Bottling Day, Whiskey Barrel Stout.

After 4 weeks in ferment I finally got around to bottling my batch of whiskey barrel stout Monday morning.  There was an interesting cloudy film over the top of the beer when I opened up the bucket to prime the beer; I wish I had taken of picture of it so that I could actually show what it looked like.  I have never used oak barrel chips so I am hoping that this is okay.  I have also never let a brew sit in a bucket that long before, nor have I ever exposed a brew to temperatures like we have been having. I tried a small swig of the brew before I started pouring it in to bottles and thought it had an amazing taste, even warm and flat I kind of liked the little bit of flavor that I was getting.  The whiskey smell was surprisingly strong and in fact there is still a hint of that smell around, I have not yet thoroughly cleaned the bucket. 

I have also upgraded to 22 oz. bottles.  I love making beer, but I hate cleaning bottles.  So by going to 22 oz bottles from 12 oz bottles I have almost halved the number of bottles that I need for bottling and CLEANING!!!!!!!!

I am also pretty happy that 24 bottles takes up less space then 48 bottles.

I will be cracking in to one of these maybe this Saturday, so I will be updating when I know what they taste like.  I have an extended family get-together happening at the end of the month and if this beer doesn't kill, or make me sick before then I will introduce my family to this one at the end of the month.

I also recently bought the first of two 6.5 gallon glass carboys that I need to attempt hard cider this fall.  Any good recipes for that?