Hi Brewers,
We have been making sour beers aged in barrels with fruit for a couple years now, and while sometimes extracting the beer with our bulldog "pup" racking cane is a cinch (peaches), we have had some very trying experiences with other fruits (cherries & raspberries). I am familiar with the technique suggested in "American Sour Beers", of drilling a significant hole in the head and draining the barrel that way, but I would really like to avoid that if I could. We produce our sours in an extremely crowded facility, right next to all our "clean" beers, not to mention we have lots of non-brewer traffic through the brewery and barrel space and I can imagine the phone call I would get when someone inadvertently knocked a cork out... "You better come clean this up".
I have heard of devices which slip over the end of a racking cane, narrow enough to stick in a bunghole, with a screen for keeping out fruit. Apparently one of our brewers worked with something like it at a winery. It had a screw-tightening o-ring at the top to fasten it onto the end of the racking cane.
Has anyone seen or heard of something like this, or better yet, know of a source?
Or perhaps someone might have some advice on how you prevent clogging up your bulldog?
Thanks,
Jesse Shue
Brewmaster
Golden Valley Brewery
We have been making sour beers aged in barrels with fruit for a couple years now, and while sometimes extracting the beer with our bulldog "pup" racking cane is a cinch (peaches), we have had some very trying experiences with other fruits (cherries & raspberries). I am familiar with the technique suggested in "American Sour Beers", of drilling a significant hole in the head and draining the barrel that way, but I would really like to avoid that if I could. We produce our sours in an extremely crowded facility, right next to all our "clean" beers, not to mention we have lots of non-brewer traffic through the brewery and barrel space and I can imagine the phone call I would get when someone inadvertently knocked a cork out... "You better come clean this up".
I have heard of devices which slip over the end of a racking cane, narrow enough to stick in a bunghole, with a screen for keeping out fruit. Apparently one of our brewers worked with something like it at a winery. It had a screw-tightening o-ring at the top to fasten it onto the end of the racking cane.
Has anyone seen or heard of something like this, or better yet, know of a source?
Or perhaps someone might have some advice on how you prevent clogging up your bulldog?
Thanks,
Jesse Shue
Brewmaster
Golden Valley Brewery
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