Need Help!! Bottling from a Barrel??

[brux]

Howdy homebrewers! This my first post to the forum.... stoked to finally take the plunge!

Anyway, I've been aging a beer for six months in a blue corn whiskey barrel and have tasted it using the "Vinnie Nail" trick and it is ready to go. The base was a saison, single hopped with Belma (<30 IBUs), and primary fermentation with a blend of Belgian/ French Saison Strains. Halfway through Primary, I added an apple, ginger, honey syrup to add food for critters and hopefully complexity.

Racked it to the 5 gal Oak whiskey barrel, through in some bugs (wyeast lambic blend & additional Lactobacillus delbruekii). 5 months in, added Fresh Bing Cherries, and it is delicious. Mild strong tropical ethyl butyrate presence, dry, oaky, mild whiskey presence, mildly sour (too high IBUS?) with a "funky' undertone.

My question is, how the hell do I bottle it? Do I bottle Pellicle and all? Its my understanding that I leave the pellicle and bottle from the bottom. There is no spigot, just a nail hole i've used for sampling. Should I just use some tubing through the nail hole and have it take hours? Can I insert a spigot? Any help would be great, cheers!

 

[BryanThompson]

You can rack it to a bottling bucket with an autosiphon then allow it to sit in the bucket for one or two days to allow the beer to settle.

 

[Oldsock]

Is the gravity of the beer stable? Even if it is falling slowly, that can cause lots of excess carbonation. Also barrel aged beers often have lower residual dissolved CO2, for an aged out sour we tend to aim ~.4 volumes higher than we would otherwise.

For the sours I aged in my Balcones barrels, I racked them to secondary in BetterBottles with the fruit to give them more time to fish before bottling.

When I rack out I just leave the Pellicle behind as best I can. Any small bits that get through will settle out in the bottle. Many sours produce a pellicle in the bottle anyway, not much you can do about it.

You can rack it to a bottling bucket with an autosiphon then allow it to sit in the bucket for one or two days to allow the beer to settle.

This is a dangerous idea unless you have a lid for your bucket. Oxygen exposure at this stage could turn it into vinegar very quickly.

 

[sweetcell]

yup, i'd stick an autosiphon through the pellicle and rack to a bottling bucket. bottle immediately.

if you've still got a pellicle, i could mean that the bugs are still active in there and haven't finished munching all the sugars. are you certain that gravity is stable? if not, you could end up with bottle bombs.

oldsock - thanks for the 0.4 Vol CO2 estimate on aged beers. i was wondering how much is lost to aging.

 

[BryanThompson]

This is a dangerous idea unless you have a lid for your bucket. Oxygen exposure at this stage could turn it into vinegar very quickly.

Yeah a lid is a must. No one wants five gallons of malt vinegar.

 

[Oldsock]

oldsock - thanks for the 0.4 Vol CO2 estimate on aged beers. i was wondering how much is lost to aging.

Barrel aged (and Raj Apte wooden peg only) Anything aged in glass/plastic/stainless steel is the same as a regular beer. I assume the rough wood interior allows for more nucleation?

 

[brux]

Is the gravity of the beer stable? Even if it is falling slowly, that can cause lots of excess carbonation. Also barrel aged beers often have lower residual dissolved CO2, for an aged out sour we tend to aim ~.4 volumes higher than we would otherwise.

For the sours I aged in my Balcones barrels, I racked them to secondary in BetterBottles with the fruit to give them more time to fish before bottling.

When I rack out I just leave the Pellicle behind as best I can. Any small bits that get through will settle out in the bottle. Many sours produce a pellicle in the bottle anyway, not much you can do about it.



This is a dangerous idea unless you have a lid for your bucket. Oxygen exposure at this stage could turn it into vinegar very quickly.

1.004 is the gravity as of last week.... I am only saying it is ready by taste. This is my first sour that I've made, so not sure what you mean by stable, I havent been doing too much sampling, could you explain what you mean by "stable" and ~.4 volumes of CO2 higher?

 

[brux]

Also, thanks! I read the Mad Fermentationist all the time.... you've inspired me to do a 100% lacto fermentation next

 

[Oldsock]

1.004 is the gravity as of last week.... I am only saying it is ready by taste. This is my first sour that I've made, so not sure what you mean by stable, I havent been doing too much sampling, could you explain what you mean by "stable" and ~.4 volumes of CO2 higher?

Stable as in not changing. While 1.004 sound slow, if it drops to 1.001 after bottling you'll effectively double the carbonation you were aiming for.

For example if we really want 2.4 volumes of CO2 in the bottled beer, we'll use a priming sugar calculator and target 2.8. This is because a "normal" batch has .7-.8 volumes of CO2 even in "flat" beer, while a barrel aged beer has about half that.