Feeding the Barrel and Related

As of today, we've now made 45 gallons of the Giggy Smile/Accomplice! recipe.  Since we went straight to using this base for souring projects, we thought it might not be a bad idea to actually find out how it tastes sans aging and bugs.

The barrel is in need of a few gallons of topping off so we brewed a 10 gallon batch today that will be used to top off the barrel as well as provide us with a chance to try the beer as is with the portion that is left over.  It's about time.

5 gallons of today's recipe is fermenting directly with White Labs Belgian Sour Mix.  We have not tried using this yeast blend to do the majority of the grunt work in the past.  However, since it is destined for a larger pool of beer that has already been aging for a little over a month, we should be ok for this experiment.  The remaining 5 gallons was fermented with English Ale yeast and will be ready in about a month for us to distribute.

Some odds and ends for this post:

-  Accomplice! has developed quite the pellicule and in a very short amount time.  Yes, it looks scary now, but it will be delicious.  Remember this contains the ramped up dregs from some amazing beers.  This segues to the item below that used to look very similar.



-  Enjoyed hanging out with Richard over at Elizabeth Street Brewing last weekend.  He managed to entertain and brew 10 gallons of an IPA with grace.  Also had a really good double version of one of his staples.  Super tasty.  Here's an austere pic of one of our contributions hanging out with some Black Butte Porter empties.  This was an experiment that was worth waiting for!  If all goes well, we'll be doing our first kegging soon and will be giving it to him for World Cup.

-  What is the difference between Simcoe and East Kent Goldings hops?  Awesome tasting at Monk's Kettle a few weeks ago.  They brought in 10 of Mikkeller's single-hopped IPAs, all on draft!  What an awesome way to learn your Centennials from your Cascades and your Amarillos from your Warriors.  Our tastebuds were crushed, but we both liked the Centennial (happens to be growing out back) and the Simcoe examples.  Really great experiment and we'll probably be doing a similar series with our Amarillo Hopped Wheat.
 

-  We can't say enough about how incredible the weather can be (is) here in SF.  After today's brew, we had enough perfect sunlight to just relax with a sausage and beer while being serenaded by some Hawkwind.  If we were paid to spend our days this way, we'd call it a life.  No action in this shot, and that is the point.  Just another crystal clear day to relax after a labor of love.  Wort chiller cleaned and dried in 20 minutes.

30 Gallons in 12 hours. A Recap and What we Learned

Our barrel is calmly waiting for us to put it to good use.  The biggest hurdle (hopefully) was completed last Sunday.  In about 11 hours, we managed to brew three 10-gallon batches on one set of equipment.

The first burner ignition kicked off at 10:50 am and the last primary fermenter was sealed around 10:00pm.  We were exhausted in the best way possible and have to say that the day was remarkably smooth considering the potential variables as well as a few 'firsts' that we were able to adapt to remarkably well.

Barrel warm-up, Accomplice!

Per the previous update, we're soon on the hook to create 30 gallons of something and that 30 gallons is going to be aged.  So what is the recipe that we're willing to commit this volume and time investment?  Logic dictates that this one should come from something already successful in our wheelhouse.  A huge version of Stupid Flanders fits that scenario and we've done the math to make that happen if that's the way to go.

We wanted a second option, more of standard brown ale.  In researching recipes, we stumbled across a recipe for Jolly Pumpkin's "La Roja" on BYO.  We'll call this a guideline more than a recipe since

Hey wine barrel, good-bye comfort zone

In one quickly decided maneuver, we found ourselves the new owners of a 30 gallon 2005 Bryant Cabernet wine barrel.  Looks like that wine retails for $500.  Unreal.

We've been kicking around the used barrel concept for a while.  A few have been made available to us, but we passed because the standard barrels are 55/60 gallons.  Making that much beer in a short time at our scale is out of reach.  Instead, we've had reasonable success using soaked oak chips in our secondary fermenters (Flanders Deel Twee and Variations on a Theme:  At Giza).

30 gallons now puts us in a 'we can probably pull this off' spot, so we'll make the attempt.