100L american oak barrel aged split batches

Hey guys I have a 100L american oak ex Yalumba wine barrel on the way to my place looking to fill it up around the end of April start of May.

Looking for someone/s to split the batch in there with me as 90L is alot of beer. Hoping for 3 people x 30L each or 2 X 45L each but if more interest is shown can work something out. We can either brew our own batches and blend the cubes or just set up a big brew day on my system or maybe Duanes 200L permission pending.

Thinking about an imperial stout or imperial ipa or something else imperial but open to suggestions.

Barrel will eventually be inoculated with bugs and be full of funk and sours but thought i may aswell push a few regular beers through first.

I've been thinking about one of these for like, years, but haven't had an oak barrel with which to do justice to the style.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Adambier

Yes? No?

emnpaul wrote:I've been thinking about one of these for like, years, but haven't had an oak barrel with which to do justice to the style.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Adambier

Yes? No?

Interesting style i like the sound of it. Although it seems to require some souring and extended aging. Which im not looking to use with the barrel for the first few batches. I am keen to give it a try one day though

Imperiallambic wrote: it seems to require some souring and extended aging.

I agree. Although I'm not sure if the sourness is supposed to come from lacto/brett or some oxidisation brought about by extended aging in the barrel. Either way it would tie up your barrel for some time which I think is probably not the plan in the early stages.

Perhaps a fairly traditional English style IPA then?
http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/styles/2_2style.html
http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/styles/2_3style.html

Not the biggest fan of english ipa's.
I'm more thinking a strong belgian ipa could be on the cards.

I am definitely interested in this.

This site has a lot of ideas for Barrel aged beers
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/search/label/Barrel%20Aged

Russian Imperial Stout, Weizenbock or Belgian dark strong are beers I like to drink.

What wine was in the barrel Marc? Will that make a difference and should we try to pick a recipe to fit with that?

Also, I can only do max 20L-25L per batch.
So I'd be up for a big brewday at Duanes or someones place.

Not too sure about what wine was in there yet. Hopefully be able to find out come pick up.
All i know is its american oak.

I have 25L of belgo strong ale fermenting as we speak so thats out of the Question for now.
Imperial stout is probably the first non-funky beer i thought to put in it so definitely on the cards.

I will have a chat to Duane again but im almost certain it should be ok.
Hardest part will be getting the beer from Toukley to Kanwal where ther barrel will be stored in a dark cool garage. If you have Cubes they will come in handy.

i've got 3X 20L and 1 X 25L so no worries there.

Assuming it's a three way split (at this stage) 30 litres of RIS might be a bit much. Would you consider a Biere De Garde or vanilla porter instead?

I've got plenty of cubes too - at least 4x 25L's lying around.
Having never done a barrel-aged beer before, correct me if I am wrong - but we will ferment this ourselves first then bring the finished beer to the barrel?

Or does it ferment in the barrel?

emnpaul wrote:i've got 3X 20L and 1 X 25L so no worries there.

Assuming it's a three way split (at this stage) 30 litres of RIS might be a bit much. Would you consider a Biere De Garde or vanilla porter instead?

You dont have to drink it all at once

Doing a bit of reading now and apparently the wine barrels don't impart too much flavour in the likes of imperial stouts.

As for the bierre de garde. Pretty sure garde means lager so probably wouldn't do the style justice at our temps. Im guessing an average of 18c

What about the likes of a simple French saison to get things rolling and see what kind of flavours the barrel imparts?

To be completely honest with all these awesome beers im reading about i cant wait to infect the thing

Saison sounds pretty good actually. It would be weird if it was a Cabernet or Shiraz barrel, or maybe not?
Just as long as it's better than 6-strings saison.

Gingerpete wrote:I've got plenty of cubes too - at least 4x 25L's lying around.
Having never done a barrel-aged beer before, correct me if I am wrong - but we will ferment this ourselves first then bring the finished beer to the barrel?

Or does it ferment in the barrel?

Was thinking this today aswell.
I have heard of people doing it both ways and can see some + - in both.
Struggling to find info comparing the 2 against each other though.

I am thinking a saison could handle most wine flavours. If its a red we can always darken up the saison a bit.

Maybe it would be easiest for all if we brewed and fermented 20-25L (i am happy to brew a double) and then when finished fermenting cube and arrange a date to fill up the barrel.

Imperiallambic wrote:
Maybe it would be easiest for all if we brewed and fermented 20-25L (i am happy to brew a double) and then when finished fermenting cube and arrange a date to fill up the barrel.

^This sounds like a pretty good plan. I'm certainly open to the idea of a Saison but having done some reading on them it seems like the yeasts need a pretty high ferment temp to finish attenuating (up around 30 degrees!) which could be an issue, although a heat belt or pad would probably do the trick if we got it happening soon.



A moot point now but I'm pretty sure B'D'Garde is actually an an ale, although with a fairly neutral yeast profile, a clean lager yeast would go alright too I think.

Yeah, getting a bit off topic, but the confusion could be lost in translation.
Lager in german means "to store"
Garde means "for keeping"
Either way, its a beer that you put aside for a while, which is kinda what we are doing in the barrel. We would want to keep the barrel as cool as reasonably possible to slow down oxidation and staling. Cool part of the house over winter is fine assuming the barrel is watertight.

Saison and Biere de Garde can be fairly similar too, I think if you went travelling in Wallonia and Nord you wouldn't find much differentiation and a wide variety. It seems like that is the beer we want to make. Yeast selection is still up in the air. The Dupont strain is notoriously slow and need high temps to finish, but French saison is apparently a lightning fast fermentor and has a max temp of 25C. Never tried them though - can anyone comment on their flavour profile? Or for a lower ester profile, something like a kolsch or German ale are good.
Or we could try a blend of yeast? Dupont saison and 1056 to finish out? Maybe Im getting carried away...
Lets find out the type of wine first - and formulate the recipe based on that, then we can discuss yeast.

I might get my copy of brewing farmhouse ales out and see if there's any reference to oak/barrel aging for as well.

I had already considered the temps and thats why i suggested the french saison which is good from anywhere from 18 to 25c and apparently is a monster of a yeast and chews through everything leaving a dryer beer something i am hoping would suit the flavours taken from the barrel.
Belgian saison is out of the question unless you have the means to heat your ferment fridge to 27-30c which i dont and from personal experience turns out pretty lacklustre.

The temp of the barrel should be no problem with this beer as it will already be fermented out . As long as its reasonably steady which i think it will be.

ps. I do realize 'bierre de garde' is typically an ale. I was more implying that the style is 'lagered/aged' at temps thankfully we dont get anywhere close to here.

Duane is hosting a bulk buy hopefully this week i suggest we jump at it and buy a sack of 'dingemans pilsner ($75)' for this batch.
After a quick calculation we would need around 18kg of pilsner malt total and we will save a fair bit this way.
I now have a mill so happy to crack at mine and arrange pickup/dropoff somehow.

Yeah, Ill be in for the bulk buy. I've already put my name down for a sack of Wyermann Pils, but Belgian Pils for saison fits the bill.
Would anyone still be up to do a big batch on Duanes system? I am assuming this saison will be a high alcohol beer and I am kinda limited in batch size and gravity to a max of 1.060 (Excluding simple sugar additions).

Wasn't planning on the beer much being over 6.5%/7% anyway mate so think you should be fine.

I have been wanting to do a big barley wine (12%) at Duanes for a while now.

The idea i have had for it was that 3-4 people join in and then all ferment with different yeasts. When we bottle we split the cases accordingly. Ending up with 4 most likely different styles of Bwine.

That sounds like a cool project too. But lets get this barrel happening first.

So what were we thinking for recipe...
OG 1.050- 1.060 - Maybe more with sugar?
IBU - 20-40? Just a bittering charge and maybe a small 10-20min addition? Noble hops, I've got a bit of Hallertau, Saaz and Perle

Grist - I guess this would fit to whatever was previously in the barrel.

Red wine barrel -
This grist is trying to mimic Pizza Port SPF8 (A dark Saison - now called Lost Abbey 10 commandments http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/lost-abbey-10-commandments/72830/ )

85% Pilsner
6% Munich
3.5% Carafa Special II
3.5% Carawheat
2% Special B

Maybe some Dark candy syrup or homemade caramel to boost gravity and dry it out.
Low mash temp 62-64 for maybe 90 mins, Protein rest and mashout if you can. Probably not nessecary though.
Long boil 100mins
Maybe a spice addition of Orange zest and rosemary in the last 5 mins

French Saison Wyeast


Or maybe if it was a chardonay barrel
90% pilsner
10% Wheat
+ 10% Sucrose

Loooooong boil for complexity (120-150mins)

Pitch warm, then cool after a day - Try to develop a bit of diacetyl which may go well with the Chardy flavours. This would be pretty risky though. If we did that, maybe one person could do this and the other 75L fermented properly with a diacetyl rest to reduce it.


thoughts.?

That all sounds like an excellent plan. I think the sugar should be alright and might help dry it out too. Can't comment on the cramel or candy syrup as I haven't used either.

Corriander seed as a spice addition?

Count me in on the bulk buy (Ding Pils) too.

Hops? I have some Saaz, Spalter Select and Bobek/Styrians I'd be happy to donate.

Recipes look good pete. My recipe for the regular saison is pretty similar.

As for hops i think we could probably brew with whatever noble hops we have maybe we could all do a different one? And aim reasonably low 25ibu? with some spice additions dont want it to bitter

I have Strisselspalt, Styrian goldings, Perle, Saaz, Hallertau.

I asked tonight on AHB what could have been in the barrels and No reply yet.
Apparently they will be delivered Mon so should really get on to this beer asap.
Pretty sure the barrel has been cleaned and sanitized but dont want to leave it for that long in case bugs get into it.
Although i wouldn't be that upset. Funky Saison!

[quote name="punkin" post="1017926" timestamp="1365185722"]
They have had red wine in them since 06. They were taken out of service, even though the cellarmaster said they'd normally be used after that for a fortified wine. They have been "barrel cared" with sulfur etc since and were just done again a few weeks ago.[/quote]

Here we go guys straight from Punkins post.
Looks like a dark saison it is. Or happy to try regular through if we where feeling crazy!
Hoping to get this underway as soon as we can.

Have you put in the order through Duane for the Pils malt? What about the yeast - One pack and grow it up or 3 packs?
Duane will have special B, Carafa II and Munich.
I can order the Carawheat through MHB for the 100L.
Do we want to do homemade caramel? If we want want to do a large batch for everyone?

I should hopefully be able to brew this coming week sometime, providing the weather cooperates

Yeast; I reckon 1 pack and grow it up from there. I think we are going French Saison, correct? Duane (assuming you'll read this at some point) can you get it in time, or should we look at outsourcing for this?

I've made homemade candy sugar, once, a few years ago and it was a bit of fun and I'm keen to give it another go if anyone's interested. Is this comparable to caramel/belg candi sugar, which from memory is a liquid and chemically different (inverted)?

Sounds like we're doing split batches unless Duane is willing to donate use of his setup for a "brewday" of sorts? Is anyone keen for that idea?

Edit: Would red wine add complexity to a light saison or should we really not go there? I'm tempted, but 90 odd litres is a LOT of crap beer to have to drink if it doesn't work out.