Anyone use barrels for aging?

[osagedr]

I have a couple of 23 litre oak barrels I have used for years to make wine, but now I am going to transition them into being used for beer. Using them for wine has been fairly straightforward: top them up once-in-a-while (the angels steal about 375 ml per month), add potassium metabisulphite about every three months, and you're good to go.

I'm concerned about my beer getting infected. I can't just add k-meta to the barrels, I presume. Also, I'm wondering about topping up--would it be the same as wine, where I would just add a similar-character beer? Or make 10 gallons of something, put six into the barrel, then bottle the remainder and use it for topping up?

Any advice is appreciated!

 

[Bensiff]

I'm not big into aging beer in small barrels. Unless you are doing a wild beer such as a lambic they do not benefit from the micro-oxygenation IMO. Where the benefit comes from is getting oak character or picking up character from the previous inhabitant, wine in your case. Which I'm assuming your barrels are probably neutral so it is really a matter of getting that wine character. But, if you are invested in the idea you would want to minimize air contact so yeah, just top up with a beer...I would make a batch big enough to bottle some beers up to top off with and not carb them.

 

[osagedr]

Thanks Bensiff; I was toying with the idea of using one barrel for a lambic.