7 gallons of Imperial Stout to the mop bucket
I planned on putting just foil over the top once it got going but never did. Blew the airlock to pieces.
The stuff in the stainless container will top it off once its about done.
Fermenting at 67 (basement 62) so it was just fermenter dynamics/too much in the barrel that led to this.
Lesson learned for next time
Wow, my dogs would have been in heaven if that was my house!
You’re fermenting in the barrel?
Yes
Club has been doing it this way for a long time.
did your wife see that? I mean, I know it was the basement, but still…
I have never heard of fermenting in a barrel, only aging in one to add a whiskey and wood flavor.
Do you re-use them or are they a one time affair?
Tell me more!
Looks like a SS barrel.
I added some sour cherries to my barrel (5 gallons+ or - ) and she began fermenting
I put a bung in with 2 “S” Bubblers to accomodate the gas departure. Now the bubbling
has slowed way down, I will top off the cask with some beer I brewed just for that purpose.
I do not know if the ferment was from the sacc or the brett I added with the cherries…
but it fermented pretty strongly for a week. I was forewarned to put it near a drain but
do not have one and at this juncture did not need one.
babalu87 looks like what might have happened to me had the ferment really got rolling…
I could envision that with chunks of cherries mixed in…ewwwww…
Cantillon ferments in the barrel. I have seen primary and secondary (after fruit is added), spewing out. No airlocks there.
As the late great Hank Williams Sr. said…
Yes, the wife is the one that took the pics.
The beer in the stainless barrel is to top up the Jim Beam barrel after FG has been reached.
I am also going to put some in a carboy to secondary separate from the whole batch to see what differences (besides oak character) keeping the beer in the barrel have on the finished product.
Once the barrel is done its done, the club gets a new barrel each year for each barrel brew… dont fret though a few of us (from the club) are going to turn that into a solera with a sour beer.
Oops, I guess I should have said I have never heard of a homebrewer fermenting in a barrel.
How does the barrel flavor compare to just aging in a barrel?
Brew on, Tom
I had a similar experience. Thankfully I was using a plastic fermenter. I put my imperial stout on a fresh yeast cake. When I woke up in the morning I found that my brew turned volcanic over night and blew the lids off. The krausen was 3" above the top of the fermenter. I have permanent black goo plastered all over my basement from when it blew. At least I didn’t lose any of the beer! 
I will try to remember to update this, but FYI, Tom, I have a cask that I added Brett
and sour cherries to, It has been fermenting for some time now. I am certain that
the Saccromyces that was left in the original beer went to work as well. My bubbler
has been active for a few weeks now. I harvested 5 gallons of the original fill beer
after 1 month in the oak. I basically secondaried in the Oak…taste is nice and the
oak is fairly noticeable to me anyhow…
