Hi CHAOS
There have been quite a few questions that have come up regarding barreling at CHAOS, mostly about how new barrels can get added. As CHAOS does not currently have a policy surrounding barrels I think we need to open it up for discussion. A few general points about barrels:
- Barrels are long term commitments, usually 6-12 months
- Barrels weigh a lot and cannot be moved once filled until emptied
- For this reason, stacking barrels makes it difficult to replace old or contaminated barrels
- Barrels take up a lot of space
- We have no policy as to whom may store barrels at the brew house. Most existing barrels seem to be owned by alchemists
- It is not clear what is in each barrel, who owns them, and what the time frame is for emptying them. As far as I can tell there are 4 large barrels (I know who controls those), 2 medium barrels and 4 small barrels.
There is an opportunity coming up in the next month to reorganize the barrel storage situation as our 4 largest barrels will be emptied in this time. The BCS clone is scheduled for emptying on June 31, the Westy clone is scheduled for filling in the near future, one barrel is empty, and Dave said we could pull out the Elixer of Life.
I have attached a sketch showing how I think the south wall should be organized. The way it is drawn we can get in 7 large (54g), 3 med (15-30g) and 7 small (5g) barrels. it also shows the bottling station over the barrels, some storage, the couches and the fridge.
This setup does not allow for any expansion of the ferm room. If we eliminated the stack of large barrels we could expand the firm room to hold 24 more carboys. We could also eliminate the couch and add lots more barrels and carboys, but I'm not sure anyone wants to do that.
The assembly would cost about $300 and take a day to build. It would not have to be built before we refill the big barrels. But we would have to empty/fill all the big barrels on the same day so we could position them correctly for the whole setup to work later.
in conclusion, I have two main questions:
- Does the club want to move ahead with my sketch, and if so are there modifications people want to see?
- How are we going to determine who can store barrels and how long they can be filled?
Would the two bottling bays then be above the large barrels? It appears that way, just wanted to confirm. If so, how deep are those barrels? And is it something we'll have to build out or can we use some of the existing stainless tables? Overall I think this looks great and I definitely think that there is a lot of space on that half of the brewhouse that we're not really using right now and this takes care of that.
My only other question is, if we decide to turn the office into some form of lager / cold room, what would happen to all of the stuff in there (mostly the keezer since its pretty big). Do we have the space in this design in the event that happens?
Finally, my opinion on the barrels is that as long as they're a its a group of people from the club then we should be using this storage. Maybe we start-up a requirement that the club always gets one share into the Keezer or for the next event (since these are special)? Just a thought.
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...
My plan is to reuse two of the stainless steel table tops, they would sit over the barrels at about 38" of the floor (that is 4" higher than the normal kitchen counter) The big barrels are 37" deep. I was planning on mounting the lockers to the wall for storage of misc. stuff from the office. This would push the table tops off the wall by 12 inches foot, the table tops are 30 inches, so the front of the table would overhang the top of the barrel by 5 inches, which is about perfect.
I imagine the new keezer would get sold as we would intergreate the function into the walkin cold room and run taps out the wall.
On the big barrels I would totally agree with the keezer requirment, on the smaller barrels it does not make sense. But how would we allocate space for the 5gallon barrels?
I have a lot of thoughts going through my head about this. I really liked the idea of expanding the ferm room, but perhaps the cold room would relieve the current crowding. If that's the case, then I'm okay with not expanding. The five gallon barrels are for one person to use. Maybe we could charge rent for those spaces, similar to the loft storage spots?
the small barrels you're talking about are 10 gallon barrels, I believe, if you're talking about the rum ones.
just so you know whose barrel belongs to whom, the 5 gallon few is Adam York's, the 60 gallon wine barrel is Thomas Thorpes, the 3 10 gallon rum barrels belong to a. niilo, b. me, c. Iggi and Dave Williams, the Goose Island Barrels belong to Iggi, Kyle, Dave, and Derek Bondy. The smaller Koval barrel to the left of those which is around 30-35 gallons belongs to Niilo as well. Niilo's rum barrel is shot. He didn't take care of it. Last time I asked if I could throw it out he said no. My barrel is now infected so I'm going to start using it for Old Ales. Dave and Iggi's is also contaminated but Iggi is still using it.
Niilo's Koval barrel, Derek Bondy's barrel, and Thomas Thorpe's barrel all seem to have passed over into club ownership for one reason or another. It doesn't make sense to charge anyone for them. Good luck getting ahold of Derek Bondy (I don't think he even lives in Chicago now) or Niilo. T. Thorpe is willing to let us continue to use his barrel for projects if he can brew a share.
It really doesn't make sense to charge for the Bourbon Barrels either as the whole club uses them on a volunteer basis. EVen charging a keezer share seems an assholeish thing to do in my opinion. These barrels end up getting served at our events anyways from the generosity of the brewers. (The old ale was served at stout night, the Bramble Rye was served at several events, the BC clone has been served at last stout night and will be served at this coming stout night, every one of my beers from the rum barrel, some 5 or 6 have been served at club beer dinners, stout nights, etc..., the Imperial red was served at Cinco and last Stout night, the Koval Stout was served at Stout night). If the beer that goes into these barrels is consistently being donated for events why are you going to start charging people to store them? It seems like a real dick move. So we lose an extra 5 gallons when we're already giving a portion anyways?
Let me know if you're going to charge me to store my rum barrel there and I'll just move it into the apartment to get it out of your way. I will also not head up filling and emptying the Scotch ale replacement beer if I'm going to be forced to donate it to the club. We would have done that anyways through special events.
I would however like to help build the new scaffolding as it would look cool.
also. Expanding ferm room seems like a better idea, as we might need the space. The room has been really crowded as of late and might get worse through the summer. I'd vote removing the couch.
Thanks Daniel, your comments are very valuable.
Can you try and make the business meeting Sunday at 4:30? If not I will make sure your points are discussed.
Daniel, what is currently in the Koval barrel and Thomas' wine barrel? When are they expected to be emptied?
The wine barrel is ready to be emptied, it's currently filled with a Flanders Red. We're just waiting to get a new project readied for it, and are mostly waiting for 1. The Chicago heat to warm up and encourage bug growth in the barrel, 2. A discussion on whether or not we should, as a club, allow sour barrel projects in the first place. It'd be nice for this to be an educated discussion and not one where people who haven't read up on it simply say 'no' out of fear of contamination. This discussion probably needs to expand to discuss sour fermentation in the ferm room which has been going on since the room was built and continues, not just in my carboys but in several other members'.
The Koval Barrel has a Barleywine project that I think Dave Williams headed up. This barrel is also likely ready. I think Dave just hasn't found the time to organize an emptying and especially not another brew to go in.
I'll talk to Dave about heading up his barrel for the next beer.
I agree with Dan that the couch should go. It's taking up a decent amount of valuable space. I think more of the stacking plastic chairs would be a wiser use of space. As far as expanding the barrels or the ferm room, if we eiliminate the couch, we could probably accomodate a little more of each.
Running the barrel program is a daunting task, but it also seems like a worthwhile one. I think it would be interesting to provide classes or information on how to barrel-age beer. I would like to start learning aspects of it. Maybe a couple barrels could be reserved for group classes on the matter. It also seems like some of the barrels need to be culled. I think it would be a good idea to form a committee once the brewhouse reconfiguration is complete to assess all current barrels and begin an exploration in to new barrels and/or new projects to go into existing barrels.
Sorry I couldn't make the meeting yesterday to discuss.
We didnt get to the discussion on Sunday due to the construction project. So lets continue discussing on the forum. There are a lot more people invested in the barreling program who have not yet commented.