Bringing a barrel back for use with sours

I have access to a barrel that was used for a single beer. The beer came out clean, but the barrel was then left for a few months. It shows signs of some infection now.

My question is: Is it worth cleaning it out and making it a sour barrel with bugs that I pitch? I was thinking about setting something up to steam the inside for a bit or using one of the sulfur sticks.

Thoughts are appreciated.

Joshua

I'd fill it with water to make sure it doesn't leak first.

It is still watertight.

FWIW, sulfur sticks are a waste of time and rarely work once an infection has set-in.

A small pressure cooker with a steam "wand" is the best method. Steam for 60 seconds, insert the bung for 5 minutes, drain, and repeat several times.

Pouring boiling water in, inserting the bung, and shaking for 5 minutes is a close second....and more laborious.

Thanks, that is really good to know about the sulfur sticks.

I think I will try and cobble together a large steam wand for the barrel and go that route. I would love to be strong enough to shake it, but a 53 gallon barrel is a little big for me.

Joshua

53 gallons??? Holy hell. Are you going to do some sort of solera or brew 50 gallons at once all the time?

You can also try an acid wash. That's what they do in belgium when the thigs get out of hand in terms of bugs&souring.

caiafa said:

You can also try an acid wash. That's what they do in belgium when the thigs get out of hand in terms of bugs&souring.

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The challenge is the porosity of the wood. An acid solution will not adequately sanitize the deep pores and will likely "bleach" the wood if left to sit too long.

On my trip to Belgium several years ago, I spoke with the head brewer at Cantillon and he stated they sterilize barrels between batches with steam. This was a surprise to me since I had assumed they inoculated the barrels once and once only.

I suppose if the wood was inoculated for good, they wouldn't really need to go through the whole coolship exposure.

Bobby_M said:

I suppose if the wood was inoculated for good, they wouldn't really need to go through the whole coolship exposure.

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I thought the same thing.

Apparently, the rate of growth for a heterogeneous bacteria/yeast culture is important for proper flavor development. A previously inoculated barrel would show less growth and produce a different flavor.

Ultimately, they blend barrels to produce the end product. It also stands to reason they want a certain amount of randomness in the flavor development to produce a complex sour profile.

That could explain why my 4 year old sour barrel is producing rather one-dimensional product compared to a newly inoculated barrel.

Bobby_M said:

That could explain why my 4 year old sour barrel is producing rather one-dimensional product compared to a newly inoculated barrel.

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Is your barrel a solera? If so, have you tried pitching in different bugs to reinoculate your barrel with something new?

I can imagine that the bugs in a barrel would get to a point of homeostasis with the living conditions they exists in. Or could it be that one particular bug has reached a level of dominance in your barrel, and that is why your barrel beers are one dimensional?

I'm no expert at this but I can tell you from experience that a lot of those bugs do NOT survive forever, or even much more than a year. So you should always repitch when filling or brewing regardless of what you do about cleaning the barrel between uses. I learned that the hard way trying to use the cake from my first batch of sour to start the second.

As for cleaning, I would recomend cleaning as well as you can. What you really want to kill is the acetobacter. There are hundreds of American brewers that think that making a good sour means making vinegar. Screw that. Also, I dont know about you but I wouldnt want stout or barleywine flavor in my sour. My barrel was a brandy barrel that then had Lost Abbey's Angel's Share in it. I rinsed it out multiple times and mixed up the strongest acid solution I could make (using citric acid) and rolled the barrel a bit every few hours for a day. May not be the best way to do it but it worked. 7-8 months later and no signs of anything that I didnt purposely put in that beer, also no wood or barleywine flavor. I should mention that the barrel sat, without a bung in it, for a few months and was leaking when I got it. The rain took care of that for me.

Interesting to hear that the acetobacter becomes the dominant bug. It does make perfect since that acetobacter feeds off of alcohol (which should be in supply with beer). I am wondering how to manage acetobacter in a solera? Any ideas?

weremichael said:

Interesting to hear that the acetobacter becomes the dominant bug. It does make perfect since that acetobacter feeds off of alcohol (which should be in supply with beer). I am wondering how to manage acetobacter in a solera? Any ideas?

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X2..I'm going to start a solera this fall..

weremichael said:

I am wondering how to manage acetobacter in a solera? Any ideas?

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Havent done a solera, and have never heard of that with a sour, but I'd imagine just keeping it full will help minimize the vinegar production.

Does anyone know if you can campden a whole barrel? Probably not a great idea if it's a sour but with anything else it might work.

I do my sour solera in a 5 gal keg that I flush with CO2 after each pull.
Here is the best article that I have found about making sour beers with the solera method
http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/la-metodo-solera/