Questions about barrels and starting a solera

[wickerman]

I'm thinking about starting a solera type sour saison barrel. Ideally I would like to find a freshly emptied barrel from a local winery in the 30 gallon range, but haven't started looking yet. Id like to do a small (~4%) sour & funky farmhouse/saison type beer that I could pull 10-15 gallons 3-4 times a year. I have done a fair bit of research, but still have a few questions.
-If I acquired a barrel freshly emptied, can it just be rinsed, then used, or should it be filled with something to "sanitize", or some type of holding solution?
-Can I rinse/clean it with tap water, or does it have to be filtered or treated with something?
-Should I ferment in the barrel, or use as a secondary after a week or 2? Seems like trub & other crap will start to build up fairly quickly.
-If used as a secondary, does it need to be completely filled all at once, or can it be done over 2-3 weeks?
Any input is greatly appreciated.
Thanks
wickerman

 

[Koffie]

If I acquired a barrel freshly emptied, can it just be rinsed, then used, or should it be filled with something to "sanitize", or some type of holding solution?

It depends. Do you want the tastes/culture from the previous contents? If yes, soak with hot water and rinse. You could burn a piece of sulfure that is designed to disinfect a barrel? Not sure it exists in your area? Until now I haven't done much effort on cleaning barrels. Just soak and rinse and burn some sulfur.
I would use the barrel as secondary. I possible, try to fill at once. First you have to make the barrel watertight by soaking with water. Once it stops leaking you can empty it and fill with beer. If you wait a few weeks between filling up, chances could be it will dry out.
Just do some powerbrewing in one or twok weeks to collect enough beer. Since you use it as a long term secondary it's OK to have the beer a bit longer in the fermenter.

 

[TNGabe]

Good luck finding a 30 gallon barrel. Some home winemakers use them, but not a lot of commercial wineries that I know of. If you do find one, be sure to post, I wouldn't mind having one if it wasn't insanely expensive.

I think a full sized barrel will be easier to find and better for long term aging, but that's a bit much for most people to tackle. It's not that hard, it's just more work, especially if you're makine 10 gallon batches.

If the barrel is freshly emptied then you go go straight into it with beer. You'll want to know when the barrel was dumped and how it was treated afterwards. Ideally you'd like to get it within a day or two and then go straight into it with beer. That's not always easty to pull off. If you get one that's been dumped for a few weeks, you want to make sure it was rinsed out and doesn't have the lees in it and that it was somehow treated, either with a sulfur wick or solution. Spirits barrels tend to stay pretty clean, but if it isn't treated, a wine barrel can get nasty pretty fast.

There are different opinions on barrel fermentation. Whichever you decide on, you want to fill the barrel all at once if possible. That's a lot of carboys if you're doing primary outside the barrel. If you can't fill the barrel all at once, you need to do it as fast as you can and keep the barrel flushed with CO2. I emptied a fake lambic barrel this weekend and wanted to fill it with already fermented saison, but ran out of space. Instead I'm fermenting 30 gallons in the barrel and have 30 gallons to top off with when the fresh batch has fermented out. Not ideal, but I flushed the barrel heavily with C02 before and after filling so I'm not too worried about oxidization or acetic over the next week or so before I top off.

As a solera, you might want to consider something a little stronger than 4%. That's pretty low for a beer that you're going to age a portion of which for years.


Hope that helps.

 

[wickerman]

Thanks for your replies. I know 30 gallon barrels are bit more rare, but I find it hard to believe I can make 50-60 gallons in a reasonable amount of time without making big beers and diluting them w/ water. I have a 15 gallon demi-john, 2 "sour" buckets and carboys I can primary in. My thought was to make 15 gallons, primary in 2 buckets and carboy for a week or two. After the week or two, make 15 more gallons. Rack the fermented stuff to the demijohn, and pour the new stuff onto the old cakes.
I may have a line on some 30 gallon whiskey barrels, but they seem kinda pricey, and I'm not confident I'll be able to lose the whiskey flavor with out running a bunch of beer I don't want through them. I have no need for 30 gallons of RIS, porter, barley wine or any other type of beer that will leach the whiskey from it. I guess that leads me to a few more questions. What are reasonable prices for useable 10, 15, 30, & 50-60 gallon barrels? Also, is it possible to leach the whiskey flavor from a barrel by repetitively filling it with water and emptying it?
Thanks again
wickerman

 

[Koffie]

I have no idea where to get barrels in USA.
I bought my barrels on several place. My first barrel, 50 liter oak used for wine. Came from my local homebrew shop. My second 100 liter chestnut barrel came brandnew from a seller thath sells all kinds of barrels for water reservoirs.
My third 225 liter barrel came from a merchant who buys large ammounts of wine barrels from France after they've been emptied. He would cut them in half to make bins for plants and decoration. I contacted him and asked for a nice clean barrel to keep for me.
Perhaps there are same sort of businesses at your location to get a hold on a barrel ?

 

[wickerman]

Still looking for info, mainly on what a "good" price is on various sizes of used barrels, and if it's possible to remove the whiskey/flavor from a whiskey barrel without running beer through it. As far as the whiskey removal goes, I have 2 methods that may work that I've read about. 1) Steaming the barrel and inserting a hard bung. This creates a vacuum as it cools and pulls liquid from the staves. I would be attempting this by pouring in a small amount of boiling water and rolling around rather than actually steaming. 2) Filling barrel with a percarbonate (b-brite) solution overnight, and neutralizing with a citric acid solution soak for 24hrs. Apparently some wine people do this to remove some of the oakiness of new barrels.
Any input is appreciated.
wickerman

 

[Dcpcooks]

I've put 100% Brett C primary fermentations in a new Koval 30 gallon bourbon barrel with nice success. I used a tripple as the base recipe. I've been adding ten gallons of saison every 3-6 months after pulling some out.
My thinking was
1) a 100% Brett beer is ready much faster than Brett in secondary.
2) it takes me about 9 months to pull a lot of bourbon and oak out of a 30 gallon barrel so a quick turn around would limit the barrel flavors from being to strong.
3) it was a great way to seed the barrel.
4) I got to taste the beer and decide what to add next. I played with blending beers into the barrel beer and ended up liking the saison flavors
The Brett C is pretty fruity when used as the primary yeast. Nice pineapple and a little stone fruit. The saison added a nice dryness that balanced out the fruit.
5) when I add new beer( usual after secondary around 1.020 ish now) the barrel eats it very quickly. The first time I added 10 gallons of saison it dropped to 1.000 in about 15-20 days.

It's I nice way to play with a sour and you can make changes on the fly.

I didn't do anything to the barrel before filling but I got it on a Friday and filled it on a Sunday so it didn't have a lot of time to get infected.
I have several smaller barrels that I've cleaned with a potassium metabisulfate soak overnight followed by star San and a hot water rinse. I try to keep them filled within a week or two and I always but a solid bung in them when empty to try and keep them safe.

 

[wickerman]

Thanks for the info! Did the first pull have much of a bourbon taste to it, and how long before you took your first pull? I may play around with a 15 gallon barrel first (should be easier to get, I'm on a waiting list for a 30) to see if I can "wash" out some of the flavor. I know that 15 & 30 are different animals, but it should give me a good idea if my plan will actually work or not. I'll just use the 15 gal barrel for a Flanders style red-brown where the whiskey flavor won't be as out of place if I can't remove it.
Thanks again
wickerman

 

[Dcpcooks]

1st pull was six weeks with very little bourbon. Second pull was 12 weeks later with nice oak and a bit of booze. Third pull was 6 month after that with less bourbon and a little lees oak. Keep in mind that you'll have greater surface area to volume with a 15 gallon barrel over a 30 gallon. This means you'll get more flavors in less time but you'll also get the flavors out of the barrel faster.

 

[Dcpcooks]

I might put another beer in there for a month or two before a Flanders. The lacto will take a year to mature and you will definitely get bourbon I over a year. The wyeast pc ode Bruin might be perfect though

 

[wickerman]

Thanks, I appreciate your replies. My goal is to try and get the barrel as neutral as possible by rinsing a few times with various things, and "steam" it with some boiling water. It is obvious to me that this may or may not work. I figure that any whiskey flavor that remains would likely be more complimentary to a Flanders red/oud bruin than a saison, lambic, or something else on the lighter side. I guess I'm going to have try it and find out where it ends up.
Thanks again,
wickerman