Oaking Beer in bottles

[cegan09]

So I've read a few places about this not being a great idea, but i'm a curious person, so I went ahead and tried anyway. On my 30th birthday I made a big barelywine with the intention of drinking a bottle or two every year over the next 10 years. A way to see if i can make a good beer that holds up over a long time. I bottled 24 bombers, and had enough left over to fill 8 additional 16oz bottles.

I love oaked beers, but didn't want to risk over oaking this batch since it was a sentimental brew, and I've not nailed oaking rates otherwise. So I figured it was worth the experiment of throwing cubes in the bottles directly. I've had some medium toast cubes soaking in Eagle Rare bourbon for a few months. So I split a few cubes in half and added half a cube to 6 of those bottles to experiment with.

Standard barrels are roughly 737in^2 on the inside (roughly, not exactly, I ignored the fact that the sides are curved). With 53 gallons of liquid that is 9.2oz per in^2 for contact. The cubes are about 1/2" square, so broken in half they have 1in^2 of surface area. In a 16oz bottle that's a little under the same ratio, but not terribly far off.

My plan is to try a bottle at 1 month, 2 months,3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 1 year to see how it progresses. I don't have enough un-oaked bottles to open 1 at the same time at each sampling. But I do have 2 that I can open at 1 month and 6 months to remind me what the base beer is like. The beer went into bottles on september 7th, so the first bottle was opened yesterday. I'll write up my thoughts in the next post. This should be a living thread where I'll post after each bottle I open with my findings. Excited to see how this goes.

 

[cegan09]

The 1 month trial.

yesterday I had some friend's over and we opened one of the regular bottles and one of the oaked bottles to try. Happily I can say the regular beer came out great. Not 100% perfect to what I wanted, but really good regardless. It's thick, sweet, complex, most of the things I want in a barelywine. I wish it had finished a touch lower, but it is what is is. 1.113 to 1.035 for 10.5%.

The oaked variant. 1 month with half of a bourbon soaked oak cube in the bottle. It's not in your face about it, but it is there. It seems to have taken the edge off the beer a little. some of the bitterness is mellowed out. I did hop aggressively with hops meant for long life beers (Read Vintage beer if you're interested in this sort of thing) The base beer isn't overly bitter like an american barelywine, but it does have some in there counteracting the sweetness. The oaked version seems to have removed or countered a touch of that. In the very end you get a hint of the oak flavor. Nothing strong, but enough to let you know it's there. Overall it's really good and I'd totally do this again if I was prepping something that had to be bottled and would all be consumed at that 1 month mark.

I give up on getting the picture to be the right way up.

 

[cegan09]

Ok, so i'm about a week late on the 2 month bottle, but I tried it tonight.

The bitterness is further gone, it's becoming more and more the sweet caramel brown raisin bread that I love in barelywines. The oak doesn't seem to have intensified that much overall. Very little of it in the smell, but it's still there in the late taste and aftertaste. A little more tannins in the finish, almost reminiscent of red wine. Overall really good. I'm happy with how it's progressing.

I'll try another at 3 months, though I may hold it off till christmas so more 3.5-4 months.

 

[raymondhthomas]

Really like this idea - glad to know 1 and 2 months tasted good, interested to see how this develops!

 

[Leezer]

I’m interested in following this too, will stay tuned. May want to try something like this myself in the future.

 

[cegan09]

I have a bottle chilling for consuming today, just shy of 4 months. Will report in when I open it.

 

[cegan09]

Opened the bottle, about 3.5 months now. The barelywine is further developing and quite lovely. A touch less sweetness than before. Not much more oak at all. A little bit more tart/tanninish/dry in the finish, but i'm talking very small changes from last time.

Overall it doesn't seem to be taking on too much more of the oak. If this trend continues I'll have to repeat the experiment with full cubes. I like the beer overall with it's current levels. The next bottle I open at 6 months I'll open one of the unoaked bottles to further compare to.

I think i'm going to make a big RIS again soon and I"ll repeat the experiment with that beer.

 

[cegan09]

This weekend I cracked open both an un-oaked bottle and one of the oaked bottles while celebrating my brother in law's 30th. The regular barelywine is really good. Sweet, just the right amount of heaviness, overall just what I was aiming for.

The oaked version is largely the same as at 3.5 months. The oak seems to take some of the edge off the sweetness. It's maybe even a little more balanced now. Really a good beer, but the actual oak flavor is still very low. I like the beer a lot, but I think this can be done with more oak in each bottle going forward.

I have two of the oaked versions left. I think I'm going to open one at the 1 year mark just to finish out the experiment, and the other I'm going to go forget about until I turn 40. I made this beer to be a long term aging beer anway, might as well save one for comparison at the end.


At this point I'm pretty sold on the whole method, if I can nail the amounts of oak. I will likely use this method again in the future.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Cool thread! Thanks for the experiment.

 

[WestMichiganSteelheader]

That is dedication waiting 10 years to open a bottle. Cool story, thanks for sharing.

 

[cegan09]

The beer has been in bottles for a year and a week now, so I pulled out the second to last oaked version and a regular one. This will be the last update on the barleywine until 2027. I do plan on trying this with different beers over the next year however.

The unoaked barleywine. Similar to the 6 month version. Full bodied, malty sweetness, raisin notes, a great English barleywine. I have trouble believing I made this beer.

The oaked version is even better. Again, oak flavor is low, but the sweetness is muted and much more balanced. There's a berry flavor replacing the raisin from the regular version. I'm really sad there is only a single bottle of this left after tonight. Should be interesting to try it in 9 years.

I'm 100% sold on this method at this point. There's a real chance I'll make this barleywine again with the same oak level. I do want to try bumping it up as well and compare. Later this fall i'll probably brew the barleywine again and bottle it with varying levels of oak to compare over another year. I also want to try it with a big RIS.