A cold steady rain was coming down and there was thunder and lightning in the distance. It was the perfect setting late last night for KROC's Barley Wine Solera, Old Krocodylus, to finally come to life!

After receiving a gas line backflow preventer valve from morebeer.com and a trip to Home Depot for the rest of the plumbing fittings, I assembled our solera and successfully pressure tested it. Then I filled it with the first three barley wines brewed by KROCHeads:

Jim Fixari, Scott Jackson and yours truly (all brewed at Jackson's house on 1-22-05). The barleywines were all very good. Jim & Scott's were very similar as would be expected since their recipes were identical.

Scott's had a little more sweetness & body compared to Jim's. Mine was definitely the driest with the most noticeable alcohol burn. I think the three of them will blend very nicely.

As you can see in the photo of the solera hooked up to the CO2, it is about 75-80% full. I think we have about 13.5-14 gallons in it and the solera's capacity is approx. 16-17 gallons.

The headspace does not appear to be a cause for concern since I was able to create a gas-in system that allowed me to bleed out the air and leave the solera under about 5 psi of pressure. However, the extra headspace does leave us with the opportunity to add more barley wine to the solera if there is a club brewer that would like to brew one.

The current schedule for the solera:

6-3-05 Initial blend created

Mid-July: I'll fill & carbonate a keg from the solera for the campout. After that, we will add Bill & Donna's barleywine to the blend (brewed in April I believe).

June/July: Whoever signed up to brew the next one after Bill & Donna needs to brew it soon so that it has time to ferment & age a bit before the addition in Sep. after we do a draw off for the WBF.

Cary - did you say you would brew this one?

Sep: Fill a keg for WBF and top off with barley wine from above.

We would also like to do a draw off for the holiday party in Dec. so it would be good to have another barley wine brewed in the early fall to top up the solera. Let me know if anyone is interested. Remember, the club provides the base grain for a 10 gallon batch

- 5 gal. for the solera, 5 gal. for you to keep. We can also work something out for extract brewers that would like to participate (maybe do a 5 gal. batch and only donate half of that to the solera?).

Take a look at the attached photos and get ready to enjoy Old Krocodylus at the KROC Kampout!