My first barrel aged beer

[hoserbrau]

My wife surprised me with a new 5-gallon white oak barrel for my birthday. I have decided to go ahead and funk it up with a sour beer, and I will use this vessel primarily for aging sour ales.

I brewed up a Sour Ginger Apricot Ale from a recipe kit that I slightly modified from AHS. I replaced their peach flavoring with apricot and I replaced their Persica Ale yeast with White Labs Belgian Sour Mix (yeasties and beasties).

It sat in the primary for 10 days until it finished bubbling. I put it in the secondary for clarifying for a week before I racked it into the barrel (it's been there for a week now). It was amazingly clear and already had some decent tartness to it (due to the acid malt and sour mix) when I put it in the barrel. I didn't put the apricot flavoring in until I racked it to the barrel, so I expect it to get a little more tart/sweet once that takes hold.

My question is this: how long should I expect to keep it in the barrel? I've read some people say that it should stay at least 3 months to age, and others say that it can easily be "over-oaked" in 1 week.

Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on what I should do for this batch or better practices for my next batch?

 

[hoserbrau]

 

[L0F]

Keep it in there until it's tasting up to your standards then rack it accordingly. Maybe look into picking up a ph meter.

 

[hoserbrau]

Keep it in there until it's tasting up to your standards then rack it accordingly. Maybe look into picking up a ph meter.

That's what I was thinking about doing, but I don't know how often I should be checking it. If it's going to take longer than a few weeks, I shouldn't be pulling samples every day (but if it will only take a week or 2, maybe I should pull more samples).