I brewed an RIS yesterday afternoon that will wind up in that barrel in a couple weeks. (as a secondary). In the meantime, I have a handle of Rebel Yell rolling around in there.
I hope to get another, not-so-sour beer out of that barrel, as well, but I understand that can be a bit of a crapshoot. I have an English Barleywine recipe that I would like to get into there, if I can. I may lose my nerve and just put a sour mash beer in there.
Ultimately, though, I will go to the bugs and start fermenting some weird and wonderful things in there.
TL
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I have a 10 liter oak barrel that I am going to rack a portion of my latest barelywine into in the coming days. Its O.G. was 1.095 and has been in the primary since 10/27/09. Up until a couple days ago the barrel contained 90 proof spirits (which had been in there for 4+ months). I assume this killed the majority of the bugs so I don't plan on doing any additional cleaning/sanitizing before racking. Am I crazy? If I do get some funk, I suppose this will just add to the complexity...
I have a 10 liter oak barrel that I am going to rack a portion of my latest barelywine into in the coming days. Its O.G. was 1.095 and has been in the primary since 10/27/09. Up until a couple days ago the barrel contained 90 proof spirits (which had been in there for 4+ months). I assume this killed the majority of the bugs so I don't plan on doing any additional cleaning/sanitizing before racking. Am I crazy? If I do get some funk, I suppose this will just add to the complexity...
The barrel proof spirits were about 130 proof, so yeah I don't think you need to worry about anything. Neither of my beers is having any signs of infection after going into the barrel, though the Irish Red is getting a bit oxidized so I am planning on krausening it when I move it back to the keg to remove the oxidation.
Or, you can use a wine preserver to purge the headspace after filling and after taking samples, which is what I am doing.
After this first round, I will use my Beer Gun to purge the barrels with CO2 before filling. If you have the means this is a good idea, otherwise you may want to consider moving into the barrel while you still have enough yeast in suspension to take up the oxygen picked up in the transfer.
^ He's right. But do remember that the barrel is exchanging oxygen in and out every time there is a temperature change, so don't expect any gas to remain around too long. It is like the airlock liquid. It doesn't last forever
Technically, depending on the length of time you are going to barrel age, you could do what the wine guys do and add a little bit of SO2. Say 10ppm. That would make it so that your beer isn't quite as prone to oxidation in the long term. Also, that small amount will go away with any transfer that you do and also means that you would still be able to bottle condition if you see fit. Just rack into your bottling bucket (splashing along the way of course) and then get your yeast ready and bottle away.
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Last edited by Matt Up North; 11-20-2009 at 06:07 PM.
A wine barrel is 15-25 cc/L/year;
A 20L whiskey barrel is 30-50 cc/L/year;
An HDPE ale pail is 220 cc/L/year;
A 5 gallon glass carboy with an airlock and stopper is about 20 cc/L/year.
(Source: Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow)
So, aging in a large oak barrel is about the same as aging in glass, and a small barrel with twice the surface area to volume ratio is about 2x glass but significantly lower than plastic. I wish I could find Better Bottle statistics as well, but I haven't found any sources that quote its permeability (and the mfg just beats around the bush by saying it's "comparable" to glass... sheesh... and I suspect that only holds true if you use their uber-expensive check valve in place of an airlock, since the airlock/stopper lets in 99% of what gets into a glass carboy).
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