year, but would the group like to convene sometime in Jan-Feb to monitor the barrel? I would guess this would require a taste, a discussion of any possible adjustments, topping off the barrel if necessary and possibly some social drinking. Or, we could just leave it be. I haven't looked in the barrel since attaching the airlock the same weekend we filled it. There has been zero airlock activity (which is probably good news concerning infection, but maybe bad news about the FG). When we get the January cold snap, I'm going to try cranking open the shop window to drop the temperature. The barrel experts tell me that temperature variation moves the beer in and out of the wood, creating finer flavors. Merry Christmas to all! Take some time to sit by a fire and sip a fine Old Ale, barleywine, Scotch ale, mead -- or if you're really desperate, a lambic. Paul Attachment: BDY.RTF Content-Type: application/rtf Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="BDY.RTF" ;Creation-Date="Tue, 23 Dec 2003 11:07:56 -0600" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64