My experience barrel aging

Back in August 2010 I brewed 60 gallons of an English Barleywine that I left in the primary for two months (October 2010). The primary was two 32 gallon Rubbermaid Brute trashcans.

I then racked to an oak wine barrel. Filling the oak barrel I noticed I was probably 15 gallons short from the top. So I went to a sporting goods store and bout a 20 pack of small (5 gram?) CO2 cartridges. I disperse one cartridge on average once a week. I have probably waited as long as 3-4 weeks in between spraying CO2 in the barrel.

I did not sanitize the barrel. I have dry hopped and oaked during this conditioning phase. The beer has taken on a red wine taste, not much oak. I assume the barrel was used too many times.

Now, April 2011, it has been about 6 months and no hints of oxidation or infection.

Oxidation: Maybe with 45 gallons of beer it just takes a really long time to oxidize in a non full barrel, or the CO2 cartridges actually work.

Infection:I forget which professional brewer I asked, but he said that traditionally you do not sanitize barrels because it will strip characteristics of the oak. Maybe he is right or maybe I got lucky again and received no off-tastes from not sanitizing the oak barrel.

This is my experience, not sure if it has been luck or not, but these were my outcomes.

Wow, 60 gallons of barleywine. Tell us more about your brewday!!!

Do you think the red wine taste will settle out? Maybe not in that barrel. Could you maybe bottle some and let that age to see what happens?

What a cool project! Wish I could learn more about it!

Next time you use it the red wine characteristics should lessen. Any plans to add bugs?

Amity: I had to brew six times in a single day to get up to the 60 gallon mark. After the 3rd batch I became restless and made mistakes by coming out 15 gallons short. Started maybe at 8 AM and ended maybe around 10 PM. I don't think I will be doing that again.

dantheman13: I actually like the flavor of the red wine in the barleywine. It is not overpowering at all. It is just hints of flavor that I think gives a little more complexity.

HokieBrewer: I don't plan on adding bugs. The beer taste really good right now, it just needs a bit more oak flavor to it.

A 60 gallon barrel has a very low surface area for the beer. Might want to consider smaller barrels for greater oak flavor in the future.

Oh sorry, I misread you! Wow, wish I could taste that! It is nice to hear that such a huge project came out to your liking so far.

Would there be a technique to add oak flavor to it now? Oak chips?

I actually just added oak chips. I had an extra 8 oz laying around. I will most likely buy some more.

jkarp said:

A 60 gallon barrel has a very low surface area for the beer. Might want to consider smaller barrels for greater oak flavor in the future.

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I agree. Though even if the barrel was smaller and was used previously the way this one had been, I still do not think there would had been much of a presence of oak flavor. I think the multiple times the barrel was used previously pretty much stripped all of the oak flavoring away.

This reminds me of a beer I tried this weekend from Dogfish Head, the Red and White. This beer is a big Belgian that was fermented with pinot noir juice. 11% was aged in pinot noir barrels, and 89% was aged in oak barrels. My pallet isn't the most experienced, but I could definitely still taste more of the pinot noir/grape flavors than the oak... of course, that might have more to do with the pinot noir juice and the overall Belgian style than anything. This was a pretty good beer, by the way, although a bit too sweet and rich for me. I still have some left, so on the next tasting I will look for that oak a little harder.

Thanks for the interesting post, Julohan!

Wineries do use bungs with a series of cut up oak staves suspended to them to add oak quickly if the oak character from the barrel is spent. I think it would be easy to overdo it with this method though as the one I have is roughly 30oz by weight. I'm not sure if you could get one at a homebrew/homewinemaking supply store or not but its an option if you want to punch up the oak.

EDIT - Oh and I know your pain of absurdly long brew days to fill a 60 gallon barrel haha. I have a french oak barrel previously filled with red wine filled to the brim with a 10% RIS

Yeah, I think the max I will ever do again is 3 batches in day, if I am low. I did just one batch maybe 3 weeks after the six batch day, that made me remember that I do really like to brew.