Barrel Aging a Russian Imperial Stout

Small 5 gallon barrels take little time to add the oak flavor. You should check the beer often to gauge the level of oak. I just aged a 5 gallon rum barrel RIS that only needed 3 weeks in the barrel. Larger barrels will take more time as the surface to volume ratio is different. You want to minimize head space because of oxidization and acetobacter. If you have a larger barrel you may want to consider brewing an additional small batch to top up the barrel every so often. You will want to add the beer to the barrel post primary fermentation. I use a drilled stopper with an airlock just to make sure the stopper does not get blown off. Hope that helps.

 

I have done two batches in a 5.5 gallon honey-combed barrel, here are some thoughts on what I will do for the next batch based on my experience with the first two.

First, if the barrel is dry (which I am guessing yours is) before you fill the barrel with anything, whether it is sanitzing or beer, you want to allow it to swell a little or you will have a giant mess. What I plan on doing next time is in the few days leading up to sanitizing, I will spray the outside of the barrel with a little water every few hours or so. I feel like even using a spray bottle (or hose) to moisten the outside will help to make the barrel swell a little without creating much mess.

Each of the past two times, I made about 2 gallons of sanitizing solution using sodium metabisulfite, and just rotating the barrel about 120 degrees 3 times after about 24 hours . It is typically used to sanitize barrels before wine is put in them. This soaking has had no apparent affect on the strength of bourbon flavor, and I have also had no contamination. As a result, I will most likely continue this process.

Each time I have put the beer into the barrel after one month in primary. At this point, most fermentation would have stopped. If you want to, adding a very small amount of fermentable sugar to the beer at this point (almost like adding priming sugar before bottling, but not as much sugar is needed) will help create some CO2 for the headspace. Obviously, if you do this, use an airlock. Something else to conider, however, is that wood breathes. So even if you have no head space, some oxidation does occur.

On my last batch, my fermentation was stuck (OG was around 1.120, after primary it was 1.04ish). For that batch, I added the beer to the barrel along with a champagne yeast starter. After one day, I saw the arilock moving a little, so I knew some CO2 was being produced for the head space.

Neither batch stayed in the barrel for more than 3 weeks. Make sure you taste the beer every week until you get the flavor you want. I always err on the side of taking it out early, because over time some of the bourbony flavors seem to intensify with carbonation and time in the bottle.

Hope this helps

 

I did not sanitize my barrel. The residual rum in the barrel and the high gravity of the beer is enough to ward off infection. As long as the barrel is not completely dried out you probably dont have to do a leak test. Filling with water or sanitizer will probably strip some of the wood/liquor character anyways. You could pour a little liquor in the barrel and shake it up to swell the wood a little also.

As long as there isnt a lot of head space you should be good. If you are worried about it you could top up the barrel with a couple of bottles of similar style commercial beer. When you transfer the beer there should be some residual C02 that should fill the head space anyways. You could always pump some C02 into the head space if you have a C02 tank.