As our homebrew club did about a year ago, we again decided to age a beer in a bourbon barrel.  The Belgian Dubbel turned out nicely last time and this year we are upping our game and going for a Russian Imperial Stout.  ( Here is the brew sheet for the RIS. ) To be honest, there isn't a whole lot of stuff for me to talk about... 11 of us brewed 5 gallons of the beer and brought it to our local meeting place, Canal Street, and all siphoned our individual beers into the one barrel.  We'll let it sit for a couple to a few months and transfer back out into our individual kegs/carboys.   I have an idea on a few questions you may be asking, so let me take a stab at what may be on your mind. How did you get a barrel? One of the main guys in starting the club, Colin Presby, works for Weyerbacher Brewing.  They use Maker's Mark barrels for some of their brews.  Last year, he got one of their barrels after it was used.  Thi...

A starter pack for all grain brewing. Eric and I have about 20 extract batches under our belts.  Some are kits, some are recipes we have found, and some are even our own concoction.  Not all of these have been winners, but we have had more good beer than bad.  Twenty batches of extract is a lot, but getting comfortable with extract plus steeping grains allowed us to focus on some of the other tasks of homebrewing, namely cleanliness and sanitation, creativity, and process in general.  And now, after about a year of homebrewing, we both feel that now is the time to make the transition to all grain. With any new purchase or adventure, I like to do my research. So below, I am going to talk about the best place I have found to gather basic, overview information: the local homebrew club. Our biggest asset was our local club, the  Berks Homebrew Club .  The group ranges from novices to experienced brewers.  It is that experience we tapped into. ...