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[Deep End]

I was reading an old post of mine regarding mead and noticed Dave had said something about one of his needing more time on the oak. Which leads me to this post.
I have been perusing some 5L Barrels on ebay made from US White Oak, with a medium char. They are priced at what I consider reasonable for a product that will give many years of service, also looking at the 10L and 15L ones with blending being the main reason.
Currently I make around 5L batches of mead and country wines, so that size barrel seems correct.
So my question is does anyone age mead in a barrel? Is it a done thing? I understand that some of my fruit wines may benefit from a little barrel aging, but does the same go for mead, I imagine it would of seen wood up until recently as it would of been the main type of storage vessel availiable.
Have also found a grape concentrate supplier that sells in quantities small enough to benefit my operations, so I will be keen to buy a few of their varieties soon and implement them into my brewing activities; pyment and boosting country wines.
Experiences or thoughts anyone?

 

[Mardoo]

I can only say that I have had some extraordinary barrel aged meads. The best was one that the maker (an apiarist) had forgotten about and it aged in the barrel for 10 years. When he found it he bottled and sold it. Fantastic! Biscuity voluptuous flowers.

Process and experience will have to come from others.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Mmm...Cask Ale/Porter/Stout... :icon_drool2:

 

[sp0rk]

Check out Roll Out The Barrel Cooperage, I've recently just got a big box of barrel offcuts from them for aging some porters on oak
They're a little more expensive than the barrels on fleabay, but much better quality and made here in Aus

Mmm...Cask Ale/Porter/Stout... :icon_drool2:

Just you wait until the next CRABs meeting, I've got 2 litres of naturally carbed baltic porter that had an oak mini stave floating around in it for a month
It's delicious!

 

[Grott]

Mead has certainly been aged in barrels but I have heard (could be wrong) that if you age strongly spiced mead, particularly using cloves, then the future use of the barrel is restricted to mead or that which will like the spices.
Cheers

 

[Airgead]

Mead and oak are a great combination. I use oak dominoes as they are easy.

The one word of caution with small barrels is that the volume:surface area ration is much higher than a standard wine barrel so the oak flavours will absorb much, much faster. If it takes say 6 months or a year in a regular barrel it may be on the order of weeks in a 5l. So small barrels aren't really that great for long term aging as they impart far too much oak flavour. Its the same with thinks like dominoes and chips - chips add flavour in days due to their much larger surface area where dominos take weeks-months.

The other thing to note is that winemakers usually only use their barrels a couple of times because all the oakyness leaches out into the wine and all you are left with is a storage vessel that doesn't impart much flavour. Again this may well happen faster for a small barrel so you may well be looking at forking over significant coin for something that will only work as intended a couple of times.

Generally, I think small barrels are more for looks than actual function. In practice they aren't really that good at adding oak flavours. You would be better off with mini staves, dominos, cubes, chips or whatever else you can get your hands on.

Cheers
Dave

 

[sp0rk]

The other thing with oak chips is they have a lot of exposed end grain, so tend to leech a pretty harsh tannin-y taste into what you're oaking
I've noticed quite a few HBS owners will deny this, but I've tested it myself with beers, spiced cider and other products in the last few months and found it's very true

 

[Airgead]

Interesting... I've not experienced that myself and dominos have a lot of end grain as well (though not as much as chips). Is it a case of end grain leaching more tannins or is it the high surface area leading to over oaking? The contact time for chips can be really short (as short as hours depending on how many you use) and they are really easy to over do.

The pro literature is pretty divided on this but most of the pros seem to use the larger oak products (spirals, mini staves, dominos) anyway as they are more controllable. Chips seem to be a distilling thing.

Cheers
Dave

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

Check out Roll Out The Barrel Cooperage, I've recently just got a big box of barrel offcuts from them for aging some porters on oak
They're a little more expensive than the barrels on fleabay, but much better quality and made here in Aus


Just you wait until the next CRABs meeting, I've got 2 litres of naturally carbed baltic porter that had an oak mini stave floating around in it for a month
It's delicious!

Which oak did you get ?
I am interested in wooding some Baltic Porters.
Nev

 

[sp0rk]

American Oak I believe
It's untoasted, so I did a test toasting in the oven on monday night
I had a few chunks in there wrapped in foil at 220°C for 2.5 hours and they came out quite dark and smelling very nice
I haven't cut through one yet to check the penetration of the toasting, I'll do that when I get home this afternoon

Everything I've oaked so far has been done with Suber Lefort American oak mini staves with a heavy toasting

I'll also note that I haven't bothered steaming/boiling or sterilising the oak first so far and nothing has gotten infected yet
That being said I'll probably start boiling them first so I'm not tempting fate

 

[Online Brewing Supplies]

So better off getting untoasted and have an experiment to find what suits the Baltic .
Should imagine that toasting will sterilise the oak if I leave it wrapped. What would be a good start weight for a 20L batch ?
Nev

 

[sp0rk]

I know most of the distilling guys say 10g/L and oak from 6-12 months for most of their spirits
I did around 10-15g in 2 Litres for a month and it was pretty good, not too overt

Mac from 5 Star Distilling might possibly be able to help you with a small amount if you want to experiment

 

[Airgead]

Remembering that distilling has different requirements for oak than wine making (and brewing). Also the higher alcohol percentages lead to faster leaching. In a dark spirit, the oak provides the bulk of the colour and a lot of flavour so they tend to go for higher chars, higher surface area and longer contact times than wine making.

I'd be more likely to use wine making guidelines than distilling guidelines for a beer.

Wine making tends to use much less wood and a shorter contact time. 3-6 months on new oak at a surface area:volume ratio approximating a traditional barrel would be in the ballpark for a red. Maybe 12 at the outside or if using old barrels. Shorter for a white.

i use 2 oak dominos/5l and a contact time of around 3 months for a mead. One manufacturer of chips gives the following guidelines- White wines: 0.5 - 4 g/Litre of wine. Red Wines: 1.0 - 6 g/Litre of wine. http://www.suber-lefort.com.au/#dosage

I reckon 10g/l for 6-12 months would be way too much (although a baltic porter could maybe stand more oak than most things)..

Cheers
dave

 

[Mardoo]

The other thing with oak chips is they have a lot of exposed end grain, so tend to leech a pretty harsh tannin-y taste into what you're oaking

Indeed. You'll notice wine barrels have zero end grain in contact with the wine.

 

[Truman42]

I brought some American white oak barrel staves (medium toasted ) from Enoltech in Hallam. 3 staves about 1 metre long for $12.00

Link shows bulk price but they do sell them by the stick when they have them. I cut them to size to suit the volume Im oaking so I end up with minimum end grain..

http://www.enoltech.com.au/products/pronektar-quality-oak-additives/pronektar-staves/pronektar-essentielle-american-oak-staves.html

 

[Truman42]

The other thing with oak chips is they have a lot of exposed end grain, so tend to leech a pretty harsh tannin-y taste into what you're oaking
I've noticed quite a few HBS owners will deny this, but I've tested it myself with beers, spiced cider and other products in the last few months and found it's very true

I hear you Spork but for some reason these guys have managed to convince people otherwise to the tune of $171,194.00

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/263766519/whiskey-elements-customize-your-whiskey-in-24-hour

 

[sp0rk]

Oh man, I saw that the other week
Their sales pitch is so rage inducing...
"you can now get 3 years of aging 'effects' (time travel not included) in just 24 hours"
No, no you can't
What you can get is a bunch of tannins and vanillins which will give it a different taste (possibly a good one), but it won't give you 3 years aging effect

 

[Airgead]

In the winemaking world, the fine oak products (powder and chips) tend to be added to the crush or to the active ferment while the larger ones get added to the maturation. I wonder whether the end grain effect is why? Maybe the active fermentation helps smooth out or remove the additional harsh tannins?

Adding chips to the maturation is very much a cheap spirits thing.

Cheers
Dave