Project

[mjenkins5]

Hi,

I've a project to work on over the next 5 weeks, the topic of which I've tentatively chosen to be Quality Control in brewing, with a focus on barrel aging.

I often see forum posts on other websites about poor quality control in barrel-aged beers from relatively well known breweries, and while these breweries largely offer refunds, the issue is still that batches are becoming infected.

I intend to try to get in contact with the QC departments for two different breweries on each end of the spectrum, possibly Lost Abbey and Firestone Walker, or Founders, and ask, without requesting that they divulge whatever industry secrets their processes may be, what kind of sanitation processes they perform in barrel sanitation.

So far from my research I've ascertained that, with barrels, sanitation can only go so far. What i'm asking is whether this is true, and whether these breweries that see repeated infections are not performing some important step in the sanitation process of barrels, if they are just getting unlucky, or if they are obtaining barrels from a less-than-quality source.
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Note: I also intend to try to brew some 5 gallon batches wherein I divide the wort into 1 gallon jars and test what causes infections through use of untreated oak cubes/shavings.
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If anyone can point me in the right direction, or offer some reading material on the topic, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thank you!

 

[two_one_seven]

Yes there is only so much you can do to sanitize a barrel. The individuality is part of the character that beers get from being barrel aged. It's also why whiskey is blended once it is barrel aged because each barrel is going to age slightly different. With a belgian beer it can be useful to inoculate a barrel with an appropriate strain of bacteria. I would recommend looking to see if breweries do any blending of barrels too. I would suspect this is how they accomplish achieving a more uniform product.

 

[strongarm]

I am currently working on a bourbon barrel aged RIS. I spoke to my local brewery who specializes in barrel aging and they told me they do not sanitize their barrels. I'm sure their barrels are freshly dumped with a bung to help limit chance of infection. I do not plan on sanitizing my barrel when I fill it, mainly because I don't want to lose any of the bourbon and oak flavors.