My birthday just happens to fall on your national birthday and this year my wife bought me a brand new 3gal oak barrel for beer. Due to the popularity in Australian wines, coopering is becoming an increasing industry, the plus side of this is that they have started to produce American Oak kegs. These are vastly improved on the kegs of old in that instead of relying on hard and soft pegs to vent excess condition gas, they come with a s.steel screw fitting with 'o' rings to seal tight. This makes life so much simpler!! At the moment i am conditioning it ready for the first batch of my very best pale ale... cant wait@!!!
PS it also makes for a great looking piece of furniture and goes well beside the sofa in front of the TV!!
fantastic birthday present!!!!
Moderator: slothrob
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Wow! Nice gift!
I'm new to homebrewing. What do you do to "condition" the barrel for use? And one last silly question, what does beer that is wood aged-taste like? Would it have a tannin quality to it? Sounds like something I'd like to try sometime. Best Regards from Sioux City, Iowa! Mike {invisioning a 3 gal keg swapping club...LOL}
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Aging in oak answer
For the answer to your aging question, check out the latest issue of BYO, I think you can access the articles online at byo.com
Don't laugh
I have a sort of, 5gal corni keg swapping club.
----A side note------ Don't worry if no answer is given to your questions right away or ever. The guys(gals) would rather not answer as opposed to giving a wrong answer, or reseaching the answer first.
----A side note------ Don't worry if no answer is given to your questions right away or ever. The guys(gals) would rather not answer as opposed to giving a wrong answer, or reseaching the answer first.
conditioning
As the barrel is new, and in fact if it is secondhand, it is best to do a fermentation in the barrel and leave the beer in for say 3- 4 weeks to leech any tannins from the wood, If you were to fill with say a lager then at the end of the process the beer would look brown to blackish as the tannins have been removed due in part to the alcohol content. Obviously, the stronger the beer the better. This is important to ensure that your beer when you come to use your barrel properly does not leech tannins but rather a smooth "oakish" flavour. The same is achieved in part by adding oak chips to wine and bourbon in the commercial field. Although it has to be said that great care has to be taken with the nurturing of the barrel so as not to ruin it by letting anything go off. I have an idea to keep it sterile by adding 1/2 capacity mild sterilising solution and purging with CO2 from my post mix set up.I am hoping that this will/should keep sterile indefinately so long as there is not a leak.
PS
see you all in a few months to tap the first pint!!!!
PS
see you all in a few months to tap the first pint!!!!