thursday meeting Doug(L) were riding the train home and discussing things that we would be able to do if we were members of a homebrewing club.  One of the things that was at the top of the list was how awesome it would be to fill a barrel with beer for aging.  However we both had  a lot to drink and agreed that finding enough brewers to fill 55 gallons would be difficult.

For the time being I set those thoughts aside.

In early January when the barleywine we brewed at a local brewery (note to self I need to write that up) was released to the public, I had the chance to talk to the brewer about what he did with the barrels he used.  He told me that he put them out back.  He thought he may be turn them into planters…….

Game On.

He was absolutely open to giving us a once used barrel for aging a beer in.  He agreed to keep it wet for us until we could pick it up.  He said he would have a barrel available for us in late February.

I started the next day assembling a team of brewers I trusted to get a recipe together and get the batches brewed.

In total we had six total brewers.  Five of them brewed 10+ gallons and remaining did 8.   The recipe we settled on was an imperial porter which shook out like this:

Anticipated OG:          1.080    Plato:             19.43
Anticipated SRM:          33.9
Anticipated IBU:          67.9
Wort Boil Time:             90    Minutes
Yeast:  CalAle
Mash:  Single Infusion 154

Malt
%     Name
————————————————-
8.8     Flaked Barley
55.9  TF Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
14.7  Munich Malt
8.8     TF Brown Malt
5.9     Crystal 120L
2.9     Crystal 40L
2.9     Chocolate Malt

Name                           IBU  Boil Time
———————————————————–
Magnum                         61.8  60 min.
Goldings – E.K.                6.1   10 min.

The hops served as nothing more than a guideline.  We all agreed to go with very clean bitterness and and English style hop for finishing.  We really we just trying to avoid anything that was going to drive it too citrusy.

We had a chance to sample the beer on fill day and all the batches were quite similar.  The beer really turned out as a big smooth porter.

There is certainly a hint of alcohol as most of the beers finished at around 1020 resulting in a pre-barrel abv around 8%.  Our volumes were right on and we ended up with around 3 gallons left over.  Jon (the barrel host) is using that for topping off due to evaporation and wood absorption.

The current plan is to let the beer age six months and then start sampling.  Once feel we have picked up enough bourbon / oak character we will keg and bottle the beer.

I will report back in September.

In November I brewed up my take on a Berliner Weisse for my recent St. Patricks day party.  Pretty simple recipe of 60% pils 40% wheat, I did a double decoction 122, 141 rests, with my scarification rest was done at 152.  The wort yielded a OG of 1028.  I used amarillo hops in the mash.  They were added after the 122 decoction was pulled.  The beer was boiled for 30 minutes and chilled to 100 F.  The wort was not oxygenated outside of simple splashing.

4 days before brewing I created a starter using three tablespoons of Trader Joe’s Greek Yogurt.  The container says it contains 6 distinct bacterias:

• Lactobacillus bulgaricus
• Streptococcus thermophilus
• Lactobacillus acidophilus
• Bifidus
• Lactobacillus casei
• Lactobacillus rhamnosus

The starter smelled somewhat sour prior to pitching but nothing too intense.  I did not sample the starter.  Within 2 hours of adding the starter there was a thick six inch krausen that had formed.    When the airlock was removed it smelled strongly sour.

After 5 days I added one packet of California ale dry yeast that had been re-hydrated on the stir plate.

The beer fermented for a total of 10 days at 65 degrees and finished at 1.000.  I force carbonated the beer in a keg to 3.5 volumes which produced a very highly carbonated beer.  I would not  try this in a bottle.

The beer by itself ended up being only mildly sour.  It has a certain twang to it and is mildy acidic.  While the plain beer is quite refreshing, when mixed with a simple rasberry syrup (water, sugar, frozen raspberries) to takes on a very nice tartness, which is very good. It would be a great beer for a hot summer day.  Additionally one of my brewing buddies got his hands on some woodruff syrup , which is a sweet traditional herbal syrup from Germany, for me.  While it imparted some sweetness to the beverage, the flavor was really not very distinct.   I served it for the first time at my St. Patrick’s day party (one of 10 beers on draft) and pretty much everyone who tried it, liked it.  It was a big hit with my friends who are not beer drinkers, who pretty much had a big glass of the pink hued rasberry flavored drink in their hands all night.

This beer will be brewed again.  The only change I will make will be In the lacto phase,  I am going to keep the beer in the upper 90s.   This ideally should produce a more bracing sourness.   By giving the lacto and other bacteria a better environment to kick out some sourness.  This also may be the perfect beer to start playing with my Kombucha scoby, perhaps a split batch even.