Whiskey Barrel Aging

The Balcones (have a bottle of True Blue) should be for drinking. It is a bit too $$$ for keeping a barrel wet. The cheap stuff will do just fine.

The bourbon flavor is being drawn out of the wood and will drops off after the first use. My third go was light oak with almost no bourbon at all. despite the bourbon storage. It seems there really isn't a way to "recharge" it.

I also agree with not wasting expensive whiskey for keeping the barrel wet. The flavors will become diminished after every aged brew you do so don't spend your cash on what you put in it in-between batches.

Brewrifle said:

I also agree with not wasting expensive whiskey for keeping the barrel wet. The flavors will become diminished after every aged brew you do so don't spend your cash on what you put in it in-between batches.

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+1
you can always add a few ounces of bourbon at bottling

FWIW, my local brewer does a number of premium small batch beers in oak. His barrels are from a distiller of "plastic handle" grade bourbon, not something high end.

Thanks, everyone! A fifth of Jack just went into my barrel.

Not sure about the whole "smaller barrel=less time" thing after aging two beers in 5 gallon Journeyman Silver Cross barrels. I went 8 weeks. I tasted every week for the first few weeks, then decided to let it ride a couple more after each subsequent taste, as it wasn't where I wanted it quite yet.

As of kegging today, the beers have an amazing soft oak, vanilla, and very nice whiskey flavor. I plan on aging these beers in the keg for quite awhile, so I knew I was letting them go long for that reason as well.

One was a 7.5% Doppelbock and the other the same abv Xmas Ale. Refilled the doppelbock barrel after rinsing with distilled water with an American Barleywine, which I won't taste for a month.

Bottom line: Very good, very heavy flavor now. But great character. After aging time in keg, it will be great, I think.

Question: Any idea what contribution, in terms of abv, a first use whiskey barrel would have on the beer?

I have used a few of these barrels. One I used 3 times and the two others are currently sitting with a barleywine and a RIS. My first brew I went 6 weeks and it was boozy but not too much oak. The booze flavor will diminish with time so if you let it sit for a 6 months or so it will have mellowed out some. I know a lot of folks do the more limited time but I really don't feel like it gives a lot of the oak flavor. I think it depends on the beer too. I am planning on racking both beers soon and we shall see how they turn out. My barrels were dumped in December 2012 so the are fairly fresh (the brews went in in Jan and then in March). I might have let the age too long but we shall see. There's always blending.

My first barrel I rinsed with hot water once and then pre-boiled water twice. I let it drain while I was bottling my beer and then threw about a cup of alcohol in and let it sit for a couple days.

I think by the third batch the brew had gotten some Brett. Not sure where it came from but might have been the rinsing.

I know people that have just racked a beer right in and not worried about the trub on the bottom. This is a valid method since I doubt the residual yeast would cause many off flavors from autolysis and as long as you put a darker beer in and/or one of equal caliber probably not much flavor is imparted.

It's also important to note that rinsing will also wash away some of the barrel flavor and mainly any residual alcohol.

DPlan, as far as alcohol contribution I dunno. It's mostly fumes so I wouldn't think it would be too much. It for sure has a thinning effect on the mouth feel of the final beer though.

Hopper5000 said:

It's also important to note that rinsing will also wash away some of the barrel flavor and mainly any residual alcohol.

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That's a great point. I think I have done that to my barrel. I get a little crazy when it come to sanitation. I have rinsed my barrel with 180 degree water 3 times so far.

I'm curious now, has anyone ever done a surface area to volume ratio for 53 gallon barrels vs 5 gallons barrels. I feel like that would give a better answer as to how much time you should age. EG if one normally ages a brew for a year in a 53 and it has X:X ratio and we knew what a 5 gallon ration was too we could theoretically figure out how much time would be equivalent.... I dunno the dimensions of each barrel, and I am not that good at math...

Wait I found it:

A 53 gallon oak barrel has approximately 3693 sq. in. of inside surface area. This equals 70 sq in per gallon

A 5 gallon oak barrel has approximately 1413 sq. in. Of inside surface area. this equals 283 sq. in per gallon

So 282 divided by 70 equals about 4, so technically in a 5 gallon barrel you would have to age the beer 4 times less than a large 53 one....

Does this sound crazy?

Hopper5000 said:

Wait I found it:

A 53 gallon oak barrel has approximately 3693 sq. in. of inside surface area. This equals 70 sq in per gallon

A 5 gallon oak barrel has approximately 1413 sq. in. Of inside surface area. this equals 283 sq. in per gallon

So 282 divided by 70 equals about 4, so technically in a 5 gallon barrel you would have to age the beer 4 times less than a large 53 one....

Does this sound crazy?

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Makes perfect sense!

A good rule of thumb. But I would still taste it regularly.

I taste mine about every 3 weeks or so when I top off. I try not to crack it too much as to prevent funkies from getting in there.

I just purchased a 5 gallon blue corn whiskey barrel that I plan on using for my next batch of Bourbon barrel ale.
I plan on adding a bottle or two of inexpensive bourbon (i'll save it and reuse between brews), and if it doesn't impart enough oak, I plan on adding one or tow oak infusion spirals.
The first batch of Kentucky bourbon barrel ale came out great using staves and chips that were soaked in Makers mark, but I used 750 ml of Makers Mark to get the level of Vanilla and caramel, and bourbon flavors that i was looking for, this can get very expensive!
I'll post the results.

Pumpkinman,


If you don't mind me asking, where did you get the 5 gallon barrel and what was the price?

Thanks,

Coy94

pumpkin, so you got a 5 gallon barrel that had whiskey in it and you are planning on adding more whiskey flavor?

coy94 said:

Pumpkinman,


If you don't mind me asking, where did you get the 5 gallon barrel and what was the price?

Thanks,

Coy94

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I'm just guessing because he said Blue Corn Whisky, but maybe here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f41/5-gallon-whiskey-barrels-stand-386723/

It seems the five gallon barrels are all coming from Balcones, Ive seen them from their Blue corn offerings, and Rumble, but the others may be out there: http://www.balconesdistilling.com/

The barrel is only used once in whiskey production, so when they bottle, the barrels become available in large batches. Quite a number of outlets get shipments, but only once or twice a year. Despite having sold out some time ago, I'll plug my LHS: http://brewstock.enstore.com/item/5-gallon-used-whiskey-barrel

The five gallon are rare in the industry. From what I understand, most distillers prefer the quality of a longer aging in the larger 55 gallon barrels. This really is a great break for homebrewers, so keep you eyes and ears open for the next shipment.

If you have a homebrew club you can do a group buy too and just contact the distillery directly. You have to order 27 (quantity on one pallet) and a time and arrange shipping youself (which isn't really that hard to do). My club has done 2 orders so far this was with good results and I helped spearhead one of them.

Coy94, I bought it from Homebrewing.com

Hopper5000 - Yes, the Kentucky bourbon Barrel ale that I had in Kentucky had a very pronounced bourbon flavor. The batch that I made soaking oak staves in bourbon and adding bourbon until I reached just about the same taste took just shy of a 750 ml bottle of makers mark, it is fantastic, but from what I have read in comments from others who have purchased these barrels, I get the feeling that they do not impart a lot of whiskey flavor, plus Bourbon has more of a vanilla and caramel flavors.

Sorry not to follow up on this, yes SWMBO picked it up from Balcones. left the Imperial Stout for 2 months, first batch through. Holy crap is it amazing but its good to let it sit for awhile and meld back in with the barley and malt flavors. I couldnt wait long enough though because it was amazing, i think there are four bottles left from that batch. The second go was a Apflewine and it was in there for 1 month, again off the chain good.

So depends on the style you are going for, how long you can wait for the flavor to meld together, and well how long you can just plain wait.

Anyone have any Tales of Caution when bottling out of a whiskey barrel?
I bottled my Imperial Stout a month ago and I just opened and it was flat - no carbonation! The stout was only 8.4% ABV going into the barrel and the yeast I used has a tolerance of 12%. Am I crazy to think the residual whiskey in the barrel killed my yeast?

My tale of caution is to test the beer daily with the first use of the barrel. My first one sucked up a lot of bourbon flavor in 3-4 days, which isn't quite what I was looking for in that beer. So I'd recommend either rinsing the barrel more thoroughly if you want less bourbon flavor or putting in a beer that is okay to have the higher bourbon flavor. And then tasting regularly to see where you are. Mine have even aged for 5 months now in the bottle and the bourbon is still very pronounced. Not a terrible beer, just not what I was going for.

lafindumonde, with my first beer that went into the barrel I had a problem with it carbing up. I cracked all the bottles and repitched some yeast and that helped a little but didn't quite get it to what I had wanted. I am not sure why there was a problem as my beer was only about 9% and I used wlp1. Might be the whiskey. I would just wait it out, leave if for a month or 2 and then recheck. All subsequent beers that went into the barrel didn't have any problem carbing.

Can anyone give some idea of how many batches you can run through a barrel before it loses the bourbon flavor? Assume you keep it recharged with bourbon.

Oh and being from Kentucky, I'll bite my tongue and not go into the whole, "Jack Daniels is NOT bourbon" tirade.

I have gone through one barrel so far and have two more with their first brews in them. The first barrel I had was a Rumble. Most of the boozy flavor was drawn out with that first beer (prolly like 80% but it still smelled a bit like alcohol when I racked and rinsed out with pre-boiled water). I recharged mine with a cup of 151 (not for taste mostly just to nuke anything that was in there) for a couple of days, poured the excess out and then put more beer in. The second and third beers to go in there got a little bif of alcohol flavor but mostly just a nice oak flavor. If you recharged the barrel with a full fifth or a handle and left it in there for a little while (maybe a couple weeks?) then you might get more booze flavor. This might be kind of expensive though, depending on what alcohol you put in there. You could also just add a bit more hard alcohol to the beer at bottling, although you have to be careful not to thin the beer out too much

mtnagel said:

My tale of caution is to test the beer daily with the first use of the barrel. My first one sucked up a lot of bourbon flavor in 3-4 days, which isn't quite what I was looking for in that beer.

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True. Plan your beers accordingly.

I got three beers through a fresh barrel. 1st, really had the bourbon notes and a background of oak. 2nd, bourbon on the nose, good oak notes. 3rd, was a subtle oak. I'd let the third sit for a month and a half and really didn't notice any more oak imparted after the first few weeks.

Just a heads up:
If you have a Balcones barrel, an auto syphon does not fit in the bung hole. I found this out the hard way when I was racking!

-Mike

Weird, because mine does.

When I bought my barrel, they said it took a #5.5 or #6 stopper. Googling tells me that is 31/32" at least (that's the bottom size of a #5.5 stopper). So that's basically an inch. I don't know what size autosiphon I have, but I guess it's smaller than an inch.

So how did you transfer the beer?

LaFinDuMonde said:

Anyone have any Tales of Caution when bottling out of a whiskey barrel?
I bottled my Imperial Stout a month ago and I just opened and it was flat - no carbonation! The stout was only 8.4% ABV going into the barrel and the yeast I used has a tolerance of 12%. Am I crazy to think the residual whiskey in the barrel killed my yeast?

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The standard priming sugar recommendation of "3/4 cup of corn sugar per five gallons" assumes a certain amount of CO2 from fermentation is still in solution. Most priming sugar calculators have a temperature input that is used to estimate how much CO2 is still in solution.

The problem I have found in our barrel-aged beers is that there is practically ZERO CO2 in solution after barrel-aging. Maybe wood is providing lots of nucleation sites? Maybe it's the porosity of the wood? Maybe it's time? Maybe all of the above?

What we've done for bottling is assume zero volumes of CO2 currently in solution and calculate priming sugar from there. Once we adjusted for that, we've had no problems carbonating barrel-aged beers. The yeast held up just fine.

I don't know if there is an online or commercial calculator that is set up to handle this situation well, but I would use 5.75 oz of corn sugar to get 2.0 volumes CO2 in 5.0 gallons of barrel-aged beer. YMMV.

There is no calculator needed. All you need to do is do simple math. It's easiest to convert your volume to liters, or it is at least to me.

http://hbd.org/brewery/library/YPrimerMH.html

I stopped using calculators a long time ago because I ran into the same issue with long term aged beers. The lack of carb in barrel aged beers is likely multifaceted.

1. You lose some carb each transfer because of the turbulence, however slight, it will happen even under pressurized transfers. You're looking at at least two transfers of the beer volume that you wouldn't have otherwise done.
2. The time frame in some cases but less likely on the 1-2 months were looking at with these 5 gallon barrels.
3. I think the big thing is the combination of the transfer and the barrel interior having an uneven surface providing nucleation sites as you mentioned.
4. If airlocked any dissolved CO2 will be allowed to escape plus there is an increased surface area for the CO2 to escape. If bunged some may remain but it won't be much.

I have a imperial stout in a 15 gal barrel that I'm thinking about transferring and bottling in a month or two. It tastes pretty good now. I gave mine a couple good rinses when I got it, and then dumped in some mixed together left over rum bottles into the barrel to keep it wet. That mostly soaked in/evaporated over time and I gave it another good hot water soak the day before I racked into the barrel. I didn't want an intense barrel flavor. I plan on possibly using it for a low abv flanders brown next or a sour stout. I might skip sours for now though and do a pale stock ale with brett next.

So what time frame are we talking about when you have to worry no CO2 in barrel aged beers?

My first barrel aged beer I only kept in for 4 days because it sucked up a ton of bourbon flavor and that one carbed up just fine.

I have a porter in the barrel now for about 1.5 weeks and I may take it out at 2 weeks, but I may let it go longer. I've been sampling every so often. So would I have to worry about no dissolved CO2 in this beer?

I don't think we've done anything shorter than one month, so I can't speak to where you will be at two weeks.

Thanks. I wonder if I could tell by shaking a sample if there is any dissolved CO2 remaining?

Off topic...Was at a Stone Brewery barrel aging class and they recommended 6 months in any spirit barrels and 8 months on wine barrels. Any time longer than that doesn't yield additional benefit in the barrel.

Interesting, I didn't know Stone was doing any barrel aging stuff although that doesn't surprise me. I have yet to try any of their BAB's despite being from CA,

abrix said:

The problem I have found in our barrel-aged beers is that there is practically ZERO CO2 in solution after barrel-aging. Maybe wood is providing lots of nucleation sites? Maybe it's the porosity of the wood? Maybe it's time? Maybe all of the above?

What we've done for bottling is assume zero volumes of CO2 currently in solution and calculate priming sugar from there. Once we adjusted for that, we've had no problems carbonating barrel-aged beers.

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This is good information. Thanks!! Bottling my stout in about a month & a tripel in about 3 months from 2 separate 15 gal rye whiskey barrels from dads hat in PA. Nice barrels for $100 shipped.

Where did you pick up those barrels for $100?

Keystone homebrew supply in PA. The 2nd we bought in person @ the Dads Hat distillery in Bristol, PA after a tour & sampling.

LaFinDuMonde said:

Anyone have any Tales of Caution when bottling out of a whiskey barrel?
I bottled my Imperial Stout a month ago and I just opened and it was flat - no carbonation! The stout was only 8.4% ABV going into the barrel and the yeast I used has a tolerance of 12%. Am I crazy to think the residual whiskey in the barrel killed my yeast?

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I kept that beer at 70 degrees for another month and a half and it is now perfectly carbonated. After 25 years of homebrewing you would think that I would have learned to RDWHAHB.