Help with barrel aging

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scorpionc53

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I’ve been brewing for a few years now and I have the opportunity to get a 5 gallon bourbon barrel from my local distillery. I’ve perfected a stout that I’ve made a few times and I’d like to age it in the bourbon barrel I’ll be getting. My issue is that I’ve got no clue on the steps I need to take. I have all the ingredients ready for my stout except the hops. The barrel will be tapped October 6th this year. Can someone point me to some information on how to brew and age with barrels? Main questions are:

At what point in the making process do I add to barrel? Do I ferment in the barrel? Do I let beer completely ferment in my carboys then siphon it into the barrel?
Do I need to add anything besides the beer to the barrel? Will the O2 in the headspace of the barrel cause an issue with my beer and ruin it?
Do I prime and bottle after it’s been aged and how long is a good period to age a 5 gal batch?
Can I siphon the beer out of the barrel once complete into a bottling bucket or do I need to run it through a filter or anything?
If I were to brew my beer now, would leaving it in the carboy until October have any effect on it or should I time it closer to finish fermenting and go straight into the barrel once I get it?

I was hoping to find an easy guide to follow but I’ve looked around and have a few brewing books and haven’t found the information I’m looking for.
 
scorpionc53 said:
I’ve been brewing for a few years now and I have the opportunity to get a 5 gallon bourbon barrel from my local distillery. I’ve perfected a stout that I’ve made a few times and I’d like to age it in the bourbon barrel I’ll be getting. My issue is that I’ve got no clue on the steps I need to take. I have all the ingredients ready for my stout except the hops. The barrel will be tapped October 6th this year. Can someone point me to some information on how to brew and age with barrels? Main questions are:

At what point in the making process do I add to barrel? Do I ferment in the barrel? Do I let beer completely ferment in my carboys then siphon it into the barrel?
Do I need to add anything besides the beer to the barrel? Will the O2 in the headspace of the barrel cause an issue with my beer and ruin it?
Do I prime and bottle after it’s been aged and how long is a good period to age a 5 gal batch?
Can I siphon the beer out of the barrel once complete into a bottling bucket or do I need to run it through a filter or anything?
If I were to brew my beer now, would leaving it in the carboy until October have any effect on it or should I time it closer to finish fermenting and go straight into the barrel once I get it?

I was hoping to find an easy guide to follow but I’ve looked around and have a few brewing books and haven’t found the information I’m looking for.
Click to expand...

From what I understand you will use the barrel as a 'secondary' fermenter, in reality you will be aging the beer in the barrel just as you would age a beer in a bottle. However, wood barrels do ' breath' and you will lose some of our beer due to evaporation/soaking into the wood. To counter this loss, you should have extra wort on hand (sterilized and kept in the fridge) this way you can top off the barrel as the beer ages.

After it has aged you can go right from the barrel to your bottling bucket. The length of time you want to age it in the barrel is up to you. Do you want an upfront oak flavor? Age it for 6 months....if you want less, age it for less. Taste our beer along the way and see how the flavor develop!
 
The smaller barrels do not require a significant amount of aging... I have used two 5 gallon rum barrels and find that for the first use in a new barrel one week to 10 days is more than sufficient. There is much more surface area to volume in a 5 gal barrel vs. Large barrels and they do not need long aging. They are generally good for 3 or 4 beers before losing the oaky flavor. Finish the fermentation in primary and rack directly into the barrel. Taste the beer using a wine thief after one week to judge the flavor. Both times with my new barrels, one week was more than adequate. In between beers, I add rum back to the barrel and rotate every few days to prevent it from drying out. On subsequent beers, I leave the beers in twice as long. After the third or fourth, the flavor will mostly be gone. Once the barrel has been used like this, I soaked it with water several times and turned into a barrel for aging lambics and sours. Happy Brewing!
 
VolFan said:
The smaller barrels do not require a significant amount of aging... I have used two 5 gallon rum barrels and find that for the first use in a new barrel one week to 10 days is more than sufficient. There is much more surface area to volume in a 5 gal barrel vs. Large barrels and they do not need long aging. They are generally good for 3 or 4 beers before losing the oaky flavor. Finish the fermentation in primary and rack directly into the barrel. Taste the beer using a wine thief after one week to judge the flavor. Both times with my new barrels, one week was more than adequate. In between beers, I add rum back to the barrel and rotate every few days to prevent it from drying out. On subsequent beers, I leave the beers in twice as long. After the third or fourth, the flavor will mostly be gone. Once the barrel has been used like this, I soaked it with water several times and turned into a barrel for aging lambics and sours. Happy Brewing!
Click to expand...

So this was my big question too. I recently came across a 55 gal Bourbon barrel that was used by a brewery once. So i shouldn't sanitize? Just throw it in for the secondary for a few weeks?
 
If this was used by a brewery, it will likely have residual yeast and left over beer that could cause infection. The barrels I use were freshly dumped by the distiller and were still wet inside. The rum or whiskey is typically aged at very high concentrations then diluted to the level it is sold post barrel aging. This keeps everything fairly sterile. I would be concerned with a barrel that had been used by a brewery already and would recommend sanitizing it. 55 gallons is a lot of beer to brew and would really suck to get a bad batch. In my 5 gal barrel between batches, I put rum back inside to keep it moist and sealed plus will help kill bacteria. This would be very hard to do with a big barrel.
 
VolFan said:
If this was used by a brewery, it will likely have residual yeast and left over beer that could cause infection. The barrels I use were freshly dumped by the distiller and were still wet inside. The rum or whiskey is typically aged at very high concentrations then diluted to the level it is sold post barrel aging. This keeps everything fairly sterile. I would be concerned with a barrel that had been used by a brewery already and would recommend sanitizing it. 55 gallons is a lot of beer to brew and would really suck to get a bad batch. In my 5 gal barrel between batches, I put rum back inside to keep it moist and sealed plus will help kill bacteria. This would be very hard to do with a big barrel.
Click to expand...

Agreed, although if most of the sugar is already used, i wouldn't be that concerned about the yeast, especially with a bigger beer. I would also think that the abv would also help prevent infection. But yes 55 gallons is a lot...I kind of don't know how to go about sanitizing though. I've heard sulfur.
 
My wife got me used barrel from Goose Island as a surprise, and it still had some liquid left in it. I left in there until I was ready to rack to it. I drained the barrel, poured a bottle of whiskey my dad had given me. rotated it around for a few days, then drained the whiskey back out. Since the levels will drop, I filled my airlock with Whiskey as well. Figured can't hurt to add more whiskey to the barrel.

I'm pulling it out tomorrow, its been in there since May. I split the batch with some buddies and they are all anxious to get their beer!
 
I also read something on here that said i could use salt water, but am concerned that would leech too much of the flavor away. I am having a hard time figuring out how to sanitize something of this size. How big was the barrel from goose island?
 
I'm adding honey to my secondary so it's probably a bad idea to use the barrel as a secondary right? Will a barrel be able to take the beating of an active fermentation?

For you guys that put some run in until you were ready for beer, how much did you put in? Can I just pour a half fifth of the cheapest run or whiskey? And do you scrap that or reuse/drink?
 
I'm getting a 55gal barrel that weas used to age Cabernet Sauvignon. I plan to age some lambics in there. We'll see how I plan to sanitize later. I suppose a good rinse in hot water to get rid of most of the wine flavors and then some sort of sanitizer (sulfur stick?).
 
One question before today? My brews in the secondary now and fully fermented. Do I need to put an airlock in the bung of the barrel? I'll only have the beer in there for about 4-5 days. If so, how do I go about drilling a hole in the bung? I thought about just drilling it while it was in the barrel, but that probably wouldn't be sanitary. Also, the distiller ponder the bung in. Do I just have to pull hard to get it out?
 
You can remove the bung by tapping softly on the sides with a hammer and slowly working it out. Replace it with a drilled and sanitized #10 rubber plug and airlock. I use a non-drilled #10 in between beers. The beers will continue to outgas and may begin a second fermentation and develop a krausen in the barrel, this is normal. Taste some using a wine thief about 5 or 6 days after putting in the barrel until you feel it is ready, it can really take on flavors more quickly than you think.

Cheers!

Tim
 
Sorry for the late reply. my barrel was 53 gallons. I used an airlock, although I had to add to it a few times as the levels drop (both the beer and the airlock), so I'm assuming it pulled some in to the barrel.

If you're going to drill the bug to make an airlock, you won't want the shavings entering your barrel. pull it out and drill it, then reinsert it.

I was advised not to use hot water on my barrel as it would strip too much of the flavors of the bourbon barrel, but if you don't want wood/bourbon/wine flavoring, then it would be a good way to rinse, and help swell the barrel. I poured a 750ML Bottle of Canadian club in to my barrel and rotate and moved it around for two days to make sure I had good coverage. I drained it out, and only ended with about 500ML, so I guess the barrel was "thirsty".


by the way, teh beer is delicious. I've tapped the first keg on beer gas through a nitro faucet. I've already been asked about getting another barrel to do it over again. I need some bigger fermenters and do larger batch sizes to make it worthwhile.
 

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