Just got an email back from Revolution. Josh is willing to donate 4 Barrels free of charge, all we have to do is get in touch with them to arrange a pickup time.
Fri, Oct 11, 2013 - 11:11am
#1
FREE BARRELS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice work! I am sure the Danger Ranger can be borrowed as long as we refrain from allowing The Master of Wood aka Kyle naming rights to said barrels.
Might take a few trips in the Danger, depending on how heavy they are. Is The Mistress of the Woods ready for four barrels? Seems like a lot at once, but free is hard to pass up.
Do you know if they are looking to get them out right away?
Still say this is a bad idea. We'll have better beers from barrels that don't sit empty or on cleaner for months and better beers with barrels straight from the source. It's awesome that we may get a bunch of barrels for free but what's going in them for Christs sake?
Rich: not sure when they will be available. It's my understanding that they are currently up in racks and need to be forklifted down. We are to get in touch with them so they can have them ready and arrange a pick-up time. I forwarded the email to Kyle, since he's The Master of Wood, so that he can contact them and make arrangements.
Daniel: I'm sorry you find this stroke of good luck and amazing act of charity so troubling. While the timing may not be ideal, this is too great a deal to pass up. I know it's your opinion that virgin barrels are the only ones that will do, but even if we get those free, shipping is still in the hundreds for four. I have several thoughts and ideas on the matter, listed below, to help make the most of this opportunity.
1. We don't know what we're getting till we show up. They might be fresh virgin bourbon barrels, they could be at the end of their life, or anywhere in between. We don't know, so we shouldn't jump to conclusions so quickly.
2. When we do pick them up we should make the most of the situation and try to meet the barrel master so we can ask him or her about how they maximize the barrels, proper empty storage, etc.
3. These are professionally stored barrels, I'm willing to bet they are stored correctly and we will have at least a few weeks to work with before they go bad.
4. Looking into it briefly online, it is apparently common practice among professionals to store empty barrels for months on end by burning a sulphur stick in it occasionally, Kyle says has experience with this.
5. Given points 3 and 4 I think we could safely hold off on brewing for a month to two safely.
6. One thing we could do is have Kyle appoint a barrel captain for each barrel, being responsible for the recipe and rounding folks up to get it brewed, etc. just to help ease the burden on Kyle, and facilitate getting beer in these barrels ASAP.
7. We should intelligently choose the recipe based on the barrels previous occupant. If we are concerned about how much flavor the barrel has left to give up, perhaps we could brew something that would be appropriate with a less intense wood character, something like an English cask conditioned ale or whatever. We can also refresh the barrel with a blowtorch, or rolling some whisky around in it. These are all things that can increase the life of the barrel, and things that we can discuss with the experts at Revolution to make the best out of what we get.
8. The Club has a lot of grain, a lot donated to the greater cause, some seized in the move....can we use it for these? If we can, the cost of entry will be very very low, hopefully encouraging greater participation.
9. If we only use, say, three barrels, and use one as a table or a grain bin or firewood or whatever, who cares, they were free. I would think we can get them all filled soon enough, but if we don't....they're still free. Did I also mention that they are costing us zero dollars.
10. Any old barrels that went bad, can we cut them in half and turn them in to hop planters or something? I don't know...
This is chock full of great tips. http://www.mezabarrels.com/dynamic_content.asp?value=300
Please just be careful putting sulphur sticks and blowtorches into bourbon and whiskey barrels. I believe that is more common practice with wine barrels with lower alcohol beverages stored inside. The only reason I find it troubling is because I've participated in a lot of the other barrels and, with most things, think its logical to find ways to improve. it wouldn't really cost all that much to ship a barrel if 13 people are sharing the cost. Many of us have seriously talked about taking a trip down to Kentucky to get one just for fun.
Do not put sulfur wicks into spirit barrels! This will result in the barrel exploding. Wicks are only appropriate for wine barrels. That said, the barrels that are being donated are probably bbls that have held beer. If this is the case, you don't want to leave these dry. It's highly likely that the bbls will not be usable for a clean beer if you allow them to sit empty. You can store with holding solution, but the longer it sits the less oak character you will get.
What I said.
David: Thanks for the input. Since the previous occupant of the barrels was beer and not a spirit does that make sanitizing with sulphur any safer? I've seen mention around the internet that sanitizing by rolling more whisky around is an acceptable means. Maybe we could dilute a few handles of everclear for sanitizing purposes. I don't know, I'm hoping the folks at Revolution have them stored correctly and will instruct us an the best method to keep them fresh for a month or so while we sort all this out and can get some beer in them.
Daniel: It is fully my intention not to be rude, but your experience and knowledge would serve us a lot better if you were to help us by proposing solutions to the issues you raised instead of self-affirming remarks. It is true that the situation is not ideal and your concerns are legitimate, it is also true that this is a terrific opportunity and the barrels are free, help us make the most of it please. If you're concerned that the barrels will not last long then by all means take charge of a barrel make a recipe, use our stores of club grain (upon approval from whoever is in charge of those) and start brewing as many batches as you can and get others to follow suit so beer will be ready to go in at least one whenever we get these. Help us make the most of this situation. Sure the beers we put in them may not turn out to be expert level 10 perfect wood aged beers but I'm pretty sure we can at least turn out some decent beers out of them, good enough to have on tap at our newfound bar. I dont see anything wrong with making a beer that will turn out good to pretty good for general club consumption. In addition, the extremely low cost of entry will be enticing to lure more people in to the barreling program.
I'd be willing to offer you guys a solution...
If you can find some food safe (HDPE) 55 gallon drums, I'd be willing to let a group do a large brew at Horse Thief. I don't have any fermenter space (Thats why I recomend the HDPE barrels or a shit ton of buckets). You could fill all 2 of the barrels in one shot. It would probably have to be on a week day evening though. Start around 4 or 4:30 - finish up around 12:30.
....just food for thought.
Now we're talking. I'm all in on David's solution.
That's fantastic!
I'm experimenting right now with a plastic 18 gallon fermentation tank (brewing Friday). We could get a big tank setup for about $300 total. Wouldn't have nice fittings, but it would work.
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...
Hi, free barrels are fine and the beer will be good. But I don't understand what the obstacles were to using better barrels that could be had for cheap. I'm not sure what solutions you were looking for or what the problems were that needed them in the first place. You suggested using used barrels. I suggested using fresh ones. You suggested obtaining a barrel first then making beer for it, I suggested making it and then ordering one from Jim beam and splitting the price of shipping. I don't know how I'm being self-affirming. Both options will take roughly the same effort and not much more money. One will make a superior beer. I just thought if people were going to invest time and effort into a project we could do it better than we did with the last 6-7 barrel projects. Or we could choose not to improve on them. I would just rather go for the second option personally. Either option will be a fun time.
Ok. First I was just mildly irritated and now I'm straight out confused about why were insisting on doing things the rushed way? Why aren't we brewing first and then barreling? Doesn't that make more sense? What Is the rush? I swear shipping can't be too much for a single barrel from Jim beam. also, it takes much less time to age a beer in a new barrel vs. used. I feel like I'm just being logical right? Am I being self-affirming? Why is this being rushed like last time?
There are no barriers to using fresh barrels that can be had for cheap. We can certainly do that as well, there is no one stopping that, and if you do I will gladly do my best to help you obtain the best shipping rates. The rush is that I was emailing places looking for donations to get some fresher barrels to replenish ours that were damaged or soured in the move, despite the fact that I am really not very interested in barreling myself, I was merely using a bit of my free time to help out the club because I've had a number of health issues lately that preclude me from joining in the hard labor of fixing things at the new space up. I emailed Revolution, among a few others, about donating barrels which they initially declined, they then mentioned that they do sell some for $50. I replied that that's a reasonable fee and I would spread the word in the club and to let me know when some would be available, so we could plan better. I got an email on Friday from Revolution saying that Josh Deth himself heard about our (my) request for barrels and he wants to help us out and donate 4 barrels. I do not know when they wish to give us these barrels, if we can postpone this generous gift, or if they need to get them out ASAP. I just don't know. I forwarded the email to Kyle, our new Master of Wood so that he could take it from here and arrange a pickup and hammer out the details, and begin the process of preserving them and beginning to get them filled. The rush is that we are having these free barrels fall in our lap rather serendipitously, in my view it would be silly to not make the most of this situation and take full advantage of the opportunity that has presented itself, if that means we have to rush and scramble to get some or most of them filled, I don't see the harm, let's scramble and make it work. My mention of you being self-affirming was in reference to your post where you mentioned, "that's what I said". I was frustrated because I see a great opportunity here, and I know you have a great deal of knowledge and experience that we'll need to make the most of this. I got irritated because all I saw were what I interpreted was complaints without solutions, complaints that are indeed valid, mind you, but what we need are solutions to make the most of this stroke of good luck. I apologize if I may have offended you or mildly irritated you, and I apologize for becoming irritated myself over something so ultimately trivial, I see your point of view and I respect that, hopefully now you can see mine, and we can work together to make things as awesome as possible with the opportunities presented to us. There's nothing stopping anyone from hooking up fresh barrels in the future, but we have these being offered to us now, it's my opinion that we should make the most of it.
Also, David's solution and Lucas's input are both awesome. Let's get it going.
All,
Sorry for the delay in responding. I have read through all of the barrel threads/discussions. I want to thank Joe for all the legwork and effort he has done to get us some barrel leads.
I understand where both Joe and Daniel are each coming from respectively. While I do think it is a great opportunity that Rev is willing to give us free barrels I am hesitant to take 4 barrels that would need to be filled very quickly. Unless for some reason Rev is donating to us freshly dumped spirit barrels, these are probably in a similar condition to the Goose barrels we had. While they can produce a good beer we would need to have everything in order and act quick. I would not recommend getting barrels and storing them empty or with holding solution for any length of time as it will not turn out well. I think the ideal solution in regards to free barrels from Rev (assuming they have been used to age a beer previously) is to take David up on his offer to brew a large batch at HTH. If he is willing to and we can coordinate the logistics I would be willing to take on 2 barrels from Rev. We could get them a week or so before we brewed and could "refresh" them with Whiskey (turning it a quarter of a turn every couple days) to increase the flavor from the barrel. I do not think we should get the barrels right away until we have a solid plan in action. I also don't think we should take 4 barrels and all of our large space up if they are indeed previously used barrels.
On to Daniels points and his push for freshly dumped spirit barrels. I agree with him 100% that in order to produce top notch barrel aged beers we need to source good quality freshly dumped bourbon barrels directly from a distiller in the same manner as all commercial breweries do. Whether we get these locally (buying from FEW or Koval) or getting a connection and purchasing some from Kentucky, I think we NEED to make this happen. I also agree with Daniel that we should have the beer destined for the barrel, designed, brewed and aging before we actually purchase and have the barrels delivered. This will enable the best chance for the barrels to be clean and wet with bourbon.
Sorry for the long winded and delayed response, but I hope I answered and lent my opinion to all ideas and concerns above. Let me know if you agree or have other ideas with how we can move forward, and most importantly improve our barrel projects.
- Master of Wood
A solid sensible plan. I like it.
Sorry for being a dick joe! Thanks for taking the time to scope out the scene and do some research. What kind of beer were you thinking of making for the barrels?
So why don't we ferment in two of the barrels and age in the other two? Solves the container issue. (I did not come up with this, just in case it is a crackpot idea). Obviously, the two fermented ones would be toast, but I'll get rid of the barrels when it's done if we want so they won't be taking up space.
That's a good idea!
Rich,
That is not a bad idea. We would still need to find a way to transport the wort back from horse thief to the brewhouse. I suppose we can just use a bunch of carboys and buckets. Bring them all back and rack into the 2 barrels. Ferement in there and then after carefully rack into the 2 "fresh" barrels at which point we would discard the two used barrels to make room down the line for the ones we buy from kentucky.
Kyle and I talked....your going to need to clean those barrels very well if you are going to ferment in them. You don't want to put wort into the barrels and have a lag time between when the yeast takes off. Some bacteria work 1000 faster than beer yeast. You probably want to make a big starter too for this to shorten the lag time as much as possible.
Another option is looking into an induction tank with a coned bottom and drain. I did a little research and they make one that will fit into the fermentation room. $120 for a 60 gallon tank...which is pricey for a brew club...but if you pool a couple guys (your going to have a bunch brewing for the barrel anyways) it could be as little as $12 a person. One large consistant batch that can be racked into a barrel. Easy enough to transport to if you put casters on your stand.
BBBBAB - Bourbon Barrel Brewed-Barrel Aged Barleywine. We might be the first.
I have one of these inductor tanks already, it was the ~16 gallon version that I'm going to try and use for some 10 gallon batches coming up. Lots of guys have been using these on HBT. If you want more info, go here: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/super-simple-15g-plastic-conical-276378/. I've read the whole thing, its interesting and good information. You all know I love building things, so if we want to go down this road I can take the lead on our big fermenters. I've got one sitting in my dining room that I'm bringing with me on Friday when I brew.
Also just a note here, its not the tank that's expensive, but the fittings. You can either just do a valve on the bottom and keep it cheap, or you can add a valve to dump trub and collect yeast on the bottom and then another on the side for collecting beer like most conicals.
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...
You can harvest through the bottom drain...after you've sufficently cleared the trub.
The main reason I suggestd this was because it will end up taking up much less space. Its gonna take about 12 carboys to do 1 barrel. 24 to do 2 barrels at once. 24 carboys is a lot of shelf space. The 60 gallon induction tank has a 30" foot print.
Basically we are creating a whole new category in the BJCP style guidelines. I'm in.
I still think fermenting in the barrel sounds like a lot more fun. Seems like there are more than enough empty carboys, buckets and kegs sitting around the brewhouse(and my house) at any one time to transport it, and it would be much, much easier to handle 5 gallons at a time. Why buy two tanks when we have two for free?
However we decide to do this, I'm in, too!
Im in for any barrel project we do too.
Just saw Revolution posted up that they were selling their extra barrels for $30/each. We may have missed the boat on this one.
Saw the same thing on thier FB page.
The emperor is not as forgiving as i am
I also saw this and became concerned. Kyle hasn't had any luck contacting our contact there, so I sent them an email requesting that we pick up our barrels next Sunday, the only pick up times they had available were Fridays and Sundays, I went with next Sunday the 27th, that will give us a week to get it together and make the arrangements, hopefully. I'll update the status as soon as I hear back...hopefully that date works...
I emailed the guy 3 days ago to ask about the barrels (that they told Joe they would donate to us for FREE). I recieved this response today. Sounds like they are going back on their word. If that is the case I say we pass on these completely. That's BS.
Hi Kyle,
We are actually having a sale on our bourbon barrels. They are the 53 gallon variety, and measure about 24x35inches. We are selling them for $30 a piece in the following windows: Fridays Noon-4pm and Sundays Noon-5pm. We do need to know when you are planning to come as there is not always someone available to move the barrels.
Please let me know.
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Yeah. I met josh deth last night and mentioned the barrels and thanked him f=
or the free ones and he made sure to say they were 50 a pop when he said you=
r welcome
Sent from my iPhone
Sucks, but we should have been on the ball.