Seasoning a 20L oak barrel

[LewisZ7Hunter]

So my sister is getting my dad (and by extension me - we brew together) a 20L oak barrel for Christmas. The plan is for us to use it to make "bourbon barrel aged" beers. Does anyone have any cost effective ways for us to "season" the barrel with liquor, to get it ready for the beer?

Originally I had told her to get a 5L or 10L barrel, and we would just make small batches, but I guess the savings was too good to pass up. Not thinking that we would then need to fill it with liquor before putting beer in it.

 

[mredge73]

Send it back or cancel your order.
You need to buy a used bourbon barrel to do what you want to do. Otherwise you will need to fill it with 20L of grain alcohol (ever clear).

If the barrel is new and freshly burnt in the oak flavor will overpower any beer you put in it. You will need to soften it by doing a few red wines first, but this defeats your purpose as you beer later will be "wine barrel aged" .
Trying to just do 1L of everclear and rolling it around will not be enough to swell it properly or remove enough of the pungent oak flavor to use it for beer.

 

[LewisZ7Hunter]

Unfortunately, it was custom made, and already delivered, so that wont work...

Thanks for the input though, might have to bite the bullet, and be swimming in homemade whiskey for years.

Send it back or cancel your order.
You need to buy a used bourbon barrel to do what you want to do. Otherwise you will need to fill it with 20L of grain alcohol (ever clear).

If the barrel is new and freshly burnt in the oak flavor will overpower any beer you put in it. You will need to soften it by doing a few red wines first, but this defeats your purpose as you beer later will be "wine barrel aged" .
Trying to just do 1L of everclear and rolling it around will not be enough to swell it properly or remove enough of the pungent oak flavor to use it for beer.

 

[mredge73]

Use it for wine and buy one of these:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=596572

 

[bobeer]

it could make a cool nightstand if nothing else.

 

[eSePeludo]

you arelooking at like 400 dollars im everclear, maybe buy a couple bottles a month till you have the amount you need

 

[Weezy]

I agree with the above (you might consider brewing some port wine and aging that in the barrel) but here's an idea...

The recommended way to store a barrel, to keep it hydrated and keep bugs down, is water with citric acid and potassium metabisulfite. For 5 gallons, I'd use two ounces of each. This will store the barrel and will help pull some of the oak out. Let that ride for a couple months.

When you do use it, you're going to want to taste it often and drain it when it's parked enough.

Seasoning the barrel is as simple as you think. Pour bourbon or whatever in there, roll it, dump(collect foot reuse) whatever isn't absorbed/trapped, then add your beer. I wouldn't season a dry barrel. It'll just soak it all up.

 

[NTexBrewer]

You will just need 5.25 Liters (3 1.75L bottles) of Everclear. Ever clear is 151 proof. If you mix 5.25 L of Everclear and 14.75 L of water you will have 20 liters of 40 proof neutral spirits which in my opinion would be enough to season the barrel.

That would cost you about $100

Most bourbons are in the 80 proof and up range. To make 80 proof neutral spirits it would take 10.5 Liters of Everclear 151 in your 20L barrel.

I would say that you could possibly go as low as 30 proof (15%) and not worry about contamination of the barrel while you are seasoning the barrel.

My wife got me a 10L barrel for xmas last year. Like yours, it was a virgin medium char barrel. I created a blend of Everclear, Grey Goose Vodka, White Rye Whiskey, Ranger Creek White Whiskey and water to season my barrel. After 3 months, I pulled the whiskey and put a porter in the barrel. After 3 months, I pulled the porter and put a Quad in the barrel. After 3 months, I pulled the Quad and now have a Wee Heavy in the barrel. I brew a larger batch and use 500ml swing top bottles to hold uncarbonated beer to top off the barrel from evaporation. This also allows you to have a comparison of the oaked beer and unoaked beer. My porter was probably over oaked. My Quad is pretty tasty and at 1 month in the barrel my Wee Heavy has a very faint oak flavor so I'm thinking the barrel is done with providing flavor and is ready for some sours. I keep my barrel next to fireplace in our family room so it does experience temperature extremes. On average it would evaporate about 350ml over a month period.

My advice is to experiment and have fun. I never asked for advice here since everyone seems to think you can't do anything with a small barrel.

What I have learned.

Plan ahead where you plan to place your barrel if you can't lift it. I'm guessing it should not be too much work to carry a 20L barrel. I have no problems moving my 10L barrel to fill up or to move to the kitchen for bottling.

Brew 2 to 3 gallons more beer to bulk age unoaked. This can be used to blend if you over oak the beer.

Plan to make a mess on filling days, topping off and sampling. You will notice that I have a Vinny Nail that I use to get samples. Unfortunately, this is pretty messy.

If you bottle you will have to prime with more sugar since the beer gasses off CO2 pretty fast in the barrel. The Porter was in the barrel for 3 months. I primed it for 2.5 volumes based on calculators but it is more like 2 volumes. With the quad, I primed for 3.3 volumes knowing that it would actually be closer to 2.8 to 3.

 

[mredge73]

FYI, Typical Barrel Proof ranges from 62.5% abv to 70% abv. (120-140 proof)
If you really want that bourbon barrel taste, dilute everclear to this range or higher.
Good luck.