Recently I've had the good fortune of sharing a few bottles of Side Project beers. I harvested and built up the dregs from several bottles, and I've got a healthy culture of some of Cory's great yeasts and bugs going. I'm planning to turn them into a sour saison this weekend, but I'm interested in mimicking 100% barrel fermentation, akin to what Cory does. That said, I don't have a barrel in which to do it. So here's what I'm thinking, but I'm curious if anyone has any experience trying to do this. I'm thinking a red wine barrel will fit the beer well, so I'm planning to triple-boil some oak chips, soak them in red wine (either cab sav or merlot, depending on what my wife is opening at the time), and then add them to the fermentation bucket. Then I'll rack the wort directly onto them, throw on the lid and airlock, and let it go to town. This will be for about a 5.5-6 gallon batch. Any thoughts on this? Any other suggestions?
I have heard of other people doing this as well with success, but I haven't had any first hand experiment with it. I would maybe suggest trying it out on a smaller batch version. Say a gallon to see how much oak, wine, phenols you will get. If you like the way it came out then just increase to the 5.5 gallons. You can use the same oak chips that you used on your "test" batch because they will have all the good yeast and flavors you are looking for.
I'll be honest, I think you can probably get close with a really small amount of wood cubes, rather than the chips. Because you will be aging this for quite a while- you don't want a ton of oak in there that long. I'd do 6 months without the oak, add the oak and let it ride until you like the profile, then rack it off into something else to finish aging. With all that said.. I used to do the cubes and spirals... you can't beat REALLY aging it in a barrel.
Look into a Balcones barrel. Run around 2-3 beers through it, and rinse it well each time with boiling water. Will reduce the oak flavor more. It's 5 gallons, works well for short term-ish aging, and it's affordable. Plus side, you get a couple barrel aged treats, and then you funk it up and have a haven for all of your bugs to live in, and you can sour up what you want, and give it the real deal treatment.
Okay, that clears up some of my questions, and allows for some answers. I have done this exact thing before, to good results, took Best of Show in a BJCP comp. I built up all my primary yeast from blackberries and peaches and fermented it for 3 weeks. Went from 1.054 to 1.006. Left it all in the primary on the oak cubes I had put in there on brewday, as well as all the trub, for a year. At one point I had too much oak character and racked it off the oak and trub, removed the bulk of the oak, and then put it all back in there together, trub and all. I added commercial homebrew dregs to the fermentor over the course of that year as well for more complexity. Turned out really well. I have a 10.5 gallon rebrew going of it now that will not age on all the cake (taking the yeast to a commercial brewery for a big brew of it). By building up the dregs to a pithcable quantity you are essentially doing the same thing. Use maybe 1 oak cube on brewday, ferment it and leave it alone, add some wine to the fermentor to taste a few months in, and allow it to age a few months (just make sure it is not sulfited as it could inhibit the bugs).
