When should I transfer to a barrel?

[matt_m]

Doing a barrel aged vanilla java porter. I've brewed the beer before and decided it would be a good first attempt at barrel aging. The beer is 1-2 pts above FG and just has a very tiny bit of blowoff activity. Not sure if I should transfer while there's still a little activity so any remaining yeast can clean up the oxygen or wait a week for it to be completely done? Also should I add my vanilla (premium brand real extract) and hot brewed coffee before or after aging?

 

[shoengine]

You could ferment entirely in the barrel if you want. I usually wait until my beers are fermented out. Typically they find something to chew on in the barrel anyway.

Be careful on using that extract. If it is a non- neutral barrel you'll pull vanilla flavors from the barrel as well.