Barrel aging - anyone tried this?

[MCJones87]

How do all?

There seems to be a real trend in the commercial market these days for barrel aging beers, particularly some of the strong robust beers out there, in whisky/bourbon barrels to increase flavour profiles, as well as producing beers with some serious ABVs. I was wondering if anyone on here had given this a go, or at the very least thought about trialling this method. My thought process is along the lines of, brew as normal, ferment as normal for 2 weeks or so until fermentation has finished. rack into barrel and hide it away for a couple of months, drawing samples every few weeks to see how the brew is maturing/changing. When the flavour 'feels' good, rack into bottles and condition/carb up as normal with priming sugar or DME.

I would love to barrel age a heavy porter for a couple of months and see the effects of it, but wouldn't know how to go about sourcing a barrel suitable for this - I assume a new barrel would be relatively pointless... or if it is even worth trying with homebrew? if anyone has given it a go, or has some suggestions of where barrels can be begged/borrowed/stolen from that would be ace. :-D

Thanks in advance for responses.

 

[markm1878]

You can get oak chips and soak them in a spirit instead.

I've not done this but I think that would be the homebrew equivalent. I doubt many of us have access to full barrels. The malt miller sells oak cubes.

A bourbon oak aged robust porter does sound particularly nice. One of my favourite beers Founders Backwoods ******* is a Scotch Heavy aged in Bourbon barrels. This is supurb! I mean indescribably good.


*drools

 

[MyQul]

You can get oak chips and soak them in a spirit instead.

The home brew shops sells a variety of oak chips

http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Oak-Chips.html

 

[HebridesRob]

Sure I spotted some oak barrels on Geterbrewed. A virgin Oak barrel would put put quite a lot of vanilla flavour into the beer. The bigger the barrel is, the less beer comes into contact with the wood so the longer you need to age.

Bourbon is made with virgin barrels so the companies have quite a lot to get rid of. I suppose you could contact one of them and see if they can ship one across. They're pretty bloody big though!

^who drinks lots of whisky? :whistle:

 

[MCJones87]

Sure I spotted some oak barrels on Geterbrewed. A virgin Oak barrel would put put quite a lot of vanilla flavour into the beer. The bigger the barrel is, the less beer comes into contact with the wood so the longer you need to age.

Bourbon is made with virgin barrels so the companies have quite a lot to get rid of. I suppose you could contact one of them and see if they can ship one across. They're pretty bloody big though!

^who drinks lots of whisky? :whistle:

Yeah I did see the oak barrel on geterbrewed but really am after one that has already been used to age bourbon, seems like the best option for homebrewing on a smaller scale is the oak chips soaked in bourbon - both based on cost and scale of production.