Smaller Barrels

Learned a lot from this post when I read it a few weeks ago.

I just bought a 5 gallon whiskey barrel from Adventures in Homebrewing and I've been aging a KBS clone in it for about ten days. Getting oakier every few days, but it's not quite where I want it. I've heard that even the it can be detrimental to over-oak (tastes gross), you can also just throw it into a plastic ferm/carboy or even bottle it and over time the oak flavor will diminish.

It does seem like the best way to go aging a sour (or anything, I suppose) in a long-term fermentation would be to age it for a year or so in a glass carboy, then put it in the barrel for just a few months (tasting for flavor along the way). You may also try plastic for the long term, as it's more breathable which (for better or for worse) is much more like wood than glass, in that sense. Michael Tonsmeire (Mad Fermentationist) knows a lot more concerning aging sours though...HERE.

Here's the math I did to figure out just how much surface area to volume the smaller (5 gallon) barrel has compared to the big (59.4 gallon) barrel (the answer is 4.22):

http://benhelms.com/5gallonchancho/

I'll re-post here with more findings as they come.

 

Can anyone recommend a place that has barrels somewhere between 5 and 10 gallons and also has racks (preferably stackable) for multiple barrels? I'm not looking for the single-barrel racks that places like MoreBeer have. Thanks!

 

Not sure exactly what you have in mind, but for the stackable racks, even small barrels are pretty damn heavy. I have a 8 gal maple syrup/bourbon barrel aging currently, and I'd estimate the empty barrel at 35 pounds and the beer at 65 pounds. 100-ish pounds isn't crazy (like a full barrel at 550lbs), but it's heavy enough to be a pain in the ass.

 

A few of the places have things like 5-barrel racks for some of the smaller barrels, but I'd like something for the 5g/20L barrels. If it's 80lbs or whatever, that's fine. I don't plan on having to move them often and that's not much for a two-person job. I'd like to get quite a few barrels going, but space would become an issue fast if I can't use any vertical space.

 

I'm being pedantic and a pain I know but feel it ought to be mentioned.
A barrel is a cask of a certain size rather than a general term for a container.In the UK it's a 36 UK gallon if beer or 31 gallons if ale (obsolete but indicates the difference between beer and ale).A standard beer barrel in the US is 31 US gallons (you'll see it used in production figures such as quoted in annual production) and other commodities such as oil have their own specified sizes.
Other capacities have their own names-here a pin is a 4.5 gallon cask, a firkin is 9 gallons, a kilderkin is 18, a barrel is 36, a hogshead (still used) is 54 and a puncheon is 72.

 

Barrel is a common term to refer to a vessel containing liquid that is shaped like the traditional barrel. Words change over time. They can also have different meanings depending on context. They can mean different things in different places. Language is complicated. I felt those things out to be mentioned.

 

I knew this would come. Whenever something like this is mentioned straight away my transatlantic friends tell me that they have changed the meaning of the word, and this is quite all right as this happens all the time. But really there's no need as there are plenty of other words which can be used such as cask , container or vessel.Otherwise it's a bit like using the word "Poodle" every time you really mean a dog."Let's call them all poodles, everyone else does"

 

No, that's not what it's like. It's more like using the term band-aid to refer to all bandages rather than just the Band-Aid brand. The meaning of words change as they are used differently over time. Barrel can be a measurement term, or a term referring to a certain vessel.

If you knew this would come, why bring it up? It's not even relevant to this discussion. Everyone here clearly knows we're discussing homebrew barrels and not the measurement term.

 

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/barrel
1.a cylindrical container usually bulging outwards in the middle and held together by metal hoops; cask

4. a unit of capacity used in the oil and other industries, normally equal to 42 US gallons or 35 Imperial gallons

Would you look at that, a word has more than one definition!

 

I see your argument now. Barrel can clearly only mean a single value of liquid measurement. History and whatnot. Got it.

 

So let's say you are on a game show and they show you this photo and all you have to do is say what the object is in the photo and you win a piece of fried fish wrapped in a newspaper and a pint of warm dish water...you'd say what? You need to know the volume before you can answer? "That could be any number of objects from a pin to puncheon...my good man". I feel like that answer would cause you to lose the game.

 

Just what has this got to do with it? It's a brewing thread and brewing has its own definitions (not to mention legal ones) Just because Joe Soap doesn't know his sparge from his grist doesn't mean that the rest of us shouldn't be better informed.A barrel is simply a cask of 36 gallons. Order a barrel from a brewery and that's what you get.Otherwise you order a firkin or whatever, sometimes now called just a "9"
Fish hasn't been wrapped in newspaper since Moses was a boy and I haven't been given a pint of warm dishwater for a very long time.
Yes, I know, custom and usage. My wife calls our vacuum cleaner a Hoover. That doesn't make it one as the name "VAX" on the side says otherwise.Getting things wrong all the time doesn't make it right.

 

Alright, I'll play. What term do you feel is most appropriate for the object pictured?

 

Wait. I thought a barrel could be different sizes? Now where would I have gotten that impression...

 

A butt

 

5 Gallon Whiskey barrels are here... http://www.homebrewing.com/equipment/whiskey-barrel.php