Carbonation in wooden barrels?

Obviously this has been done and was the primary vessel for serving a lot of brew for many many years. Just curious how I would go about it today. If I had a 5 gallon oak barrel cured and ready to go, would I just prime normally and let it carbonate by itself or is there a process to carbonating something in the barrel (like repositioning or jostling as in the champagne method)? Does anyone know?

Wooden barrels will not hold much pressure, so you end up with a low carbonation level. This is called REAL ale by certain people (CAMRA). High fizz level is a relatively new idea.

Do you have any idea of the carb level they can hold in volumes?

About 1/4 PSI or around 0.02 volumes. Actually it is better than that, but it will be exactly the amount of CO2 that the ale can hold at whatever temperature the ale is stored at and standard pressure.

Short form: very, very flat when served.

I had a cask-conditioned IPA from Britain and it had good carbonation and a nice foamy head(hand-pumped). If I could get a barrel and achieve that sort of carbonation/head, I wouldn't complain. It was pretty awesome!

I wish I could find some kind of resource on doing this. I'm figuring they'd have to hold at least a moderately significant amount of carbonation, giving the sturdiness of oak barrels. I'm wondering if it could be caulked after curing to be a more airtight container?

Nobody serves out of oak barrels anymore. All "real ales" are cask conditioned in stanless steel firkins. However, people do you barrels for aging these days. I think you can serve out of a barrel, but it might be more beneficial to age in it and then transfer to your cornies. If you want "real ale" you'll need to look into a beer engine. There is a thread around here about building your own. It would be cool to serve out of a barrel, though. Maybe something to do just cuz you can I suppose.

leave the oak to the wino's and whiskey folk

be aware that most american oak barrels come charred on the inside (for whisky and bourbon).

nerdlogic said:

be aware that most american oak barrels come charred on the inside (for whisky and bourbon).

Click to expand...

My father use to work with a guy that would buy the used barrels from Jack Daniels and would squeeze and compress the wood and extract Jack Daniels. Each barrel would get him a bottle or two... Evidently a lot of people were doing this, Jack Daniels only sells barrel chips chopped up for flavoring...

The short answer to PsiWulf7's original question is that you would prime normally. That is, if it is a "real ale" you are going for.

Look here and here for some more info on cask beers.

A few other points:

Barrels (American Oak, French Oak, Hungarian Oak, etc.) can all be had in various forms including charred, toasted and pitched. Charred are generally used for whiskey/bourbon, toasted for wine/beer and pitched for dispensing of whatever liquid you put in them. I opted for a toasted Hungarian oak barrel for making some Belgian beers.

Jack Daniels still sells used barrels through their country store. Although, that seems like an awful lot of work for some whiskey.

I have a 5 gallon charred oak barrel (cost over $200 though) that works for cask conditioned. You don't need an engine unless you are trying to draw the bear somewhere. If you have the barrel on the stand, then leave it in the barrel for the secondary fermentation, then pour off the bear clean out the sediment, and re cask - or if you like the yeasty flavor, just use after 2nd fermentation. I use a small amount of sugar - 1/4 cup and let it sit for another few days to carbonate.

I chill mine to 55deg in my laagering fridge then gently carry keeping horizontal to the bar - and gravity pour it. It is warm (by American standards - served at around 60 deg - with a thermal blanket over it - the bar is at 68dg) and low carbonation (I don't know the exact carbonation). It tastes great to the real ale guys - the PBR drinkers don't like it - but too bad - more for the rest of us.

I run through that in 4 days - because it will oxidize - so I just make it for occasions when I know it will get used.

Keep the barrel slight tilted down - the sediment settles below the spigot. I also used gelatin when racking for the last time and have been accused of filtering- so there you go.

Ian

I got a nice new 5 gal charred oak barrel for Christmas and am currently using it to carbonate a medium gravity Scottish ale at about 70F. I was mostly concerned about leakage, so before I started I properly cured it and was satisfied that I had sealed it up nicely before use. I racked my beer from the secondary fermenter and primed it with 3 oz of corn sugar. What I wasn't prepared for was the leakage resulting from the pressure. I test-tapped the beer after 3 days and there's definitely pressure still there, but I want to limit further blow out by dissolving as much CO2 in solution as I can. I figure chilling the barrel down to 55-60F might help. Any ideas about this?