Transporting a sour barrel

[simnick]

Scenario:
I used to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. Last year I moved up to Seattle. I had an 8 gallon rye whiskey barrel, that I coated in wax to reduce oxygen uptake, that I did 3 "normal" beers, and then I soured in, back in mid 2012, with and "old bruin" ish beer. I let age at my Dad's basement, in SF, as he had nice cellar temps, and I did not. Every time I visit, I go taste it, and when I visited over this July 4th, I think the barrel is finally getting somewhere interesting, and should be bottled soon(ish). They are driving up in August, but otherwise it might be 9 months or so before it could get driven to Seattle.

Goals: Get the Barrel to Seattle (either in August or maybe next spring), Bottle this batch (either in Seattle or when I visit in December), and have the barrel in good shape to repitch.

My possible ideas:
1: Drive it up to Seattle in August with sour beer in it, let it rest, the bottle up here. Might damage the beer with sloshing and oxidizing as it is driven.
2: Bottle it December, refill with a quick extract batch as protective contents, drive it up in the spring, maybe dump quick batch and try again.
3. Bottle it in December, leave it empty, ship it up a week later (expensive).
4. Other options? I usually fly down, and my parents usual drive up, but never with a month or so of each other.

 

[smokinghole]

Can you borrow a keg from someone?

 

[simnick]

What would I do with the keg? Transport the beer temporarily outside the barrel?

 

[sweetcell]

personally i would drive up the beer in the barrel and not worry about oxidation. you've got brett in there, it'll take care of what little O2 gets mixed in. you could even feed the beer a little malto-dextrine a day or two before the trip, that'll get the bugs going again and the brett will produce some CO2. this would reduce how much O2 is in the headspace and the positive pressure should help push back any incoming O2.

 

[technicoloraudio]

Every once in a while I take a carboy of brew to work where we have a large walk-in to let it condition for a few weeks if my ferm chamber is full.

I have found that by transporting it in a laundry basket with a fluffy blanket or comforter minimizes sloshing. Also, in most late model vehicles, the suspension is designed for the back seat on the passenger side to be the most comfortable and shock resistant since it's position is the most prone to motion sickness. And you can get one of those cool baby mirrors to keep an eye on your barrel while you drive.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[smokinghole]

I'd worry about oxidation no matter how you do it unless you can purge and keep CO2 pressure on the barrel/carboy whatever you decide to transport with. Brett is great at oxygen scavenging but oxidation can happen very easily and brett isn't a 100% guard against too much.

Here's what I'd do. Borrow a keg and figure out the logistics of everything you want to do. Other than that you're left either transporting a sloshing barrel, or carboy. Dissolved oxygen can lead to nice oxidation even in the 100ppb range. I don't know what rate brett will scavenge oxygen but in a serious brewery they aim to have a total package oxygen at 50ppb or less. Sometimes that just isn't possible due to unforseen air ingress through a transfer system or filtration/centrifugation system. With a volume as small as a 60gal wine barrel even the dissolved oxygen can be as high as 300-500ppb from just sitting in the barrel compared to a standard pressure vessel like a brite tank or fermentor which typically sit at less than 10ppb and often times near 0ppb. I just want to add that I'm not simply regurgitating info, I have first hand experience with this and do it for a living.