Homemade 5 L oak barrel

[CartoonCod]

Hey guys, I was at a festival in Carleton QC over the weekend and a carpenter lent me a barrel he made! Check out the pics. It's made from white oak and has only ever had water in it. The volume is only 5 L but I just plan on using it to experiment with so it's the perfect size. He just started making barrels as a hobby and has made a 20 L barrel that he is willing to let go for 300$. Expensive yes but very cool. I'm going to play around with filling it up with partially fermented ale and drink real ale from it. From the bit of reading that I have been doing small barrels will let too much oxygen in for long term storage, but I think they will be fine for short term. I'll post my results!

Oh yeah, the tap is hand made!

[mr x]

Nice!

You might want to soak it with star San if it's really dry. I'd try something other than beer first at any rate.

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[CartoonCod]

There has been water soaking in it for a few months. It's pouring out yellow, so yeah, I figure I'm going to fill it up with water to rinse it out, then I was thinking a bit of cheap vodka. I read something about not using star san on porous surfaces...

[CorneliusAlphonse]

yeah i wouldn't use star san on it either. a bit of foam in a non-porous glass carboy is fine by me, but not soaking a porous oak keg with it.

id just rinse it and put in a beer with the expectation that it could go off. vodka would work for sure

[Juniper Hill]

Looks cool Adam! Did the carpenter say anything about the source of his Oak? I'm no expert, but IIRC there are several species of Oak not suitable for beer/wine.

Why did he have it soaking in/with water for a month? That would just set up for an infection. New barrels are supposed to be kept dry until you are ready to use them. They get rehydrated with water to swell and check for leaks just prior to filling them with beer/wine. You might want to hit it with some oxyclean and water or soda ash and water prior to using it. How does it smell?

[GuingesRock]

I think oxyclean would soak in and forever be nasty. How about steam? The heat from the steam would penetrate the wood and sanitise. I think that's what they use commercially for wooden casks these days, in the old days it was formaldehyde which is really nasty and carcinogenic.

[BBrianBoogie]

Nice score Adam, I like it!

[Juniper Hill]

I think oxyclean would soak in and forever be nasty. How about steam? The heat from the steam would penetrate the wood and sanitise. I think that's what they use commercially for wooden casks these days, in the old days it was formaldehyde which is really nasty and carcinogenic.

Oyxclean "free" or similar product without added the fragrances (Wallmart sell something like this) is fine. I've used it in the past to try to clean an infected barrel. Didn't work (he barrels destined for the chiminea), but didn't leave any residual impact either.

[CartoonCod]

I'd have a hard time steaming it unless I opened the barrel, and I'm not looking to do that. I'm going to do the vodka thing, and not worry about it. Like I said I'll only be putting 5 L of beer in there at a time, and once it's done fermenting I will drink it (or host an event and invite some people over to drink it...). If it is still really nasty then I may add my own bugs to it, like some dregs from Orval or a Brett culture to try to outcompete anything living in there (if you can't beat them, join them).

[Jayme]

Could you just add boiling water instead of steam and let it sit for like 15 minutes?

[GillettBreweryCnslt]

Are you still at Dal (or do you still have connections there?) If so the only thing you need to know is this: Autoclave.

[CartoonCod]

I like the boiling water and autoclave ideas, but I am a bit nervous of putting that much heat in the barrel. But its just wood, it probably doesn't have much of an expansion coefficient.
I just did a test and filled it up most of the way with water, and so far there is a slight leak (maybe a drop every few hours). The cooper said to put some flour and water around the seems if there were any leaks. I like the simplicity of this idea but do you people know of anybody else that does this? From what I read people mostly use paraffin wax.

[CartoonCod]

So I finally got around to using this barrel. I mentioned there were a few leaks in my previous post, but after leaving it with water for a few days all the leaks stopped as the wood expanded. After filling it with boiling water a few times, I put in a batch of belgian golden strong that I made (via: BCS) that finished a bit high. My plan is to leave it in there for about a month or two and pitch some gueuze dregs so the bugs can give it some added character. I would leave it in longer, but I'm worried about oxidation since it is a small barrel therefore a high surface area to volume ratio.

[RubberToe]

Awesome, keep us posted. This could turn out really well!

[CartoonCod]

I tried a sample of my barrel age golden strong last week and I was quite surprised. It was full of diacetyl, enough to be offensive, and it masked all the other flavors. Hopefully this is a natural thing in sour beers tasted too early because pediococcus is known to produce it. From what I've read, brett will take up diacetyl, I just hope it can take up all of it. I'm going to pitch some more dregs as soon as I open some more bottles of gueuze

[CartoonCod]

A quick update,

I just checked on my barrel again... I know I should be leaving it, but the purpose of bothering it this time was to make sure the barrel was toped up with beer so the staves don't dry out. Well it turns out that I was missing about 900 mL of beer. I know this because it took 3 pints of my golden strong to top it up.

So where did the beer go? I did take two samples from it, but I can't see that being more than 200-400 mL. That means there must have been some significant evaporation. Note that there is some "beer resin" on the sides of the barrel which I think means that it was slowly leakint out and evaporating and leaving some good stuff. When I filled it up again, I got some minor leaks from the upper staves which means those were probably too dry and not sealed.

So what about the beer? Three words: diacetyl, vinegar and banana's. Not what I was hopeing. The diacetyl seems to have died down a bit from what I remember last time, but it is still very offensive. The vinegar character is there but so far not too crazy, think Flanders. The banana esters were suprising but pleasant. There were other fruity esters as well, but with the intense diacetyl it was hard to pick them out. I couldn't pick out any oxidation (which is a weakness of mine), but it would be difficult to pick out with all the other stuff going on. I'm still hopefull that this will turn out. I think I'm going to leave it undisturbed in the barrel for another month, then check on the evaporation, if there is none I'll leave it longer, if there is evaporation, I'll put it in a carboy.

[chalmers]

I'd guess the "Angel's Share", though the estimated loss for whiskey is ~2% per year, so 500-700mL in a few months seems high, especially for beer (I'd consider it less volatile).

[mr x]

It's possible that water evaporates from beer easier than spirit. I would think so anyway...

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[CartoonCod]

X, I never thought about higher evaporation rates for beer vs. spirits. Cool, I'll have to look into this.

I didn't know about that 2% per year nuber for whiskey barrels, interesting. By that rational I should have only lost about 16 mL in two months. What is different about my barrel vs. the whiskey barrel is size. With the 5 L barrel you get a much higher surface area to volume ratio, that combined with dry staves will probably increase the evap rate. I got a 10% loss over ~2 months (0.5L/5L) which works out to 60% evap per year. This seems way way too high.

Now that I have been thinking how unrealistic my evaporation idea is, I am going back through my notes and memories of when I filled it up the first time. The first time there was lots of foaming going on from the beer that I was pouring into the barrel. When I toped it up today there was practically no head, and I got to fill it up to the top. Maybe there was a discrepancy between the two fills. This would bring my evaporation numbers down and is probably more likely what happened. I guess this means mystery solved? I'm guessing my evap rate will be higher than the whiskey barrels, but I'll have to wait till my next top up to get an idea of what it actually is.

[Juniper Hill]

I typically loose 750 ml per month in of wine from 40 or 50 l barrel to the angels (must be nice to be one). Your losses are not too far off from mine. Relative humidity must play a role. I find the losses are greater in the dry winter months.

Evap rates will be higher with smaller barrels, as the surface:volume ratio is increased.

[CartoonCod]

Interesting. Maybe my numbers are in the right ballpark. Your idea about the higher evap in the winter months makes sense. I've been noticing some of my airlocks drying out as well. Do you top off your wine barrels to account for evaporation?

[Juniper Hill]

Interesting. Maybe my numbers are in the right ballpark. Your idea about the higher evap in the winter months makes sense. I've been noticing some of my airlocks drying out as well. Do you top off your wine barrels to account for evaporation?

I top them off once a month. From what I've been told, that's the standard. I think the reasons for doing so are to prevent oxidation (not sure that entirely makes sense) and spoilage organisms form taking hold.

I've had one barrel go bad a few years ago when I used a wooden bung that wasn't as snugly fit as I thought it was. Everything I put in it developed that white scum on top, and tasted like acetone....yum...not!

Edit: I should say it smelled like acetone, I've not tasted acetone.

[CartoonCod]

Good to know you top them off once a month, I'll start monitoring mine more frequently and top off as necessary. When I started I didn't think this would be an issue. In my case although I don't want spoilage organisms in there I expect and hope there are lots of wild yeast and bacteria. I just hope I can keep the vinegar at bay by reducing the oxygen input.