Best way to get Wine barrel aged character

[Adirondack47]

I was at a fest in November and one of our local Breweries (Ithaca) had a version of their Pale Wheat Ale (Excelsior White Gold) that was aged in chard barrels that absolutely blew my mind.

I'm aware that exactly replicating that character will be tough but I would like to try and get some oak cubes soaked in a white wine into a good Pale Wheat Ale (3F Gumball Head clone) recipe this spring. I'm aware of most of the pitfalls of using oak with wine but am looking for some input on what might work.

Anybody have any tips for getting a good oaked/wine character into their light beers iwhtout turning it into vinegar?

 

[Adirondack47]

Btt

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Why not age the beer in used wine barrels, I've had a few local home brewers buy my used oak barrels over the past few years for this very same purpose.
I know that this isn't the right place to post this but I have a couple of 5 gallon oak barrels (med toast) that have been used to age wine for the past 3 years, if interested, shoot me a message.
If there is any interest in them, I'll list them in the For Sale thread.

 

[Adirondack47]

Why not age the beer in used wine barrels, I've had a few local home brewers buy my used oak barrels over the past few years for this very same purpose.
I know that this isn't the right place to post this but I have a couple of 5 gallon oak barrels (med toast) that have been used to age wine for the past 3 years, if interested, shoot me a message.
If there is any interest in them, I'll list them in the For Sale thread.

I'm a big fan of barrel aged beers but at this point I'm not really set up to age a batch in a barrel. Cost and availability are the biggest issues but I guess I never really looked too far into it; how easy is it to get a used wine barrel and what do they normally run? I live in Central NY

I have read a number of articles over the years where folks have had ample success using wine soaked oak cubes. That being said, I know that they require some attention to assure that the whole lot doesn't turn into vinegar and I'm hoping to learn what has worked for others.

 

[ruger988]

Why not age the beer in used wine barrels, I've had a few local home brewers buy my used oak barrels over the past few years for this very same purpose.
I know that this isn't the right place to post this but I have a couple of 5 gallon oak barrels (med toast) that have been used to age wine for the past 3 years, if interested, shoot me a message.
If there is any interest in them, I'll list them in the For Sale thread.

I'd be interested... shoot me a PM if you'd like, don't want to jam the thread up.

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Adirondack47,
The following is more of an overview of proper barrel care:

Barrel care is not as hard as it seems, the most important part is keeping the barrel topped up, and i usually try to keep them full, I don't let them dry out.
During the course of barrel aging wine, I test my wine several times over the 1-2 yrs that the wine is aging in the barrel with a Vinemetrica SC300, I am very proactive about SO2 levels, which you want to maintain between 25-50ppm, when the SO2 becomes depleted, along with head space you can have a wine start to spoil, but this doesn't pertain to beer, I just wanted to reassure you that these barrels have been cared for properly.

I've always had wine in the barrels, letting them sit and dry isn't the worst thing that could happen as long as they have been cleaned very well and once dry, you can burn a sulfur stick in it to protect the barrel, personally, I found that by the time the batch of wine aged for a year or more, I had another waiting in the pipeline ready to go in it, so I would clean and sanitize it with meta, and add another batch of wine in to age.

The guys that I've talked to about brewing in wine barrels all have indicated that they let the beer age for 6 months to a year, to be honest, the gentleman who purchased my barrels always wanted me to leave any and all sediment in the barrel, and another guy was excited to make a sour beer using the barrel, but beyond that, I'm not familiar with the process of aging beer in a used wine barrel.

The reason for getting rid of the smaller 5 gallon, and I'm sure that the 6 gallon barrels will follow, is that I've started making larger batches of wine and have purchased larger barrels.
I see that you are in Syracuse, I'm only about 3.5 hrs south in Poughkeepsie.