What kind of Oak barrel?

[MickGC]

Gday All,

So i a looking to get myself a wine barrel. Currently looking at 220L used red wine barrels, they are advertised as either French or American oak.
Plan is for a Flanders red to go into it.

Wondering- Are there noticeable differences between the 2 types of oak?

Would these differences be noticeable in a 4 odd year old barrel?

The barrel can also be scraped and charred for around 65 bucks by a cooper, any one know what affect this would have on a beer and if worthwhile?

Thanks in advance!

Mick

 

[damoninja]

American oak is more pronounced, it'll have more impact over a shorter period of time. It is a little different too, French is more subtle with a bit of spiciness where american is more vanilla.

4 year old barrel, depends has it had stuff in it for 4 years? What was in it, eg chardonnay or cab sauv? If it's a white like chardy I wouldn't worry about getting it scraped just charred but cab sauv might be worth it.

Edit: I've not done barrel aging on large scale like this, but I would personally go French as a flanders does like a good 2 years or so aging, you're also talking about Belgium where French or Hungarian oak would have been all that was available in early days

 

[good4whatAlesU]

From a botanical perspective (flavour aside) I read that they are in the same genus but different species.

America would typically use their native oak "Quercus alba" native to america.

French use Quercus robur or Quercus petraea ovbiously native to Europe.

Australia doesn't have any native oaks of the genus Quercus .. we have some things that a commonly called oak (e.g. River She Oak) which are actually Allocasuarinas. e.g. Allocasuarina cunninghamiana (river she-oak) or Allocasuarina luehmannii (Bull oak).

Actually I read that Western Australia she-oak "Alloasuarina fraseriana" was used extensively for beer barrels.

 

[damoninja]

Australia doesn't have any native oaks of the genus Quercus .. we have some things that a commonly called oak (e.g. River She Oak) which are actually Allocasuarinas. e.g. Allocasuarina cunninghamiana (river she-oak) or Allocasuarina luehmannii (Bull oak).

Actually I read that Western Australia she-oak "Alloasuarina fraseriana" was used extensively for beer barrels.

How about that didn't know sheoaks were used for that, we used to have a small one in our back yard.

Don't believe what the name tells you about Tassie oak, it's eucalyptus

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Don't believe what the name tells you about Tassie oak, it's eucalyptus

I had some guys buy some fruit from a winery I was running a long time ago (mates of the owner), they brought the wine in about a year later, it was terrible. Turned out they'd used "Tasmanian oak" from the local timber supplier.

It's a trade name for several species, usually E regnans (same species as Vic mountain ash), E delegatensis (alpine ash) and E obliqua (messmate). Superb stiffness to weight ratio BTW, I use it extensively in my bikes.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

From a botanical perspective (flavour aside) I read that they are in the same genus but different species.

America would typically use their native oak "Quercus alba" native to america.

French use Quercus robur or Quercus petraea ovbiously native to Europe.

Australia doesn't have any native oaks of the genus Quercus .. we have some things that a commonly called oak (e.g. River She Oak) which are actually Allocasuarinas. e.g. Allocasuarina cunninghamiana (river she-oak) or Allocasuarina luehmannii (Bull oak).

Actually I read that Western Australia she-oak "Alloasuarina fraseriana" was used extensively for beer barrels.

Those barrels would have been lined with pitch so the wood identity wouldn't matter so much. Until they nearly wiped it out shipping barrels were also apparently made from Australian cedar (not a cedar, actually not even a softwood, more closely related to mahogany than anything else)

BTW with French oak an important distinction is the forest in which they are grown: the forest of Troncais, for instance, is widely regarded as very fine and "tight" while Limousin is looser and "broader", the terms in quotes being descriptors of tannin structure not wood structure.

Drying is important. Three year air dried earns a premium, kiln dried is shunned. Where that air is is surprisingly important: there was once a study done on this by maturing the same oak in two different places and then sending half of each lot back to the other to be coopered, maturation site was more important than cooperage location. Demptos sell American oak barrels made in their French cooperage and made in their American cooperage, they are quite different.

That said, maker is also important: Francois Freres are usually agressively toasty, Taransaud are usually refined and subtle etc etc. Choosing barrels that suit your wine is a big part of winemaking.

BTW early settlers tended to name Australian trees after the euro wood it most resembled, so anything with prominent ray tracheids got called "oak" including several casuarinas, allocasuarinas and even a couple of eucalypts. Problem is there aren't many species of hardwood in Europe due to recent glaciation, whereas in Australia there are over 600 species of Eucalypt alone, at least as many Acacia and hundreds of species outside these two genera.

 

[damoninja]

I had some guys buy some fruit from a winery I was running a long time ago (mates of the owner), they brought the wine in about a year later, it was terrible. Turned out they'd used "Tasmanian oak" from the local timber supplier.

It's a trade name for several species, usually E regnans (same species as Vic mountain ash), E delegatensis (alpine ash) and E obliqua (messmate). Superb stiffness to weight ratio BTW, I use it extensively in my bikes.

Ouch, I can't imagine how it'd taste at that level. I've heard of shiners using it in smaller amounts and could possibly appreciate it in small doses. It might even play well with piney or cedar characters.

 

[good4whatAlesU]

A random search turned this up: http://www.starlanewinery.com.au/index.php/red-gum-barrel-fermented-wine/red-gum-barrel

Red Gum barrel wine.

Lot's of Australian native timbers out there, scope for experimentation and marketing.

 

[Mardoo]

Chestnut was often used in the past. It disappeared when the forests got logged out. Many wine producers swore by Hungarian oak.

Red gum? Feck, that would be particularly awful.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Italians still use chestnut, especially in large format. They are usually also old. I believe the DOCG for Barolo specifies two years in wood which must be oak or chestnut.

Hungarian oak is available, it's quite good. German oak is also available, I've never liked it, there's a peculiar lemony character that it seems to impart.

 

[Blind Dog]

Based on what I've read, and very limited experience, the wine previously stored in the barrel is likely to have a greater impact initially, with the type of oak playing a secondary role. That assumes you don't have it scraped and re-charred.

Personally I'd want at least the 1st use of the barrel to pick up the residual wine flavours, and would brew the beer accordingly. However, that's only if the time between the barrel being emptied and me filling it with beer was fairly short as I'd be concerned the alcohol content in the wine left soaked into the barrel would be insufficient to stop bugs colonising it. Maybe its less of a concern if you're going the sour beer route?

If you want to try oak ageing without barrels, oak staves and dominoes work well, the cubes less so (IMO) as they have a lot higher proportion of end grain and the tannins seem to dominate the final product. Going this route means you can easily experiment with different types of oak, soaking in bourbon/wine/whisky, times, amount of oak, types of beer etc. without being 'stuck' with 220L of the same beer

 

[Mardoo]

BD is right. End grain is not what you want. Think of a barrel. Minimal endgrain on contact with the contents.

 

[MickGC]

Thanks for all the great info guys

I did think about smaller batches and the staves/ dominos and stuff, but there is something about a barrel that i want

I will have too contact the supplier and find out how long since they had wine in them, and if they know what wine it was.

Cheers
Mick