Procured a whisky Barrel, now what

Start brewing Imp stouts or barleywines quickly so the barrel is full when you get it. Otherwise, consider using your local HB club to help out!

Do not ferment in it!

 

Why not ferment in the barrel? (other than the mess) I've got a 35 gallon rum barrel that I plan to ferment the beer in directly. Reason is I just can't afford to free up all the conical/carboy space in order to put that much beer in at once so I figured I'd do a triple batch day and pump all the wort directly into the barrel and do a 100% BA fermented stout or something. Breweries do this with much success so what is the hitch? Not trying to be a dick just curious!!!

 

I would assume you want to age it in the barrel so you don't want excessive trub & yeast in the barrel which you get from fermentation. Also the last thing you don't want to do is blow off any aromatics (although I honestly don't know if that will happen).

 

Valid points. I suppose I wasn't thinking of the amount of trub/yeast piling up at the bottom. When The Bruery (as an example) mentions their beers as "100% barrel fermented" aren't they talking about this though? I would imagine they have substantial trub in the bottom of every barrel and the beers, for the most part, are delicious.

 

Sorry to jack your thread tholm273!!! What batch size are you doing?? If I procured a barrel that large I would definitely be asking fellow homebrewers to brew the exact beer as a group to pump into the barrel. I'll be doing this soon once my wine and whiskey barrels drop as I can't fathom the amount of work I'd be doing alone just to fill them (35 gallons seems crazy enough!).

 

That might actually be kind of fun. Everyone brew the same recipe, have a little pre-aging tasting session, then blend them all together into the barrel.

 

They do? I'd be very surprised. Where do they say this?

 

Saison Tonnellerie is 100% barrel fermented. They also released a "100% Barrel Fermented" version of Autumn Maple in 2010, but they were somewhat vague about whether it was really barrel fermented, or just barrel aged with Brett.

 

We barrel ferment sour beers typically in larger, 132 gal. puncheon barrels filled up 1/2 to 2/3 to allow for headspace. We rack to smaller barrels after primary fermentation, approx. at 1 month to separate from yeast and trub.

For a bourbon barrel, I'd recommend fermenting as you normally would and rack the beer to it for secondary. The beers we age in bourbon barrels tend to be there for a year or more, so removing from most of the yeast prior to long term aging is pretty important to avoid meaty / rubbery flavors. I'd also recommend racking 50+ gallons into the barrel right around the same time to avoid excess headspace / oxidation.

An imperial stout, barleywine, old ale, Belgian-style dark strong ale, Belgian-style golden strong ale, pretty much anything strong (10%+) and not too hoppy should take on beneficial flavors from the barrel. Remember to soak both heads of the barrels (from the outside) to seal it up a few days prior to filling-- the heads are the most likely part to leak.

Cheers,
Patrick
The Bruery

 

One of my favorite parts of BA is when the pros get on here and share experience and ideas with everyone else. Thanks for your input Patrick!

 

Cheers,

I just picked up a barrel myself so im wondering how in the world do you do this step? in a kiddie pool? just wondering?

 

Awesome bit of advice Patrick. Appreciate it. I'm trying to get a smaller barrel myself to do some Scotch Ales and RIS in them. Then turn it into a bug factory.

 

Looking forward to buying your beers in Michigan.
Cheers!

 

Put the barrel outside (or in a sloped floor area with a floor drain, if you happen to have it!). Make sure the bung is fully in place, and put the barrel on one of its heads. Fill the barrel head on top with water, and let sit overnight. It's best to use 180+ F water for this to help swell the barrel and help sanitize in case the barrel is not sealed. If the barrel is still wet on top, the barrel should be sufficiently sealed. If not, repeat until sealed and note that some water may be leaching into the barrel. Once one side is sealed, repeat the step for the other end of the barrel.

Cheers,
Patrick
The Bruery

 

Wow. Thank you sir. I appreciate the instruction. Cheers

 

Depending on how long the barrel has sat somewhere shouldn't there be a concern for sanitizing the interior of the barrel somehow?

 

if I was that worried about that I would try to get them straight from a distillery but to me its part of the unknown and being able to live with a brett infection and actually expecting it to occur at some point

 

If the bourbon barrel is fresh, it'll be saturated with 180 proof distillate which will keep it sanitized and also contribute to the flavor. If it becomes dry inside, I'd recommend using the highest proof, lowest cost bourbon to re-sanitize the barrel. Other options are burning sulfur, ozone gassing the barrel, or filling with a sodium metabisulfate solution (which will help swell the barrel from inside out, but also dilute the bourbon character of the barrel). Using traditional sanitizers will lead to off flavors and be a potential hazard as the wood will absorb those sanitizers.