We had Ryan Pachmayer BJCP certified judge and gold medal winner on the show a few weeks ago talking about brewing big beers. I wanted to have him back to discuss his techniques to brewing with barrels. So we decided to do a guide to brewing in barrels and apparently there is a ton to learn.
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Show Transcript (A.I. created there will be errors)
Colter Wilson: Last time I had Ryan pack Meyer on the show. We had a great conversation about brewing big beers. In that conversation, we talked a bit about brewing and barrels, but I really wanted to get Ryan back on the show, do a deep dive into brewing kin barrels. So today we have Ryan on the show and we are going to talk about the tips and tricks to brewing in a barrel today on homebrewing DIY
And welcome back to homebrewing DIY, the show that takes on the do it yourself aspect of homebrewing gadgets, contraptions and parts. This podcast covers it all. Today we’re talking with Brian pack Meyer, and we’re going to do a deep dive. Into tips and tricks for selecting and brewing in barrels. But first, I’d like to thank all of our patrons over a Patrion.
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We definitely want to hear it. It definitely helps us improve the show. And of course, one of the best ways to support the show is to head over to our website, homebrewing diy.beer and use our sponsor links. If you click on the link for brew father or adventures in homebrewing, your prices stayed the same, but it lets them know that we sent you and they then in turn support the show.
Now I’d like to hop into a bit of feedback. I got a great email from Greg weeder all the way from Australia and he sent me a message. About a week ago and his message says this. I started listening to your podcast lately, right up around the same time that I’ve been getting into some brewery, DIY electronics.
I recently built some ice spindles and was wondering what else I can make for men. Track with some brew pie. ESP 82 66 is look like the next logical step, and with what you learn from your builds, I would like to pick your brain a bit. I was going to install for men track on a Linux box that I already had on all the time.
It’s a media server, so no need to power up another device. So question one, any downside to installing for men track on a desktop rather than a raspberry PI? And then question two, I’ve seen a bunch of builds for the ESP, 82 66 but nothing in depth enough for me to follow a step by step. A lot of the info is just parts list and a rough description where I can find where can I find a really easy, simple build that I can follow.
A step by step guide. I’m just looking for to have three. Yes, P 82 66 with two or three probes on each one to control three different chambers. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Greg. I then replied to Greg and I said, first, thanks for listening to the show, Greg. You can absolutely install, ferment track on any other Debbie and base Linux device, but here’s where you may run into some issues.
If you have it running another web server. So for example, let’s say you’re running Apache for something else, you’re going to run into issues because you’re going to have a conflict running two web servers, maybe running two different systems. I see that happen all the time and people run into issues.
But here’s my advice. I’d use a raspberry raspberry PI zero w the reason is there’s just super low power. It’s going to run off of a micro USB is actually less power than you’re probably going to use charging your cell phone and you’re going to have it use it. Basically have access to that device doing one thing and.
I just feel like it’s kind of a better way when it comes to running your fermentation chamber. Also, if you head over to Furman, track.com they have really good documentation, and here’s the other piece I would go is if you’re looking for a step by step guide just ever to pcbs.io and. I actually sent him the link straight to the PCB for Furman track and you can just see the wiring diagram right there.
So it’s going to tell you everything you need to build and how to put it together right into that PCB. The only part that it doesn’t show you is how to wire the plug for the high voltage part, which is pretty self explanatory. If you’re doing a project like this, it would make total sense. But other than that, my setup is the original, or do we know set up, I don’t actually use the ESP 82 66, but still, it’s gonna be a lot easier if you use that premade PCB.
So I’d love to thank Greg for giving me some feedback and, uh, you know, keep it coming. I think that if you want to ask a question. Talk to us about anything. Just send us an email to podcast at homebrewing, diy.beer or head over to our website and fill out the contact form. The last thing I’d like to share during our announcements is that you can always follow us on social media.
Head over to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Look for the handle at homebrewing. DIY, all one word. We’d love to have you follow us and your engagement is always appreciated. So now that we’re done with all of that, let’s just hop into today’s episode. We’re going to talk to Ryan pack Meyer today about brewing with barrels.
I’d like to welcome Brian to the show and. Let’s just jump right into a bit about why don’t, why don’t you tell us a bit about your history with barrels and a bit about what we’ll talk about today.
Ryan Pachmayer: Barrel tips, barely. Jean would guide for beer. Um, first off. I’m not an expert. I’m not a professional. I am a, you know, dedicated, hobbyist.
Don’t take every piece of advice I have here as gospel. Um, you know, kind of used my advice as a guide for your own projects or inspiration for your own projects. Um. Experience-wise. I’ve been involved in, I don’t know, probably a couple dozen barrel projects at this point, and probably 10 or 15 Oak alternative projects, um, over about 14 years of brewing.
Um, these tips are mostly a result of my own research, um, online talking with professional brewers, uh, as well as trial and error. Um, when I have a beer I really like. Right? It’s really different in a really positive way. I really try to seek out and find out what that brewery did differently, um, whether it’s a home brewer or a professional brewer.
So, um, as a result, I’ve found a lot of little tips and tricks, um, that a lot of them have worked really well. Um, I’ve had plenty of successes. Um. When plenty of metals had compliments from brewers, and I’ve had plenty of failures as well, dumping batches that didn’t come out right or barrels that unintentionally went wild.
And so my goal with this is, this guide is to really give you. A lot of things to hopefully minimize the chances that you end up dumping a batch or not being happy through batch and maximize the chances that you have, uh, a really successful beer, a really successful experience with your barrel edge beers.
Um, I’m going to focus primarily on clean beers today. Um, and primarily whiskey, Barlage beers, even though I’ll talk a little bit about wine and other spirits. Um, I’ve been in a number of sour barrel projects. I like sour beer, but my experience with that is not great enough to really. Put it into a guide.
Um, I would use resources such as milk, the funk for sour barrel tips. Um, but so I’ll be focusing on clean beers. That’s what I’ve done a lot more of. That’s why I feel like I have more knowledge to share and maybe a few unique insights that, um, you don’t necessarily get from. 10 20, 30 even an hour of Googling around searching for this.
So, um, without further ado, let’s talk about, uh, talk about barrel aged beer. Great.
Colter Wilson: I think the first place we should start when we dive into it is. How do you select a barrel or figure out what is a good barrel to use?
Ryan Pachmayer: I have two rules. When selecting barrels. The first rule is I only use freshly dumped barrels from distilleries or wineries.
Uh, this requires planning ahead. It ensures you’re getting a clean barrel with much less risk of wild East. Um, I’ve had a lot of. Bad experiences with wild Easton barrels because the barrel wasn’t freshly dumped. It sat around for weeks, even if it’s covered, even if you kind of clean it beforehand. Um, I found that nothing ensures getting a good, clean, full barrel flavor, then getting a freshly dumped barrel.
Um, I always have. Beer ready to put it in the barrel the day I get it. Or if it’s second use, I have beer ready the day I’m going to empty the previous one. I just don’t want to leave the barrel empty. Either want it to have spirits in it when it said the distillery or as soon as those spirits are gone the same day, you want to put beer in it ideally, and when you empty your beer, if you want to use it again and you want to put beer in it again the same day.
For both of these points. You can find kind of instructions online on how to clean barrels that have sat around and rehydrate, ones that are dry and so on and so forth, but really I just would, I can’t reiterate enough. I wouldn’t bother. It’s too risky. Buying a barrel for one or two batches of beer is already an expensive cost to your.
Two, you’re a total project. So I really wouldn’t, uh, I’d wait if I had to, I wouldn’t buy a barrel that’s been sitting around for three, four, five weeks. Um, or that you don’t know the source on, because again, you know, you don’t want to spend a hundred, 150 bucks on a barrel and just wait six, eight, 10 months and the beer comes out and it’s got, you know, wild yeast in it.
And it’s not. What you were looking for. Um, even even if the barrel is giving you for free or a discount, I probably wouldn’t, uh, wouldn’t do that.
Colter Wilson: One thing I’ve heard out there is that the size of the barrel has a huge impact on. The beer that you put into it, what kind of things could you tell us about that?
Ryan Pachmayer: Some things to keep in mind when selecting a barrel or the size and the age of the barrel. Simply put the smaller the barrel and the younger the barrel, the more flavor you’re going to get out of the barrel. So you need to adjust your recipe for this. And there’ll be more on that a little bit later in this guide.
Uh, but with a younger 10 gallon barrel, you might want to build a thicker, stronger, more bitter. They spear to stand up to the barrel. Conversely, if you get, you know, a 15 year old full-size 53 gallon barrel, very large barrel, um, you may want to go with something that will allow the intricacies and the deep flavors built up over time from a full size barrel that has had spirits in there for, you know, 15 years to really shine.
So that’s kind of the extreme end of each one, but it’s something you want to keep in mind. Um, length of time in the barrel is gonna matter. Um. The length of time you have the beer in the barrel. That’s gonna matter. I always recommend tasting your beer from time to time. Um, that ultimately is the best way to figure out if the beer is ready.
It’s kind of like cooking a dish. Uh, the recipe might say something like two tablespoons of salt, but at the end of the day, you’d probably put in a tablespoon at most, and then you’ll salt the taste. Um, it’s kinda the same way with barrels. I might tell you a barrel should probably stay in. The beer, should stay in there for maybe eight months, but you know, around five months you should start tasting it and maybe it’ll be ready in six months.
Maybe we’ll be ready in 12 months. Um, you know, this is just kind of a guide. Uh, the Vinny nail method works really well. Um, that’s where you hammer a nail and you pull the nail out. You know, pulling nails is a big term, used in barely beer as you pull the nail out and the beer, um, a little tiny now and the beer.
Pour slowly into the glass, and then he pounded, sanitize the nail and pounded back in. I’m just Google Vinny nail method. Um, Vinnie from Russian river, uh, made it famous. Uh, but that’s a great way to do it. Um, you can also use a thief. Um, a wine thief, they call it usually or barrel thief. Uh, many people have these already.
Um. A bit of oxidation in the isn’t the end of the world for most of these beers. But you really want to minimize oxidation when taking samples. Um, cause you’re already getting oxidation through the wood. You know, the barrels. It’s the beer sitting there through the barrel and the wood is breathing and you’re getting oxidation already.
Um, so I try not to add any more oxidation than necessary to it. Um. I have had beers, um, different types of beers that were purposely over oxygenated. Um, but that’s something I don’t have a lot of experience in, and it’s not, um, that people do it to speed up the aging. Um, they do that with wine as well, I believe a lot of times or sometimes as well.
Uh, but that’s not something that I’ve experienced with. And that’s not usually what you’re going for when you’re building a barrel aged beer, um, with these methods. Um. Give you a few examples of some experience on time in a barrel that I’ve had. Um. Last few years, I had a 10 gallon, very fresh local whiskey barrel.
I filled the beer the same day. They emptied it. Um, the whiskey there is turned over in eight months or less, and they also add additional spirals. Aspens, Aspen wood spirals into the barrel so that it gets even more Oak character faster. Um, it’s basically as fast of a whiskey as you’ll find. Um. And the whiskey sells for like 60 bucks too.
It’s pretty crazy that it’s good whiskey though. So the barrels, they have very strong raw flavors and I put a huge stout recipe into the barrel for about seven months, give or take. Um, and honestly it was probably about a 13 and a half percent. Big thick barrel aged out like 65, 70% base, small restaurant, adjunct malts, lot of oats, a really thick, heavy stout.
And honestly, it was in there for about seven months, and I would not have minded if I’d taken out a month or two sooner. Um, it was very good. It was very boozy. But you just get a lot of raw Oak and whiskey character when whiskeys only been in a barrel, especially only a 10 gallon, a small sized barrel, uh, for a short amount of time.
Uh, another one, my friends got a barrel at the same bar. Same, uh. Same distillery. I picked up several barrels when I went there. Um, one of my friends bought one of the barrels and he has done five different beers in those barrels. Slowly going down in strength over time. And they all have whiskey character, which is rare.
Usually a 53 gallon barrel. You only get maybe two uses out of it. A lot of breweries only use it once for stouts. Um, I found you can make more subtle beers, you know, 8%. Imperial Browns, porters, those kind of beers, Baltic porters, you can put those in second use and still get some really good, uh, wood and whisky flavor from them.
Uh, but my friend, yeah, five uses, and I just drank the fifth one a few months ago. It was an Imperial Myerson and honestly, it was incredible. It was, it was really good. The Marzen. The malty Marzen was just, they worked really well with what was a shockingly still whiskey in that barrel. After five, five tries, um, on the other end of the scale, a couple of years back, a friend of mine had a 53 gallon Woodford rye barrel, and the rive whiskey, I think for Woodford sits in there for over four years.
Um, so decent solid amount of time, what you’d expect from Kentucky classic whiskey, but 53 gallon barrel. So it’s normal size. It’s huge. Um. The first use, we did a lighter beer, arrived, barley wine, probably eight and a half percent ABV roughly, and it stayed in there for like a year and a half and it came out really well.
Maybe a touch on the boozy side, but I mean, it was within the range of acceptable, and it was quite good when it came out. And, uh, it’s only, it’s only gotten better. Um, the second use, we did a ride Porter around 8% ABV. It was in there about a year. It came out really nice and balanced. Um, and there was not, we just really didn’t think there’d be enough flavor for a third use.
So we just ended the barrel project there. Um, and that’s more typical, I think, of what. A commercial brewery would probably do, but with these 10 gallon barrels, especially if you get them really fresh, you’re gonna get some strong flavors and, um, you can use it multiple times. So just really think on both ends of the scale there, 53 versus 10 gallon.
Um, and remember, I can reference these examples of things that I’ve done to give you an idea. Uh, but at the end of the day, I can’t stress enough on. How you need to just taste it along the way and you just need to figure out how it’s tasting to you. Um, also, people have different tastes. Some people drink whiskey straight all the time, and they want that flavor and their beer.
Other people just want a hint of it. And then most of us are somewhere in between that I would say, but it’s, um, it’s your beer, or if you brew it with a couple of friends, it’s collectively your beers. So get in there, sample it, and, uh, decide when it’s ready. Um, one other thing I will add that, um, I think size matters a little bit more than length of time that the spirits have been in the barrel, but they’re both important variables.
But size is definitely very important. And I don’t really like using anything below a 10 gallon size for beer. Um, I just think it turns over way too quickly. Um, too much surface area. So if you found access to like a three gallon barrel, um. It might be cool to put something else like a port wine it or some kind of a distilled alcohol or something like that.
But, um, I, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t really want to use a three gallon barrel for a beer. Um, it’s just going to get, I think too Woody too quick. And even if the first one comes out, it’s gonna be really, it’s gonna be really fast and you have to keep turning it over time after time. Um, so yeah, I’d recommend like 10 to 15 gallon barrels, 10 to 20 gallon barrels in general.
Colter Wilson: Earlier you talked about Oak alternatives. What do you mean by that?
Ryan Pachmayer: There are alternatives to barrels that, um, commercial breweries don’t use too often, but they do use them sometimes. Uh, but homebrewers use them all the time, and I think when used properly, they can, uh, present massive advantages to the home brewer.
Um, just because 53 gallon barrels aren’t usually the best choice for a homebrewer, I would say. Um. For barrel alternatives. You know, most people just use some Oak chips cubes or spirals and call it a day, and those can provide fun flavors, uh, Oak type flavors and specific beer types, like Belgian quads, for example.
But we can do a lot better when it comes to beers like Imperial stouts. Um, you can’t replicate the flavor of a big barrel without some modifications. And I’m just going to use barrel aged Imperial stouts as an example here. Um, if you want to make a. Beer that is like a barrel aged Imperial stout and using the Oak Oak alternatives.
Um, you’ve got to ask yourself what types of flavors are in a barrel aged out, and let’s split that up and just tackle it one at a time. The first thing that people overlook as almost universally in the Homebrew world is you have a base beer that has sat in a barrel for eight to 18 months for most of the commercial Imperial barrel aged stouts.
Uh, that base beer is going to have. A lot of H flavors because it’s been in there a long time. Um, most of these Oak alternatives only take two to eight weeks to really add flavor to your beer. So even if you nail the Oak and the whiskey part of the barrel aged beer, you’re still left with like a two month old Imperial stout with all of those rougher edges and immature flavors.
Um, so what people, what I think people should consider doing, and I’ve done it several times to great with great results. Um, as you big brew a big Imperial stout and you let it set. Um, preferably in something like a glass container, preferably at cellar temperatures of, you know, 50 to 65 degrees racked off of the East, uh, for at least six months before you add your Oak.
And this is going to help you better replicate the mature salaried flavors that you see in those commercial barrel aged stouts that are going to be eight plus months old when you drink them in the bottle. And I really almost never see anybody do this. Uh, at the Homebrew level. It’s almost always brew beer.
Wait four to six weeks at Oak fair. Four to six more weeks. Bottle cellar. Um, yeah, your beer can change over time in the bottle, especially if you do bottle condition it, which again, is not always practical when you’re making a huge beer in a barrel, but it’s not going to change nearly as much as when it’s sitting in a barrel or in the glass like that.
Pre carbonation, pretty cold storage, still a little bit of yeast suspension doing its magic. Um. So, definitely consider brewing a base beer and sitting for awhile. And this also helps when you’re picking a barrel out too, so that way you have a beer. It’s sitting there and maybe after it’s been sitting there for four months, you start searching for your whiskey barrel, um, or you’ve added some Oak, some a which Epps to some whiskey, and you’re letting those set and just soak in the flavors of the whiskey.
Um. So just brewing a beer, a beer first. Um, and when I’m talking about barrel, I’m talking about the small barrel because it’ll turn over quicker, but brewing your beer face beer first so that it’s ready to go. Um, and it has some, that H flavor when you actually add it into your wood, uh, can be super helpful in replicating what, you know, the pros do, replicating some of your favorite beers.
Um, the second, the second component of a barely stout. Is barrel flavor. Um, whiskey barrels use charred American Oak. The charred part is really important. When you throw in regular toasted Oak spirals or cubes into your beer, you’re not going to get those charred flavors that you’d expect to get in a barrel.
So you really need to char your Oak. Um, if you have to book wood and some of the other books they talk about. Toasting it in the oven, and you can replicate some of these flavors by going several hundred degrees for a certain amount of time than your oven. Um, that would, you can get some of those vanilla flavors.
You can get some of those different types of flavors that come out, but I personally prefer just a straight up chart. If you watch those videos when they’re taking American bear American Oak barrels and they’re charging them for use in whiskey, I mean, they are there. Basically have like a full, it’s like a flame thrower, almost like a massive torch.
Um, so I like to just torch my wood. It’s very easy. You can just get a cheap torch, like a soldering torch from a hardware store. You don’t have to get anything expensive and just straight up Charlie Oak. Um, after I try the Oak, I soak it in some boiling water for a little bit, help leach out some of that, the harsher flavors in the charring process.
Um. But then you can just sell, come in whiskey. And there you go. You basically are doing what the distilleries are doing, more or less. Um, I actually use barrel chips a lot of times. There’s these chips by Jack Daniels. There’s Jack Daniels smoking chips. You see him at the grocery and the hardware store is in the smoking section.
Um, where you find charcoal, they’re super cheap. They come in a big bag and their actual chart. Pieces of whiskey barrel. I mean, they’re just, it’s just a chopped up whiskey barrels that are, the use is supposed to be for smoking them to get that kind of whiskey, Oak flavor in your food. Uh, but it’s the right flavor for barrel and the barrel aged wood alternative.
So, um, I told them a little further because you’re getting parts of the barrel that are in contact with actual whiskey. You know, if you, if you read, if you put the barrel back together, the whiskey is in contact with the charred part of the barrel. And when you have these Jack Daniels smoking chips, if you look at the chips, I don’t know, maybe half of them are charred and the other half aren’t.
So, I mean, Oakwood is actually pretty thick. Um, so you’re getting some of the wood that the whiskey doesn’t come into contact with. So I think long story short, I think a smaller percentage of the Jack Daniels chips are, uh, as charred as they would be if you’re using an actual barrel. So I try them further.
Put them in some boiling water to get rid of some misread and see, take them out. Soak them in some whiskey. And I think that really replicates the barrel favorite. Well, but the point of this section is if you want that barrel flavor of a barrel aged Imperial stout and you’re using Oak alternatives, you need to char your Oak.
Um, toasted Oak style isn’t going to taste like a barrel aged out. Uh, the other component is the whiskey flavor. Um, a lot of people buy a cheap bottle of bourbon awry, toss it in with their chips and call it a day. Um, that’s easy. It works just fine, but we can do a little bit better. Um. Do you have to think about when was he goes into a barrel.
It’s at a higher alcohol than the finished product to higher ABV than the finished product. Um, it’s anywhere from like the low one, hundreds to like 125 proof, but whiskeys bottle that 80 to 90 proof, so it’s watered down into the bottle. Um. So there’s a real difference in strength of the whiskey and the barrel.
Thus the whiskey that a barrel aged beer is going to come into contact with, um, and flavor versus what you get out of a bottle or what’d you get out of the average 80 to 90 proof bottle. So, um, I like to use a hundred proof, 110 proof, 120 proof whiskeys when I’m soaking them in Oak chips. Cause I think it better replicates those strong primary flavors.
That you’re going to get, um, that you’re going to get from like a barrel aged out. Um, you know, if you know your whiskey, I wouldn’t necessarily pick your favorite bourbon arrived for this. Again, you have to think in this use, you have to think the whiskey is like another ingredient in the beer. I’m more like a cocktail.
So if you find, if you have whiskey that you really like for cocktails, which is usually. A fairly good flavored whiskey, but maybe it’s lacking some subtleties, but it has really good, strong primary flavors. You want something like that because a strong backbone could primary flavor, um, those secondary flavors, the deep complexity that you get from some of those high end.
Whiskeys. When you drink straight, it’s kind of probably be lost amongst all the flavors from the wood and the base beer. Um, if you don’t know a lot about whiskey, just Google terms, like best barrel strength, bourbon or rye whiskey for cocktails, uh, and you’ll start getting lists, start to get lists, cocktail bars or home cocktail.
Um, aficionados are usually using value, whiskey value arrive, value, bourbon. Um. They’re not sticking their nose up at a $30 bottle. They’re looking for that 20 to $30 bottle that is going to work great for cocktails. Um, so you’ll find more affordable bottles that way. I’ll give you guys some examples of things that I’ve used to great success.
Um, Rittenhouse rye, a hundred proof. That one is great. A fantastic ride. Very affordable. Bullet. Barrel strength is 119 proof. Great bourbon to use for this. This, uh, this particular exercise. Um, Jim beam, bottled in bond, a hundred proof. I hate regular Jim beam. Um, I just don’t like the flavor in it, but the bottled in bond seems to work really well in cocktails.
Um, and I actually. First time I had, it was at a cocktail bar and I was like, what is this, a whiskey? And they told me Jim, being bottled in bond had it several times since, and I’ve used it in some beers and it’s worked out really well. Uh, George Dickel is a really good. Value brand. They have various ones that are a hundred plus proof, a makers cask strength.
I think it might be a little more expensive these days. I haven’t had it in years, but it’s 111 proof. A old forest awry, a hundred proof. It’s a good one. Wild Turkey, one Oh one should be able to get a good price on that. Old granddad has a bunch of, uh, high proof stuff. Um. Look out for some of those, those work well, um, I think this one might be a little expensive these days to 1792 foolproof is 125 proof.
Um, that’s affordable. That’d be a great one to use as well. Uh, but yeah, I mean, those are some bottles you can look for and depending on where you live, you’ll have different types of bottles available to you. Um, sometimes you’re not going to get enough whiskey flavor in the final product by adding whiskey soaked Oak.
Um. You can add some whiskey, probably two to four ounces at a time, depending on how far off it is, per five gallons to your fermentor or CAG. Um, this is something that commercial breweries literally cannot do because it’s illegal for them, but homebrewers can absolutely do it. So if you don’t have enough whiskey flavor at the end with your whiskey soaked Oak chips, you know, go ahead, add two ounces.
Um, if you still don’t have enough at another two ounces, um, I’ve heard of people putting, you know. Eight 12, 14 ounces of whiskey into their five gallon batch of, uh, of stout. Again, it depends on how much whiskey you like in your stout, but, um, yeah, you can always add a little whiskey to taste if you think it’s lacking.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. Awesome. These are some really great tips. Do you have any other kind of tips and tricks that you might recommend for someone
Ryan Pachmayer: angel share? So angel, Sharon Bruin is basically. Making enough beers so that as some dissipates over time in the barrel, you can top off your barrel with that fresh beer from the same, same base.
Um, and the goal is to keep oxygen out. I used to do this all the time. But I don’t really bother anymore. Um, I don’t like unnecessarily open up barrels, nor do I like risking a new product contaminating an entire batch. And why? I don’t think the risk is very high for either of those things. I don’t really see any major advantages to topping your barrel off, so I don’t really spend my time and energy doing this.
Um, if I make more beer than the barrel can handle, I usually just bottle it up, drink it side by side with the barrel in the future and just compare it. Um, compare it. The base beer versus the barrel beer and see the differences. Um, I find that a lot more interesting and rewarding to do than just putting all your beer into an angel share, um, and risking, even if it’s a minor risk, risking those things.
Um, people might say your beer might oxidize too much, but really, I mean, I live in Colorado. It’s very dry. Here we see our, uh, barrels lose more. More base beer in them on average, I think then the more humid environment probably will it. But it’s still not a problem. You know, I’m using 10 gallon barrels a lot of times, so I’m not going to have a beer in there for two years, um, to where a lot it’s going to dry up.
So I’m not too worried about angel share. Um, and I don’t think most homebrewers should be either. Um, yeah, so storing, storing the barrel is another thing I have written down here. Um.
I’ve always built stands. Usually for most of my small barrels, it’s super easy to do on a wood. You can just Google a building a barrel stand if you want. Um, if you’re comfortable with basic woodworking tools, you could probably just figure it out for yourself. It’s very easy to do in different ways. Um.
Yeah. I mean there’s all sorts of ways to do that, but I put a little stand on there cause while a barrel will sit filled without rolling, if you knock into it, it could easily tip over and you don’t want that. Um, I like to keep it, this is a little more important to the actual final product. I like to keep it in a place where it has some temperature fluctuations if possible.
Um, it lets the would breathe. Um, I got that tip from, uh, a friend that used to work at a, uh. A major brewery that had a little offshoot, that had some awesome barrel age beers, and it’s a tip that he picked up there. Um, but their best barrels would always sit in this area that would be like 55 to like 85 degrees.
That would change throughout the year, and sometimes throughout the day. Um, I’d usually target like 55, 70 degrees, something like that. So if you have a, a part of the house that gets hotter and colder. Go ahead and throw it in there. Um, but otherwise, you know, just looking, just looking at 55, 60, 65, 70 degrees, that’s fine.
Um, you don’t, you don’t need huge temperature swings, but it’s cool to have those high temperatures is huge temperature swings. I know the distilleries like to do that. Um, and for the same reason I heard this, the brewers had said he likes to do it for the same reason. It just lets the barrel breathe. The wood expands and contracts and the beer goes in and out of it and adds complexity and flavor.
Um. I don’t know how big of an impact it really is, but it’s something I try to do whenever possible. Um, and I have had. The same base beer in the same two barrels stacked on top of each other at commercial breweries just tastes completely different. And that’s just a small, it should just be a small change in temperature, a small difference in barrel, even though it’s the same whiskey, a base whiskey and charred barrel.
Um, so I think there is some merit to it and I would recommend it if possible. Um, while your bail is not really subject to light, like your beer is not going to get light struck by sitting there, I would still keep the barrel out of the sun. Um. I’d keep a, definitely keep it away from a place where like kids or animals could mess with the bong print stories of local breweries that have had their barrels sitting in tap rooms, at least two different local breweries.
I’ve heard the stories from, um, here in Colorado, but, um, they had kids mess with their bongs or outlets and they end up having to dump a whole barrel of beer. Um. So, I mean, the last thing you want, as you know, your dog runs into the spigot or something, and that beer just goes everywhere. Um, or you know, your kid is, you know, pulls out the bong and starts throwing toys in your beer and it gets infected.
So put it somewhere where someone’s not going to mess around with it. Um, and it should be in pretty good shape. Uh, some other tips, uh, blending. Blending is something that commercial barrel programs do all the time. Um, they blend beer in different barrels to achieve the final product that they want. So if you have, you know.
You know, I don’t know for sure if this brewery does it. I’m just gonna use, you know, Epic’s big bad Baptist, for example. Um, in the cases where you have a beer like that, or, you know, great divide Yeti, um, things like that. Um, oftentimes, like , Che, things like that, they’ll have multiple barrels and they will taste the barrels, multiple barrels at the same base period.
They’ll taste it and then they’ll blend it back. Um. You go one step further, like side project does and they’ll have eight or 10 different, uh, different base beers in different barrels and they’ll try them on, blend them to achieve a certain flavor. Um, so you can, you could do that at home. Um, it’s not that hard depending on how big of a batch you’re doing, but you can replicate at home a few different ways.
Um,
you can kind of, um.
a few different, sorry. brew a few different batches of base Spears, age them in different whiskey soaked Oak, tastes them, and then blend a taste. Mmm. Oftentimes I think you’re gonna pick up more subtle but clear differences. Um, and you can do a lot of fun stuff with that. You know, you might have something that’s a little more bitter that you think is going to go super well, some coffee or you know, something where the vanilla, the Oak is really plain, or the vanilla whiskey is really playing well and you want to just highlight that and add some vanilla beans.
Um, you know, cacao nibs can work well for certain ones. You get chocolate flavors and some of these, so you make different base. Stouts and put them in different Oaks and blend them together. I’ve done it with two 10 gallon batches of beer as well, and I’ve even done, you know, two or three different base stouts, blend them together, put them in a 10 gallon whiskey barrel.
Um, and then, you know, you just, you get some added complexity and I think it takes the edge off a little bit when I drink whiskey with whiskey, friends that are really all about these like single barrel store picks and single barrel examples all the time. And I find those can be fun, but there was so much more raw and unrefined, I really liked the blended, you know, like the regular whiskey where you’re taking the distillers going around and picking 2030 40 barrels, sampling them all, mixing those together, tasting the final, final product, making sure it’s through his specific, his specifications, and like you get a really smoother, balanced, more rounded.
I dunno, it’s more refined to me. I like those. I like that a little bit better. So I do, I have had great success blending, um, bonding stouts in particular, uh, from different barrels or different Oaks when I have the time to do it, um, and the resources. So I would definitely recommend that. Another type of blending that I do.
Um, and this is more of like safety blending, I guess you’d call it, uh, is I like to keep extra base beer. What I’m doing in Oak beer, agile or adjunct in a beer. So basically it’s insurance. Um, if I overlook a beer too much, say I take a sat, I want to do, uh, I put, I do a five gallon batch of Russian Imperial stout and I want to put it in some whiskey soaked Oak.
So maybe I’ll put four gallons in whiskey soaked Oak. And if I over okay, I can always add a gallon of that extra gallon that I didn’t Oak back into it to sublet it back to the flavor I need. Um, so I don’t usually do that with Oak anymore cause I don’t usually over Oak anything. But I do it a lot with adjuncts.
Um, I do it a lot, especially when I’m using an adjunct for the first time. So if I’m using something different. Um, you know, one example might be, um, some bark from a tree. So I’m like birchbark yup. Never used Birch by before. So I’m going to put birchbark in it. Recommended examples from, uh, from reading books and from other people’s, uh, own experience.
But sometimes it’s going to be harsher than you want, and you might need a blend it back a little bit. Um, so I think he’d been, you know, around 20, 25% of your base beer and maybe more, depending on what you’re doing. Holding it back is a good idea. Um, you can also do something like make five gallons of Russian Imperial stout.
Take two and a half gallons and put it in one Oak. And if you get it right and you didn’t over Oak, it took the other two and a half and put vanilla beans on it. Uh, but a different type of a wood on it. You know, you can use different types of wood. You can do all sorts of fun things. Um, so you can hold back even 50% of your beer.
As insurance, and as soon as you know that your first, uh, adjunct or Oak beer is in the clear, you can do something with that second half. Um, that’s another massive that I’ve done before. Uh, let’s talk a little bit about wine barrels. Um, pine barrels are toasted, not charred, so you get more of that tannic, less intense vanilla, but, um, and wood flavored character when using them.
The same tips on selecting the right size and age barrel applied when you’re using wine as you would with whiskey. Um, but your base beers are probably gonna be a little different with wine for the most part. Um, personally I’m partial to like a wine barrel quad or an Imperial Belgian stays on like a red wine barrel.
Um, those are more things I think about with red wine, but you can do all sorts of stuff. I mean. Talking about, you’re talking about wine, chocolate and fruit pairing wild, wild together. You know, you can do a raspberry stout in a wine barrel. You can do a straight Russian Imperial stout in a wine barrel, so you can do anything really.
But it’s just those days on big Belgian seasons in the, uh, in the quads are ones that really jump out to me when I’m thinking of a wine barrel. You can also do Oak chips, cubes and spirals soaked in wine. That can be useful. Port wine in particular is a lot of fun. Has strong, deep flavors that can resonate well and all sorts of high alcohol beers.
Um, so I really liked that a lot. Um, speaking of Oak chips, cubes, spirals, staves, um, differences between them. Um, I will say that cubes I think are a little less. Deep and dynamic. Uh, it’s hard to say. Cubes are used a lot in the wine making world, the home wine making world, but they’re kind of looked down upon in the homes, uh, spirits distilling world a little bit, cause I just don’t think they provide the complexity you want.
You get some that tannic flavor, but it’s not, the wood isn’t very complex. So I usually don’t use cubes too much when, uh, when I’m doing, um. You know, Okta beers, uh, Oak chips are good, has a higher surface area. It turns around quicker, but I think it provides complexity. The spirals are great. Uh, Oak spirals are good, and I’ve had, I’ve only used staves a few times, but I’ve had good luck with the staves.
There’s all sorts of crazy Oak alternatives going on now. Um, if you’re unsure about one, just Google around, read reviews, see what people think, see what people compare it to. I would say, uh, where can you find fresh barrels? I like to go straight to the distilleries. Um. I’ll ask other homebrewers if I know they’ve had barrels.
Um, or just in big groups, like places where you can reach a lot of people without a lot of effort. Um, you know, website forums, Homebrew club, email lists, Facebook groups, you know, just ask like, Hey, does anyone know where I get a 10 freshly dumped 10 gallon, 20 gallon barrel? Um. There can be a little difficult to source fresh barrels for the sizes you want, but it’s really worth doing that extra research and detective work.
Uh, price-wise, you know, it is March, 2020. I usually pay, the prices can change over time, but I usually pay 75 to a hundred bucks for a freshly dumped 10 to 20 gallon barrel. Uh, maybe a hundred, 150 bucks for a freshly done 53 gallon barrel. Um, it’s easier to find 53 gallon barrels. Because more distilleries use those, but you need a larger group to fill it.
And it only takes one brewer with poor brewing practices that can ruin an entire batch with a funky base beer. And you can’t always taste a wild yeast in a beer that was just brewed. I mean, I’ve had that happen before, like literally we started, I mean, sorry, doing barrel projects, you know, maybe like 10 years ago, eight years ago, and you’d have a group of 10 people.
And you does. Everyone had their beer and just dump it in the barrel and then you know, you wait like 10 12 months and you try the beer and it’s like, Oh, okay. Has a Pella keel on it. It went wild. They went and funky. That’s not what you’re looking for. So then we’re like, all right, we’re going to taste everyone’s beer beforehand.
We have plenty of judges in our group. We can all taste it, and if there’s something bad in it, we just won’t let someone dump their beer in it. And you know, that works a little better. But we still had times where eight of us have gotten together and dumped beer into a 53 gallon batch and every base beer tasted good.
But you know what? At the end of the day, we had a pellet Kule again, eight to 12 months later. Um. So I really prefer 10 to 20 gallon fresh barrels with one or two other people that I know can brew reliable, high quality beer. Um, that’s, that’s what I look for when I’m doing barrel projects with friends.
53 gallon barrels are great, but it’s really a format that I think works much better for a commercial brewery. Um. I’m also not a guy that wants to trick 53 Callan’s in my own. If I’m gonna drink 53 gallons, I don’t know how long that takes. If it’s six months, 12 months, or three years, but I don’t want to drink the same barrel aged beer for that long.
I like to do smaller projects, split things up, get two and a half to five gallons of something really nice and enjoy it over the next few years. Um, crack it open with friends, becomes a little more special that way. Um. Another way to find out which distilleries sell small barrels outside of, you know, Facebook message in the mall, which is a fine strategy in your area.
Um, you can look and see which beers have one local contest in the barrel aged category, like a Homebrew count test. Um, there are frequently named after the barrels that those beers were in. Um, you can check out barrel brokers. Rocky mountain barrels is out here by me. They’re fantastic and easy to communicate with.
Um. So you can talk to them about where to get fresh, 10 to 20 gallon barrels. You can ask them if they have any in or what they last had in, you know, things like that. For wine barrels, I found it’s generally easier. I haven’t done it as many wine barrel projects, but a lot of my friends have, and the ones that I’ve participated in, it’s been a lot easier to get the barrels.
They’re not in as high of demand. In fact, you can frequently find them used as like put guardian planters and things like that. They usually sell them for those purposes. But you know. Most States across the U S have their little wine region. For me, it’s the Western slope of Colorado, but most States have a wine region.
And again, it’s just like whiskey. You’re not necessarily looking for the most refined complex wine. You’re looking for something that has a good flavor, that’s going to match the base beer that you built for it. Um, so, and they often use smaller barrels at those wineries. So 10 to 20 gallon barrels can be found for sure.
I’m in the smaller sizes. Other spirits like rum. Rum is like medium difficult to find. Jen is pretty difficult to source, but it’s extremely rewarding if you can find a 10 or 20 gallon gin barrel. Um, Brandy, I’d look at Brandy. Brandy’s a little tougher because you can’t find it as frequently in the States.
I think Brandy’s a much more European thing. Um, you know, and everything that goes along with Brandy, you know. Cognac, Calvados all those kinds of things. Um. But you know, Apple, Jack, Apple, Brandy, you can find some that stuff in the U S um, Brandy and general is getting a little bit more popular. So look for a brand new barrel if you can.
Those are fun. Um, scotch would be really hard to find, especially in a smaller format, but, um, a scotch is your thing. Like, you know. I’d probably just use a little bit of, you don’t want a lot of wood when you’re using the scotch. Probably. Um, just get a scotch is usually a second. Any second use from bourbon barrels.
They send it over, take a bourbon barrel and you send it over and they put scotch in it. So you don’t necessarily need to use a lot of wood character for those. I’m just using an actual scotch would probably work well. or something like that. A beer type versus barrel type. Um. Honestly, the possibilities are endless.
I don’t think you said hard and fast rules when you’re doing a beer type or some barrel type. 10 years ago, I think a lot of people might’ve said, yeah, you’re going to use whiskey when you’re using a stout. And they’d be like, port wine and a stout. That’s silly. But you know, I’ve had awesome port, barely port wine barrel aged, uh, snouts.
So I don’t think there’s any. Sort of hard and fast rule anymore. I think you just look for inspiration. You have something that works and you want to maybe make something in the same vein of it. Um, you look at some flavors of some spirits that you’ve had, maybe something you’ve had, it’s really strong, like a shot of something, or just a straight glass of a whiskey, or just a really exotic spirit maybe, or certain type of tequila or something like that.
And you’re like, wow, this is really good. It’s a little strong, but you know, I think this could play really well in this type of beer. And then you start to build that kind of a base beer. Um. If you need inspiration, the big beer is Belgians and barley wines festival every year in Breckinridge. Um, their tap list is on their website.
Uh, many of the brewery showcase super interesting barrel and beer combinations each year there. So you can find some inspiration there. Um. Either on the app or on their website, the great American beer Fest, if you can filter for barrel aged beers, there’s a whole ton of weird, wacky stuff that goes on there that could be fun for another fund resource for inspiration.
Um, a few of my favorite nonstandard combinations that I’ve done. Um, a 13 and a half percent English barley wine agent, a local gin barrel for eight ish months and then bottle conditioned, um, right after we made that. It’s about five years ago, uh, we entered into two different competitions and it came back with two metals.
It’s a super interesting and complex beer. The agendas really made the base beer shine. Um, the malt and agendas played so well together. It’s about five years old now, drinks really well. Um, carbonation is really died down, but that’s a fantastic one. Uh, another fun one was this lightly hopped wheat wine.
It was kind of similar to Boulevard’s, um, harvest answer wheat wine. We aged it, uh, in some white Ash wood spirals. That’s soaked in some local pear Brandy. Um, that was super interested in complex beer. That was, uh, that was a lot of fun, had a small batch of that. So, uh, it was not entered in any competitions and, uh, rarely made it outside of my house.
I enjoy quite a few of those small bottles. Um, and then one other source of inspiration, a recent one that I did, uh, was a blend had a big, like 14%. Alcohol blend of stouts and different whiskey barrels. And I use that as 66% of the beer, the base. And then 33% of the base was a cherry port wine that I made from scratch by collecting, uh, collecting, juicing and fermenting cherries off of several local trees.
And then I fortify that cherry wine with neutral grain spirits and age, some of it in a tiny half gallon port barrel that I sometimes use for wine or spirits. Um, so it’s over half beer. So it is a beer. So it’s, you know, two thirds of the stout and one third, the cherry port line. Um, I called it cherry stout wine, I believe.
And, uh, it clocked in at just under 16% alcohol at one a metal at big beers this year in the experimental category. And it was just a super fun and interesting, interesting beer. Um, I was really, I really enjoyed that one. So, yeah, for inspiration, just look around, see what you have. Um, you could do all sorts of fun things.
It’s, it’s a great time to get creative, um, for that. Um. Have you toasted Oak or toasted Oak? Um, I want to add my 2 cents on heavy Oak. I don’t like heavy Oak. Use it twice. I think it’s way too heavy of a flavor. Maybe there’s a use for it, but I’ve never had a beer that stood up well to have Oak. Um, I think the heavy Oak dominates with one strong note.
Um, it used it once in a quad and honestly, we, it really highlighted the phenolics for awhile. It just, we thought it had like a phenol infection. And then over time it was like, Oh yeah, we use a lot of heavy Oak in this beer. And then it started to fade enough to where we knew it was Oak, but it was just too strong in one note.
Um, if anyone out there has made a good beer with heavy Oak, um, I’d be curious to hear about it. Uh, and wondering what beer that is. I’d say medium toasted Oak is probably a good place to start for your toasting level. French is a little more subtle. Hungarian is supposed to be between. American and French in subtlety, but I’ve never used Hungarian, so I’m not sure.
Ultimately the subtle flavors of toasted Oak are gonna matter a lot more when you’re not charging them. Um, so if you’re doing like a, especially if you’re using like a farm house sale or, you know, like I says on that kind of thing, um, but you’ll still taste the difference. Um, if you just throw a medium plus and a medium Oak in a split batch without charring, it.
And are with Charna and putting it in a stout, you can still taste the difference, I think. Uh, but I’ll start at medium and then determine your level. But believe me, I wouldn’t, I’m just giving you a warning. Don’t go, go. Don’t go with heavy Oak unless you really want to play with a play with fire. I would say.
Colter Wilson: What about tips for building. Barely two beer recipes.
Ryan Pachmayer: The number one thing I found over the years is that you really need a bigger, oftentimes hoppier beer to stand up to your barrel and the age. Um, aging the beer in a barrel over time will really thin the beer out and the hops will fade a little bit.
Um, so I think you really need a bigger mouth feel and some bitterness to stand up to a. Do they age into the whiskey? I’m using Greenville’s with a larger percentage of oats. A larger percentage of adjuncts is a great way to start and kind of achieve that. Um, here’s an example. Greenville for a roughly 13% ABV Imperial stout.
That’s built for sitting in a barrel or sitting in glass until it’s ready to be Oaked for about six. Once or more. Uh, it’s a really big bodied, smooth chocolate layered stout with enough roast and coffee kind of flavors to still be considered a stout. Um, use these grain percentages. I’m using these grain percentages.
You want to create a starting gravity of about 1.12 or 1.13. This should get you after fermentation is completed somewhere around the 12 or 13 and a half percent alcohol range that you want, maybe a little higher. Um, it really depends on the yeast strain. But, uh, the whiskey in the barrel or the Oak, uh, Oak alternative should really end up bumping this into the 13 to 15% ABV range for your final product.
Um, so base recipe, I’m just gonna use percentages for you. You’re gonna have to plug it in for your own system, but, um, 50% to row. You know, any American brand will work for two row. Um, this just gives you a clean fermentable base. Um, I’ve used golden promise. I’ve used Maris Otter PERT. Some brewers say that Maris Otter has a little fruity flavor over time, but, um, as it ages, I’m not sure I’ve picked up that subtlety, but I’ve also not used Maris solder in a massive stout enough times to really say, so, um, golden promise would work, but honestly, Touro is perfectly fine.
So 50% to, or we’re going to go with, um, 15% light Munich malt. Wiremen is my favorite, but you can really use anything here as long as it can be converted. So don’t use a super dark Munich malt because it might not convert. And then you’ll have a little more adjunct malts than you’d want here. So 50% to row, 50% light Munich malt, 50% to a 15% light Munich malt, 15% flaked oats.
This is for that luscious, smooth, creamy mouthfeel. Um. 5% medium crystal. Uh, I like the English ones, Simpsons I have a bag of right now, but, uh, anything, anything we’ll do there. Any sort of crystal, medium, crystal, you know, 40, 50, 60 L should work fine. Um, 5% of your favorite chocolate malt or chocolate malts here.
Um, so you could do 3% of one, 2% of another, 5% of one, whatever, just 5% total in this recipe. Um, these can vary a ton. Back to taste test them. Luckily, I have a home brew shop that allows me to taste the different malts, and they usually have six or eight chocolate malts in stock. So, you know, do some tasting of the malts and see what flavors you like.
Or if you don’t have the ability to taste, um, do some reading on the, uh, notes of each one, tasting notes from people. There’s a lot of tasting notes out there on different malls. Chocolate rye is great here too. Go right ahead if you want. Uh, I love chocolate rye. So, um, the 5% of your favorite chocolate mall or malts, 4% of, for to craft the, to however you want to say it.
Uh, this should add some more chocolate notes and depth to the beer. 4% roasted barley. Personally use the English ones usually, but. Anything that you like or have access to is perfectly fine. And then 2% black patent malts, any type as you go for the darkest ones, just to keep the stout looking as dark as possible.
Um, but again, 2% black patent malt, that should round you up to a 100% base mall. Um, and that’s a really good solid mall that I think it stand up to a lot of barrel aging. Um, I would mash in one 50, one 55, um, as far as hops go. You probably won’t use 45 to 55 IB use of a fairly neutral hop at 60 minutes in the boil.
Um, I like Magnum a lot. My friend Nathan grows him in his backyard, so we have access to him a lot of times, um, or we’ll buy them. Um, Magnum is super clean and high, high alpha acids. Um, we’ve had great success with Columbus and even will Anna as well. Um, you know, there’s the hops that are going to do a good job bettering and they’re gonna go well with the flavors of the stout.
Um. Without detracting too much, you know, you don’t want to throw like, you know, 50 IBS of citrus in there, that those fruity flavors are gonna really take away from what you’re going for, for the most part. Um, and then I would take one of those three hops or something like cat Goldens. Even a 10 IBU is worth at 15 minutes.
Um, you know, it gives a little, little extra bitterness and maybe a little flavor, a little, little, little bit extra. That addition is not that important. You can always go 50 to 60 to 70 IB use and the better. And if you want. It’s up to you. Um, I would for met with USO five. Usually. It just pitched like a shit load of us.
So five, um, I use the brewers friend calculator online free calculator. I like, I’ve had great success using it. Um, I set it for high gravity and dry yeast and honestly, you end up using like four packets of dry USO, five in a five gallon batch. If you’re using American ale, Kylie ale, um, make a huge starter and use the brewers friend to calculate that.
Trust me, it’s going to make your fermentations a lot cleaner and will completely ferment all the sugars you need there. You don’t want to stuck fermentation. You don’t want, um, really stressed East flavors. You want clean yeast to ferment out so that the, you know, all that dark, luscious malt can shine in the beer, especially with the barrel and the whiskey.
Um, if you do somehow get a stuck fermentation. Or you want to do something higher than like 13 and a half percent ABV. Um, he’s a massive starter of w L P zero nine nine. That’s the super high gravity East and you can pitch that. Um, another great way that I like to do sometimes as you make a baby beer, well maybe as in like four to 7% alcohol, normal, a normal strength of beer, um, with your yeast, USO, Fiverr, WIPs zero nine, nine or something like that.
Um, and then you just pitch your , you make your table beer. 10 days, and when it’s done for many, and you pitch your big ass beer directly onto that yeast cake, um, and then you get a ton of fresh cells, um, second generation. It’s a great way to do it. A ferment at 65, 66 degrees, internal fermentation temperature.
So. That should be the inside of the beers temperature while you’re fermenting. So your fridge might need to get into the fifties to do that. You don’t want these things for many in this mid to upper seventies, you’re going to get a lot more of that fruity estery flavor from the yeast, and you don’t want that.
Um, again, it detracts from the stout tasting, like a clean chocolate roasted. You know, all those flavors get attracted from and muddled when you have a lot of fruit. Um. From the East. Um, so I’d keep it at 65, 66 for, I dunno, four to seven days until it’s the fermentation’s died down. It’s less vigorous, vigorous, and then raise it up to 68 degrees for a few more weeks.
You know, from when I pitched my yeast to when I rack it off, four to five weeks is usually fine. I know a lot of the old texts says two weeks, and you got throw it in the secondary. It’s not true. You’re not going to get a bunch of nasty East flavors, auto Silas and stuff. You’re not gonna get that stuff.
If you leave your beer in the primary for four or five weeks, um, you could get by with three weeks and these big beers, if you check your gravity and confirm it’s finished, but honestly, four or five weeks should be plenty of time. Um, and then a racket off. I rack it into glass and then I’ll hold it until it’s ready to go in the barrel.
Or until I want to add whiskey soaked Oak chips or spirals or whatever. Um, I often do cold crush the beer before I rack it. So if I ferment it for four or five weeks in the primary than cold crash, it just to get anything extra that’s floating, kind of cleaned up there and then racket into that glass.
Um, and then it’s ready for the, uh, the barrel or the, uh, the Oak alternative. Um, so if anyone makes that beer, I have a dispute before or something very similar. And I’ve also left a few things, uh, to your, uh. You know, I’d love to a few things for you to choose in this, in this recipe. Um, but if anyone makes it, I’m curious to see your results and what you did or didn’t like about it.
Uh, but I think that’s a good, good base beer for you to start. If you want to make a sort of big thick, uh. Russian Imperial stout that can really stand up well to a extended barrel beer barrel, uh, flavor. Um, anyways, good luck. Uh, if you have any questions, um, especially if you’re a Patriot, I’m happy to answer any of the questions in the, uh, the Patrion Coulter’s Patrion, uh, area.
Cheers.
Colter Wilson: I’d like to think, Ryan, for taking the time to come on this week’s show. I know he took a lot of time out of his day to kind of help me record all of this, and it was really, really appreciated. I also love the plug for becoming a patron at the end there. We do have a cool discord server, and if you want to head over there and ask Brian any questions or me, uh, feel free.
Other than that, that’s it for this week and we’ll see you next week on Homebrewing DIY.
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