Barrel maintenance

[heinz57]

The barrel I picked up from Lost Abbey was emptied within the last few weeks, and it wreaked of Brandy when we drove it home, so I hope it didn't dry out too much. I haven't yet filled it with water to see if I need to swell it (I hope not), but my plan now is to first fill it with a measured quantity of water to verify the volume. For some reason there was some discrepancy at the brewery as to the actual volume of this thing. One guy said 50 gallon, one guy said 30. I couldn't eye ball it so I went home with the one this time. Once I fill it, I'll let the thing sit with liquid in it for awhile to see if there are any leaks.

Fast forward to actually swelling this thing, I'm going to need to build some sort of stand for it. It will be over 300 lbs after filling, that's just with 30 gallons, so the stand will need to be pretty strong.

The dual barrel stand that they had at the brewery would have been perfect, and I could have just elevated it a little bit with some cinder blocks, but they're metal and I can't weld. I was hoping I could put something together out of wood, like two X's out of four by fours and wood joiners or some other kind of framing nail. Then I'll use cinder blocks to elevate the whole thing so that I can hopefully gravity feed in and out of the barrel. I'll probably buy some cheap cloth to cover up the cinder blocks since this is going in the house too.

Any recommendations?

[MrMarbleHead]

Our club is participating in a Barrel aged beer comp for the state fair, the basics is that Woodford Reserve gave about 12 homebrew clubs a barrel under the conditions that we brew a beer and age it in the barrel, then enter it in the comp. Then we get to keep the barrel. Anyway, they gave a presentation on barrel care and maintance when we picked up the barrel and one of our guys recorded it. There are 4 parts to it up on youtube (links below).

I can't find the link to the stand that we are going to build for it right now but I will find it and post it up here. Basically it is a cinder block/wood combo stand, and it is pretty cheap to build and easy.

Talk from the Woodford Reserve guys (parts one and two):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIoMINoLwxA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH7WSVoBJfQ

Barrel Care & Beer Selection talk (two parts as well):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idMzlp8XDp0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpGQ59cgSzM

I would embed them but I am lazy right now.

[gplutt]

Our club is participating in a Barrel aged beer comp for the state fair, the basics is that Woodford Reserve gave about 12 homebrew clubs a barrel under the conditions that we brew a beer and age it in the barrel, then enter it in the comp. Then we get to keep the barrel. Anyway, they gave a presentation on barrel care and maintance when we picked up the barrel and one of our guys recorded it. There are 4 parts to it up on youtube (links below).

I can't find the link to the stand that we are going to build for it right now but I will find it and post it up here. Basically it is a cinder block/wood combo stand, and it is pretty cheap to build and easy.

Talk from the Woodford Reserve guys (parts one and two):



Barrel Care & Beer Selection talk (two parts as well):



I would embed them but I am lazy right now.

and I'm kinda bored.

[heinz57]

Yeah, I was thinking about it some more, and I definitely want to go the cinder block and wood route. There are some cinder blocks down the street from my house, so I can just scoop some of those up and throw them in the back of the car. I'd love to see the plans you guys came up with though.

[Lerxst]

http://www.byo.com/stories/technique...eping-it-clean

[MrMarbleHead]

and I'm kinda bored.

Thanks

Yeah, I was thinking about it some more, and I definitely want to go the cinder block and wood route. There are some cinder blocks down the street from my house, so I can just scoop some of those up and throw them in the back of the car. I'd love to see the plans you guys came up with though.

I got an e-mail out to some guys for the link, I seem to have deleted the e-mail that it came to me in.

[MrMarbleHead]

Here is the link to the rack that we are thinking of doing up. HBT Link (Haters Be Warned)

[heinz57]

Here is the link to the rack that we are thinking of doing up. HBT Link (Haters Be Warned)

Awesome, thanks WOP. That's what I had pictured in my head, it's nice to see that it works. I'll probaly give the cinder blocks a once over with some spray paint, and maybe even stain the wood in an attempt to pretty up the stand some.

[MrMarbleHead]

Awesome, thanks WOP. That's what I had pictured in my head, it's nice to see that it works. I'll probaly give the cinder blocks a once over with some spray paint, and maybe even stain the wood in an attempt to pretty up the stand some.

Oh well now you are just gettin' high class up in this biatch.

[Union Brewer]

Oh well now you are just gettin' high class up in this biatch.

That's what I was thinking. Now that Heinz has a barrel I guess we will be seeing a bunch of "barrel" related brewing discussions that very few of us can get in on.

Damn, I hate being left out.