flanneltrees804
Well-Known Member
I'll try to keep this simple. A few months back I put a smoked barleywine in a 3gallon new oak barrel to age for a few weeks before bottling. The temp in the basement fluctuated too much for a few days, the barrel expanded and contracted and leaked out 90% of the beer.
I brewed up another batch and just now got around to filling the barrel but the little bit of beer left in the barrel from the first batch smells of smoke, caramel, oak and green apples. It tastes really oaky (almost bitter) and is really thin, kinda watery. I used brown sugar to boost the abv and it brought the FG down to 1.014 and the OG was 1.094 so I think that might be my issue.
I don't taste the green apple... should I just add the new batch to the old and let it go? Is the barrel ruined with some infection? The beer looks fine, nothing growing when I look in the barrel... thoughts? I know this seems like rambling so I apologize.
I brewed up another batch and just now got around to filling the barrel but the little bit of beer left in the barrel from the first batch smells of smoke, caramel, oak and green apples. It tastes really oaky (almost bitter) and is really thin, kinda watery. I used brown sugar to boost the abv and it brought the FG down to 1.014 and the OG was 1.094 so I think that might be my issue.
I don't taste the green apple... should I just add the new batch to the old and let it go? Is the barrel ruined with some infection? The beer looks fine, nothing growing when I look in the barrel... thoughts? I know this seems like rambling so I apologize.