Topping up sour oak barrel

[BigPerm]

I have a 5 gallon used bourbon barrel that I've recently dedicated to sours. My question is, basically, how does everyone who has these top them up? It seems the "right" answer is to rack in beer which has finished fermenting. However, I've seen many people add fresh wort or just top off with water. I'm really just curious what everyone else does, and what the up- and downsides are to each method.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Matteo57]

I'm interested in what majority of people do. I finally just brewed a 5gallon batch and kegged that. i Can now pump what I need from one to the other and not have to worry about keeping the rest of it in a carboy and oxydizing it. The only problem is now I have to have a keg dedicated to this for awhile. I also pitched bugs into the wort in the keg so it will start the souring process too and in a few months at least I won't be dumping fresh unsoured wort in there.

 

[Oldsock]

I didn't top my 5 gallons barrels off, but then they had enough oak character after about 4 months. If you were aging much longer than that, the temperature was high, or the humidity was low, it would be a good idea.

Ideally you’d make a 6-7 gallon batch of the base beer. Pitch the same microbes into the whole thing, reserving the excess in a small carboy to use for topping off. Water or wort could work in a pinch. Be careful topping off with wort if you are planning on bottling soon, as you’ll be adding more dextrins extending the time until the gravity is stable.

 

[BigPerm]

I didn't top my 5 gallons barrels off, but then they had enough oak character after about 4 months. If you were aging much longer than that, the temperature was high, or the humidity was low, it would be a good idea.

Ideally you’d make a 6-7 gallon batch of the base beer. Pitch the same microbes into the whole thing, reserving the excess in a small carboy to use for topping off. Water or wort could work in a pinch. Be careful topping off with wort if you are planning on bottling soon, as you’ll be adding more dextrins extending the time until the gravity is stable.

Thanks for the reply. In this case, do you usually rack the excess in or do you gently pour? I imagine its probably not that important, but I was just curious what others do. Obviously, if it was a clean beer, I'd do exactly what you suggested and rack it in to top up. In this case, I had some blowoff when I racked in, so I needed to add about a quart.

 

[BigPerm]

I didn't top my 5 gallons barrels off, but then they had enough oak character after about 4 months.

I remember seeing your posts about this. I soured this barrel after two clean beers, which is what you did also, correct? You still got that level of oak character after 4 months in 3rd use oak? I had mine soaking in plain water for a couple of months (Due to lapse in proper planning...), so it may have less. I guess i expected it would take a little longer.

 

[Oldsock]

Thanks for the reply. In this case, do you usually rack the excess in or do you gently pour? I imagine its probably not that important, but I was just curious what others do. Obviously, if it was a clean beer, I'd do exactly what you suggested and rack it in to top up. In this case, I had some blowoff when I racked in, so I needed to add about a quart.

Racking is always the better option, less chance of oxidation and a mess.

I remember seeing your posts about this. I soured this barrel after two clean beers, which is what you did also, correct? You still got that level of oak character after 4 months in 3rd use oak? I had mine soaking in plain water for a couple of months (Due to lapse in proper planning...), so it may have less. I guess i expected it would take a little longer.

Yep, enough for my tastes and those beers. Pull samples as it ages and see what tastes good to you. Small barrels have a high surface-to-volume ratio, so they extract oak character much faster than big barrels. As a result the spirit was in there for only a few months, then only a month or two for the clean beers. If it had been a 55-60 gallon barrel the spirit would have spent a few years, and the clean beers could have gone 6-18 months each.