Musing on Barrel Aging from a Homebrewer

While barrel aging is popular at the pro level, it can be intimidating for homebrewers.
Important decisions and considerations need to be contemplated prior to even acquiring a
barrel. Determining size, toast, prior beverage stored in it, sourcing it, prepping it (or not),
storage location, length of aging, impact on recipes, etc. Not understanding some of the
nuances specific to barrel aging can create uncertainty for homebrewers and potentially leads
to avoidance of using these traditional flavor and aroma enhancing vessels. I have sourced,
housed and/or contributed to a number of barrels of various sizes, constructions and numbers
of participating brewers. Each barrel has provided me with insights and awareness of their own
unique qualities, contributions and character. Additionally, from the very first aging in a barrel,
to second, third and subsequent batches, each barrel changes, both organically and by
conscious choice of the brewer. Through trial and error, word of mouth, discussions with pro
brewers, general research and experience gained along the way, this presentation will share
lessons learned, some best practices and tips, and general observations on the use, care and
feeding of barrel aged homebrews. My experiences have been solely with oak barrels.
Additionally, I have only used barrels that have had a prior beverage stored in it. These have
included red wine, bourbon, corn, and rye whisky. I have never started with a virgin barrel, and
therefore have no answers to any questions regarding these. This presentation is relatively
straight forward with a minimum of science. It is geared toward providing clear teachable
points to help reduce anxieties and increase member’s confidence and understanding the use
of barrels. My focus is solely on oak barrels, and does not touch upon other wood varietals. Nor
will this presentation cover aging with chips, spirals, chair legs or other methods used to obtain
the desired benefits of aging on wood. I imagine if I put half the time into using these materials
versus using barrels, things might have been a lot easier for me. But not nearly as authentic :-)
A Homebrewer’s musings
on Barrel Aging
Chris P. Frey
[email protected]
Disclaimer
My focus and experience is solely with oak barrels,
and does not touch upon other wood varietals. Nor
will this presentation cover aging with chips, spirals,
chair legs or other methods used to obtain the
desired benefits of aging on wood.
I imagine if I put half the time into using these
materials versus using barrels, things might have
been a lot easier for me.
But not nearly as authentic :-)
What this Session won’t be
• Highly Technical
• Scientific
• Provide a chemistry or
biology class about barrel
aging
• Run by someone much
more qualified than you
(but perhaps a bit more
experienced )
What this Session will be
• Fun!
• Educational!
• An opportunity to develop
your own epiphanies
concerning different barrel
aging challenges
Musing…what do I mean?
musing
1. absorbed in thought; meditative.
2. contemplation; reflection.
muse
1. to think or meditate in silence, as on some
subject.
2. to gaze meditatively or wonderingly.
3. to meditate on.
4. to comment thoughtfully or ruminate upon.
Previous presentations…
1st TIP
Ensure the beer is fully fermented
prior to filling the barrel…
As I said, no science intended here,
just practical information
Flavors typically attributed to aging on wood include:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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Woody/tannins
Vanilla
Spicy
Smoky
Toast
Caramel
Cherry
Almond
Coconut
Tobacco
And of course, whatever was in the barrel prior
Thanks to the following for all the help
and support…
It can take a village…
Some Random Tips upfront…
• Brew a beer for the wood, don’t just dump beer
into a barrel and expect “magic”
• Hop character gets striped away pretty
significantly when aged in a barrel
• Patience is necessary, pipettes are helpful.
• Calendars are useless, one needs to actively
monitor the beers progress.
• Carbonation amps up wood aromas
• “Tips From the Pro’s”
Yeltsin’s Dark Spot Imperial Stout
6.4 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)
1.5 lbs. Crystal 105L
0.75 lbs. Victory Malt
1.25 lbs. Chocolate Malt
2.4 lbs. Light Dry Malt Extract
1.0 lbs. Roasted Barley
0.50 lbs. Black Patent Malt
2.50 lbs. Brown Malt
0.50 oz.
0.50 oz.
2.00 oz.
1.00 oz.
Cluster
Centennial
Liberty
Liberty
60 min.
60 min.
30 min.
Dry Hop
WYeast 1272 American Ale II
Barrel aged in a Woodinville Rye Whisky barrel
http://www.woodinvillewhiskeyco.com/barrels/
Recipe co-designed in the late 90’s with Gabrielle Palmer
Assistant & Experimental Brewer @ Schmohz here in Grand Rapids
Tips from the Pros
Ray Daniels- Cicerone Certification Program
One thing you might do up front is to clarify the phrase "barrel-aged beer." It
is often used as a pseudo style name, but it is a poor one as styles should
have some related flavor attributes and the style name should tell you what
to expect in the flavor of the beer.
I always clarify that there are three possible types of "barrel aging" that use
different types of barrels and get flavors from different sources:
1.
2.
3.
New wood barrels (which for beer are generally not charred) - you get
flavors from the wood itself.
Barrels previously used for aging whiskey, wine, etc. - where the flavors
you get are mostly from the prior occupant of the barrel.
Barrels containing microbes - such as those used for lambic, Flanders
Red, etc. where the flavors come from the bacteria and other yeast that
populate the barrel
Tips from the pros
Jim Koch – Boston Beer
•
One obvious tip is to keep the barrels wet. They are a bitch to reassemble if they get dry and
fall away from the hoops.
•
Be mindful about the multiple things that barrel aging does for the beer. To me there are
four noticeable ones.
– First, it imparts flavor from the residual liquid left from the barrel’s previous service.
– Second, the wood itself imparts flavors, including vanilla, maple and oak notes.
– Third, the wood harbors micro organisms, ranging from brett to lacto to pedio to aceto
to a whole range of unidentifiable critters, which perform their own acts of flavor
creation.
– And finally, there is a long slow micro-oxidation taking place through the wood that
softens many flavors (I mentioned hops – Griffith Spit IPA)
And from the Boston Beer barrel Staff:
– Taste regularly, and be prepared to rack as soon as necessary. The maturation curve can
end fairly abruptly, and you want to be prepared to finish it based on taste, not some
prescribed/recipe amount of time (RIS only a week).
– Top the barrel regularly. Keep some of the base beer in a corny keg, and top every
couple weeks, or as necessary, based on their amount of evaporation. Too much
headspace will cause the maturation curve to end more quickly.
Jason Heystek
Lead Guitar – Production Planning Founder’s Brewing Co.
I’ve never been much of a home brewer, but I have done LOTS of barrel aging in the wonderful world of
production brewing. When I speak to home brewers the things that I’m asked are as follows:
• How many times do you use a barrel? We generally only use them once –
we’ve found that most (pretty much ALL) of the ‘bourbon’ character that is
such an important flavor component in our barrel aged beers is zapped out
after the first use. Using them again is totally viable, however, especially if
you’re looking for more ‘oak’ character and less ‘bourbon.’ Also extraction
times are lengthened with each subsequent use, and sanitation becomes a
real concern for us.
• How often do you sample them? AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE! This is the big
one for me – I know I would have a hard time being patient if there was a
week’s worth of hard work home brewing sitting in my basement in a big
ass wooden barrel, but really anything more than monthly is a waste and
creates HUGE potential for infection. Oh. And I don’t even START until
they’ve been sitting for at least three months.
A word of Caution – Not all wood
species are safe to use!
• Last year John Gasparine gave a presentation
on aging on various species of wood.
(http://woodbrew.com/)
• He shared a resource to identify some
potentially unsafe species, their toxins and
possible symptoms – his presentation is in the
2013 AHA NHC presentation archives
• Some surprises - please do your research
before considering using unusual species
Tips from the Pros!
Denny Conn – Cheap and Easy…
Prepare for an infected
beer!
Tips from the Pros
Tom Schmidlin – AHA GC
• Don't burn a sulfur stick in a whiskey barrel. (I think he stole
this lesson from Gordon Strong)
• In a fresh dumped barrel, taste the beer early and often otherwise you can end up with something that tastes more
like bourbon than beer. If that's what you want, skip the
barrel and just add it to the keg. Or to each pint. Or just
drink bourbon in the first place.
• Accidental inhalation of fumes from a burning sulfur stick
(for use in a NEW barrel) can lead to a wicked, days-long
headache! For use in a used barrel, see Tom’s response.
Gary Glass, Director, American Homebrewers Association
The first barrel project:
AABGBBBW
http://aabg.org/new-member-info/bourbon-barrel-barley-wine/
Old Waloon Ale – 200Years old
AABGBBBW Solara Project Recipe
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine
English Barleywine
OG 1.095, 68 IBU, all East Kent Goldings
For 5 gallons (65% eff.):
16.5 lbs (84.3%) Maris Otter pale malt
2.0 lbs (10.2%) Briess Special Roast malt
1.0 lb. (5.1%) UK crystal 45L
1 oz. (0.3%) UK chocolate
3.75 oz. EKG (5.7% aa) 60 minutes 60 IBU
1.0 oz. EKG (5.7% aa) 15 minutes 8 IBU
White Labs WLP022 Essex yeast or other English ale yeast.
AABGBBBW
Lessons learned
•
•
•
•
Storage
Cradle
Getting beer in and out
What happens to original
contributions?
• QA steps
• Souring of barrel over
time
• Angels Share
Sour Beer Tip
• The bugs that make your beers sour attenuate
near 100%. Therefore use less bottling sugars
than a normal beer (1 cup DME or a little over
a half cup corn sugar)
• Fermenting in primary with an ale yeast and
then adding wild yeast in secondary provides
much less of the wild character
Tips from the Pro’s
Rob Todd – Allagash Brewing
• Do not store above 65F, and try not to agitate the
barrel (or break pellical if its a "sour" beer).
• Both can lead to formation of acidic acid from
acetobacter
• Also, fruit flies start to appear over ~60F which
can carry acetobacter
• We only top off once a year at best. When we do,
we just add it with a "racking arm" that dips
through the pellicle & way down into the barrel
Sour barrels (and their dregs)
A Cautionary Tale
•
•
•
•
•
It is said that homebrewers do lots of goofy things and explore the boundaries,
occasionally creating something so awesome that they get picked up Not on this
occasion.
I had a Belgian Strong Ale that suffered the dreaded “stuck fermentation” This
puppy starts about 1.110 and the last batch a brewed a few years ago got stuck
around 1.060. I tried all sorts of tricks, asked club members for advice, warmed it,
roused it, added another round of high tolerant Belgian Ale yeasts, only to get it
down to 1.050 or so.
Around the time of the annual Flanders Red F.O.R.D. barrel dump and fill I got the
thought to add some of the dregs from the barrel into the BFB. I did it and couple
of months later it was at 1.010! Success!
Until I tried a sip (after bottling these mostly in champagne bottles). You know, it is
said that homebrewers do lots of goofy things and explore the boundaries,
occasionally creating something so awesome that they get picked up by craft
brewers and a new style is born. Not on this occasion.
For those with an adventurous spirit, I have a few bottles of this hellish swill
awkward fermentable. A Belgian Quad with a Flanders Red finish just isn't what
the public is clamoring for.
Thanks to a cool Competition Organizer 
Tips from the Pros
Dave Logsdon – Logsdon Farmhouse Ales
•
New or renewed oak has been my preference for aging beer in wood. The reason for that is what comes
from the wood. Tannins, the flavor of oak and vanillin in particular. I find that new oak provides intense
flavors in a bout 3 months of aging. The second time in takes about 6 months for similar results and the
3rd time about 12 months aging to provide suitable oak character to develop. At that point reconditioning
the barrel by removing the head, shaving a couple millimeters off the staves and retoasting as desired. Put
the barrel back together, seal it up fill it up and there ya go.
•
The second phase of barrel aging beer is to blend. Rarely will one find that one beer straight up out of oak
to be of balance and character that is desired or of optimum flavor. Blending young beer with aged beer
will provide exponential depth and complexity usually not found in a single barrel production. In addition
having multiple barrels to blend creates even more opportunity for fine tuning the balance of the beer.
Blends can be as much as 50/50 young and aged beer or any ratio that you find optimal. Realizing that
small scale brewing doesn't allow for multiple barrels as a matter of practicality, however, the use of wood
chips, or spirals in stainless can provide comparable results providing the latitude that multiple barrels
would provide.
•
New oak character is specific to the oak being used. I would think that the use of other types of wood and
previous uses could be quite fun and interesting. I recently spoke with a fellow brewer who experimented
with cedar planks that are used for cooking salmon on a grill. First charring the new planks then soaking
them in rum for a period of time. Aging the beer on these planks provided a rather unique flavor
combination.
•
Wood aged beers are only limited to the brewers imagination.
What size barrel?
• Wine (58 gallons) and Whiskey (53 gallons)
typically require a team of 10 – 12 dedicated
brewers
• 5 & 8.5 gallons are good personal size barrels
Some large barrel considerations
1. Where will it be stored?
2. Are you sure? Will it need to ever be moved?
3. Are you sure? We are talking over 500
pounds here…
Permanent location or casters?
Racking cane considerations
What height do you want the
barrel to be?
• Need to get beer in
• Need to get beer out
• Height is an important
consideration)
Filling the barrel - simple gravity versus
CO2 push
Or both…
Tips from the Pros
Bob Schneider & David McCarty
We've done a couple of cysers that were actually
fermented in used whiskey barrel.
Interesting phenomena happens with the honey.
Because we poured in honey then the cider and
yeast without mixing or agitating, the honey, being
hydrophobic?, started dripping thru the seams of
the previously water tight barrel.
We recovered about 1/2 quart before the yeast
made its way to the bottom and consumed all the
honey, about a month. Best cyser we've made BTW.
Brewing all at once takes a team,
equipment and coordination
Flander's Red for F.O.R.D. Club Barrel
12 lbs. Vienna Malt
2 lbs. Carahell Malt
2 lbs. CaraVienne Malt
2 lbs. Aromatic Malt
1 lb. Special B Malt
5 lbs. Flaked Corn (Maize)
2 oz. Goldings - E.K. 60 min.
WYeast 3278 B Yeast
12 brewers brew 2-3 months in advance
Aged one year in Heaven Hill Whiskey
then racked onto Montmorency tart
cherries and aged for another six months
Preparing to reuse a barrel
• For our annual dump & fill, pre-boil 15 gallons of
water
• Let sit while transferring in and out
• Rinse barrel with 170o +/- water 3 times
• Rotate barrel and drain, watch dead yeast and
spooge go down the drain
• Third time the water runs clear
• Make sure you have two strong backed
individuals 
• A CO2 purge would likely be a good thing
Cleaning between uses
Tips From the Pros
Dave Logsdon – Owner of Logsdon Farmhouse Ales
•
The Roselare Blend and the Lambic Blend share much of the same microbial
components. I use them myself interchangeably. It is a matter of packaging issues
with the company that has caused this undue consternation. Both owe their
source to the Rodenbach Brewery. Back in the day when I walked home with my
Rodenbach culture, it was their practice to supply many breweries in Belgium with
the same culture mix that they used in all of their beer production. So it does go
well beyond the village of Roselare.
•
As far as acetic acid production goes, the pellicle and associated oxidative yeast
layer tend to protect the beer from oxygen, even when the barrels are not topped
up. Temperature and O2 does enhance potential acetobacter growth, but it has to
be introduced first, therefore sanitation practices can mitigate that to a great
extent. The quality and condition of the original wood can be a significant
contributing factor or non contributing factor. It is very likely that the greatest
contribution can be made by the Drosphillia (red eyed vinegar fly, commonly
miscategorized as a fruit fly) seeking your alcohol - the bastards!
Tips & Tricks
Eric Briggeman - Director of Brewing Operations
Rochester Mills Brewery
Don’t be afraid of barrel-aging "regular-strength" beers!
Almost everybody wants to barrel-age Imperial Stouts, Barleywines,
and other "big" beers - which all work wonderfully for barrel-aging.
But we have found some of the best examples we have
experimented with have been with our Milkshake Stout and
Rochester Red - both between 5-6% abv (prior to barrel aging).
I am not suggesting Kolsch and Pilsner aging, I think that maltforward beers with some substantial flavor and body work best.
Whiskey versus Wine Barrels
French vs. American Oak
Chris Baldyga from 2lads winery
• The continental location of their (French) forests and the gulf
stream allows for a slower, more uniform annual growth cycle while
our locations are have more peaks and the trees are more prone to
“feast and famine” growth cycles. This means the grain in Am Oak
is more coarse and less uniform and allows for a little more tannin
and more impact of flavors at a quicker pace into the wine.
American oak is technically deemed a medium grain wood
type. The French trees are very fine grain. This means there’s less
penetration into the wood of the alcohol and wine, it takes longer
to work into it and can also sit longer in the barrel allowing for more
consistent oxygen uptake at a slower rate than a wider grained
vessel would allow. They also seem to offer nicer spice and vanillin
components to the wines and less of the coconut and butterscotch
that can overwhelm a delicate wine that is from a cool climate like
ours.
OMG! TMI? No – passion! Chris Baldyga from 2lads
winery http://www.2lwinery.com/
The last paragraph says it all