Partial fill of an oak barrel

[themill83]

Hey guys - hope I'm in the right place to ask this... has anyone ever only partially-filled a 53 gallon oak barrel before? I want to do a brew for a friend's wedding at the end of summer, and I'd do a double batch (roughly 11 gallons or so) but I certainly won't fill the barrel. I was thinking I could fill with that 11 gallons for a secondary and then purge the air with CO2 and put my stopper and airlock in? I don't mind losing a decent amount to the barrel as it's a special brew for a relatively small group of people. Thoughts? Thanks!
-a

 

[hotspurdotus]

Hey guys - hope I'm in the right place to ask this... has anyone ever only partially-filled a 53 gallon oak barrel before? I want to do a brew for a friend's wedding at the end of summer, and I'd do a double batch (roughly 11 gallons or so) but I certainly won't fill the barrel. I was thinking I could fill with that 11 gallons for a secondary and then purge the air with CO2 and put my stopper and airlock in? I don't mind losing a decent amount to the barrel as it's a special brew for a relatively small group of people. Thoughts? Thanks!
-a

I wouldn't try it. The top of the barrel will dry out and be much more permeable to oxygen. You're likely to end up with a lot of unfriendly bugs (acetobacter, etc) that will ruin the barrel for future projects.

My advice would be to age the beer on oak cubes.

Do you already have the barrel? If so, what state is it in?

 

[solbes]

Agree, oak cubes can make a great beer. They are made from barrel staves and you can get whatever toast level you desire. Get them soaking in your favorite spirit now and you should have excellent flavor.

Other option is to get a bunch of brew friends to brew the same recipe and fill up that barrel. That's usually how homebrewers use barrels of that size.

 

[themill83]

My advice would be to age the beer on oak cubes.

Do you already have the barrel? If so, what state is it in?

Good advice - I didn't really think much about the dry wood up top.

I do already have the barrel, it's a Stranahan's Whiskey (my fav and a Colorado staple!) that I bought from River North Brewing in Denver (what!) that they had used once for their stout. My friends and I did a batch originally in it where we put, between the 8 of us or so, about 45-47 gallons in of a RIS that turned out faaaantastic after about 7 months.

Great call on the oak cubes, I might just opt for that instead. Thanks!

 

[themill83]

Other option is to get a bunch of brew friends to brew the same recipe and fill up that barrel. That's usually how homebrewers use barrels of that size.

Yeeeeep, what we did originally. We will eventually do that again sometime hopefully this summer, but man was that expensive haha!

 

[Cyclman]

First, I love Stranahan's it is incredible.

Second, try oak spirals. I found them to give an incredibly authentic oak flavor in beer, and was highly pleased with the results for only $10.