Beer Forum

My wife bought me a 5 gallon oak barrel for Christmas (she loves me but couldn't pull the trigger on a 60 gallon barrel because she doesn't want me brewing for 3 days straight just to fill it! )

and I'm looking for suggestions for what to do with it. I'm thinking a Firestone Walker DBA clone, but looking for other ideas too. I'm aware of the issues of surface area and oxygen permeability with respect to long term storage, but tright now I'm not looking at using it for a lambic or such. (I have some thoughts on ways around that, but that's for another topic)

Has anybody used one of these and if so tell me about it please!

I have always been interested with the 5 gallon barrels, but haven't used one. I believe you will need to fill it with water for a couple of days to get it to seal up properly, then your good to go. Don't fill it with boiling water though, could explode.

Go for the DBA first then do the lambic thing. Once you do a lambic or other sour the wild yeast and bacteria are gonna stay in that barrel for good. Also, I believe if you age a sour beer in the barrel for a long period it will be more sour than if you were to do the same batch on oak chips in a carboy due to oxygen pick up. Here is what my schedule would be if I had it.

1st - Firestone DBA -CYBI recipe
2nd - Imperial stout/IPA
3rd - Jolly pumpkin Bam Biere -CYBI recipe
4th - Flanders Red from Brewing Classic Styles

MMM...that would be a good year! Cheers

Be aware that depending on how new that barrel is (and what may or may not have been previously in it) could affect your decision on what to put in it. A fresh barrel will lend a ton of oakiness and tannins to a beer that you may not want. So if it is brand new, you may be better off brewing a darker stronger beer (think RIS, Baltic Porter, etc) to fill the barrel first so the oak can be lessened for lighter gravity and sessionable beers that would not need or could not withstand as much time in the barrel.

At a session one night when a couple of us were drinking too much beer, the subject of barrels came up. When discussing the use of new barrels we talked about what to do about the strong oakiness from the first use. Our thought was suppose you first fill the barrel with a strong coffee to season the barrel. Assuming it wouldn't ferment, leaving the coffee in the barrel for several weeks would leach out some of the oak flavor as well as infuse some nice coffee flavor into the wood. Was that idea just the influence of the beer, or would such a thing actually work?

Wayne

I could see it working, but I wonder how MUCH coffee flavor would be imparted to the wood and for how long it would remain there. Sounds like an interesting experiment to me.