Exploring Oak Aging Alternatives Part 2: Cost

This second part in the series attempts to compare the cost for different oak aging alternatives as well as providing some resources that can be used by the homebrewer and pro brewer. I want to clarify that this is only covering cost. As a person that cares about the product they produce, cost is always evaluated separately from quality. This was more put together as a good reference to know general price points for the different alternative oak aging options.


 Cost matters (size doesn't, well not totally true wait till part 4 of the series). The table below was created based on recommendations from the manufacturer as to how much of their product is needed to be equivalent to a "new barrel". "New Barrel" refers to how much oak flavor you will get if your wine (or beer) was placed in a freshly toasted ~60 gal oak barrel. This quantity is likely too much for almost every beer style and is geared toward oak forward wine styles. The typical amounts to use in different beers styles will be discussed in Part 4: Extraction and Use.

Oak Cubes	Qty for "New Barrel" Flavor	Cost $/lb*	$/"New Barrel"	Vendor
American Oak Med +	24 oz	$20.00	$30.00	MoreWine
Hungarian Oak Med +	24 oz	$25.00	$37.50	MoreWine
French Oak Med +	24 oz	$33.00	$49.50	MoreWine
Amer. Oak med +	24 oz	$6.50	$9.75	Oak Chips, Inc **
Fren. Oak med +	24 oz	$8.50	$12.75	Oak Chips, Inc **
Oak Spirals	Qty for "New Barrel" Flavor	Cost $	$/"New Barrel"	Vendor
American Oak Med +	6 pack-1.5"x 9"	$50.00	$50.00	The Barrel Mill
French Oak Med +	6 pack-1.5"x 9"	$79.00	$79.00	The Barrel Mill
Oak Chips	Qty for "New Barrel" Flavor	Cost $/lb	$/"New Barrel"	Vendor
American Oak Med +	24 oz	$6.00	$9.00	MoreWine
French Oak Med +	24 oz	$9.00	$13.50	MoreWine
Honeycombs	Qty for "New Barrel" Flavor	Cost $	$/"New Barrel"	Vendor
Multiple Wood Types	Barrel Pack	$55.00	$55.00	Black Swan Cooperage
Staves Segments	Qty for "New Barrel" Flavor	Cost $	$/"New Barrel"	Vendor
French Oak Med +	96 oz	$20.00	$120.00	MoreWine
Staves	Qty for "New Barrel" Flavor	Cost $	$/"New Barrel"	Vendor
American Oak Med +	Barrel Replica	$99.00	$99.00	MoreWine
French Oak Med +	Barrel Replica	$124.00	$124.00	MoreWine
*Shipping not included
** Pricing may vary, must request

As I transitioned over the last year into the commercial brewing side one of my main duties was to source the equipment and supplies for our barrel program at Council Brewing. I soon realized that it was not quite as user friendly as ordering homebrew supplies. I first started looking for used wine and spirit barrels by checking the wine business used barrel classifieds. This was a good start and I still use it, but it is mostly geared toward medium to large producers. (If possible, the ideal situation is to find a local wine or spirit producer to partner with). However, several of the barrel brokers would post as well. I decided to compile their company names and list what they generally offer. This should at least help people get started and find a few contacts.

If you have any questions or any reference information for me to add please leave a comment.

Barrel Program Resources Barrel Brokers Company Website Racks Spirit Barrels Wine Barrels Country Connection countryconnection.biz     X           X Quality Wine Barrels  qualitywinebarrels.com     X           X            X Barrels Unlimited, Inc barrelsunlimited.com           X            X The Barrel Broker barrelbroker.com/barrelsracks.php     X           X           X Griffin Barrel bourbonbarrel at yahoo.com           X Rocky Mountain Cooperage rockymountainbarrelcompany.com/brewers           X           X Kelvin Cooperage kelvincooperage.com           X Barrel Builders barrelbuilders.com           X 5 Star Barrels fivestarbarrels.com           X Bungs Alasco Rubber & Plastics Corp. alasco.com Dalco Duall Complete Bungs Oak Alternatives Oak Chips, Inc. (OCI) oakchipsinc.com Oak Cubes, Segments, Chips, Staves Barrel Mill thebarrelmill.com Oak Barrels, Spirals Oak Infusion Spiral infusionspiral.com Oak Spirals Black Swan Cooperage blackswanbarrels.com Multiple Wood Honeycombs, Barrel

Exploring Oak Aging Alternatives Part 1: Background

I really enjoy oak aged and oak fermented beers. It might have something to do with my first real craft beer being a Firestone DBA. For the styles I enjoy the most (Farmhouse and sour styles), I find as an almost absolute rule that the beer is always better with some oak added. Oak adds a lot more than just flavor to beers and often adds what Brett and bacteria take away. With a caveat that you should use the proper amount and match the flavors correctly. I think of oak flavors as Belgian brewers often refer to spice additions, "The use of spices should enhance flavor notes already present, but if you can tell which spice has been used then you have added too much."

For our barrel program at Council Brewing, I wanted to decide how I was going to integrate oak into our batches. We are using almost exclusively neutral barrels, at least oak neutral, most of them still have some wine or spirit flavor remaining. This brought me to the point where I need to look at oak alternatives. I thought it would be a good idea to compile some of the work I've done lately for Council Brewing to really firm up some of my ideas on oak aging. As far as flavor, I've always had some good general ideas on what type of oak would work well in beers (i.e. med + or heavy toast American oak in clean, dark malt-forward beers and med or med + French oak in lighter, clean or funky yeast-forward beers), but I'll be writing in much more detail about specific flavors and profiles I think they match. For cost, ease of use and extraction rate, I've always used oak cubes, but have recently been exploring other options. It seemed the best idea to split this topic into 4 segments and explore each aspect in its own depth.

Exploring Oak Aging Alternatives Part 1: Background

Exploring Oak Aging Alternatives Part 2: Cost

Exploring Oak Aging Alternatives Part 3: Flavors

Exploring Oak Aging Alternatives Part 4: Extraction and Use

There is surprisingly little (useful) information available on the web (way too much generic wine speak). I have gathered together a few resources that are well put together and should give you a good basic understanding.

All About Oak and Red Wine - Written by Shea Comfort
Thee best overview on the basic components in oak and how they vary due to species (French, Hungarian and American), toast level (light, med, med +, heavy) and form (chips, cubes, segments, staves).

Firestone Walker Barrelworks Educational Posters
Covers most of  the same things as the Shea Comfort article, but is more graphic based and easier to understand based on your learning style. Even worthy of printing and hanging in your brew space.
Stage 1: The Oak
Stage 2: The Barrel
Stage 3: The Taste

It's good to be back writing again and the next part in this series should be posted in the coming weeks.

Barrel Filling Brew Day at Council Brewing

Curtis in front of the brew system and filling the
red wine barrels with Flanders Red

With the announcement of the Council Brewing Barrel Program, this post will be the start of transitioning from my homebrew adventures into the semi-pro. I will do my best to keep writing about upcoming batches, which we already have about 8 in the pipeline. I'll be sharing recipes and our techniques (oak aging, new yeast combos (like wine + Brett), blending and diversifying batches.




A couple months ago, I took a "day off" work to do a double brew day and fill 4 wine barrels. The goal was to fill 2 Gewurztraminer barrels with our standard Saison base and 2 red wine blends with a Flanders Red. We expecting the Saison to be ready in the heat of the summer and the Flanders will probably be our 1st Anniversary beer.





The morning started off with filling the mash-tun. Since we have a relatively small brew system it made sense to use an on demand hot water heater instead of a dedicated hot liquor tank. The on demand hot water heater has a few settings that we can control to hit the correct strike water temps. As with any new system it took a little time to figure out the amount of heat lost to the mash tun, but once up to temperature the thermal mass of the tun/grain keeps the temperature very consistent (one advantage of a larger system). As we mashed in we also added lactic acid to drop the pH down into the 5.2 range. (since this batch we have switched to phosphoric acid for better economy. I prefer to aim for the lower pH range for Saisons as I feel this gives the beer a more "crisp" and refreshing flavor. Along with a very dry finishing gravity the low pH helps to make this beer disappear off your palate quickly.)

Recirculating the Saison mash through the grant

Sparge arm in the 3BBL mash tun at Council Brewing

After hitting the pH (another note on adjusting with acid is that its good to add incrementally as once the buffering capacity is reached the pH will drop quickly) and a mash temp we let the beer rest. The next step is slightly different than most homebrew setups in that we use a grant. The grant helps to ensure you are not pulling on the grain bed with the pump, plus in our case it also whirlpools the wort to help with any particulate that comes through the mash. Once re-circulation is complete, we attach the sparge arm and then pump directly into the kettle.

Transferring wort from the mash tub into the direct fire boil kettle

The kettle's capacity is around 130 gals so its has plenty of room to boil for a full 3BBLS (~93). We usually knock-out with ~100 gals and for the barrel brew days we aim a bit higher. This 3 BBL kettle is also about the biggest practical size that can be direct fired without a custom burner system. Any larger and it would make sense to go to a steam fired kettle, but that involves more capital. The boiling process is just like a homebrew setup until we are done and pump into the whirlpool tank.

Whirlpool Vessel being filled at Council Brewing

We will whirlpool until all the wort is transferred and longer if hops are added for flavoring. The wort still remains fairly hot up near the 200 F range, so you are still extracting IBUs. Once the whirlpool is complete we will pump through a plate chiller (this gets the wort down to about 100 F) and then a copper coil in an ice bath which we can control the flow rate to get us to the appropriate pitching temperature. Coming out of the plate chiller we have an inline diffusion stone to aerate the wort during the transfer to the fermentor.

Curtis getting the ice bath and chiller ready
 for knock-out into the barrels

For these barrel batches and most of our future barrel batches, we will be doing the primary fermentation in the barrel. This is done to save fermentor space (especially since we are adding bacteria and Brett in primary) and barrel fermentation is also reported to help build structure (at least with wine). A 3BBL(~93 gal) system works almost perfectly for filling 2 wine barrels (57 gal). Since we can yield about 100 - 110 gals of wort and fill the barrels with about 50 gals and reserve 2 - 5 gal carboys to top up after primary fermentation calms down. This amount of headspace worked well to prevent any beer loss and we do also add some Ferm Cap to hedge our bet. We fit stoppers and blow-off tubes for the most violent fermentation and then switch to breathable bungs for the extended aging process. The beers will remain on the yeast cake for this entire lifetime, which will make beer that is more Brett forward as the dead Sacc yeast makes a good carbon source for the Brett. If we find that some beers/styles are too Brett forward then we may switch to doing primary in a conical before transferring to the barrels.

Me up on the ladder watching the fill level on each barrel

For tracking each barrel's progress we have added sleeves with tracking notes about the beer. We have installed "Vinnie nails" to all our barrels, which involves buying the following from McMaster Carr ( I looked locally and couldn't find anything):

1" 4d smooth common nail – 316 stainless steel McMaster Carr #97990A102
and/or
2” 6d smooth common nail - 316 stainless steel McMaster Carr #97990A104

Adding Saison yeast to the
Gewurztraminer barrels

We added our nails after the barrels were filled. Curtis used an old carpenter trick and used the SS nail with the head torn off as a drill bit (or you could use a 7/64 drill bit) . It worked easily and was actually much less exciting than either of us were expecting. The barrels will actually swell quite quickly, which caused us to drill a few times till the beer poured out nicely.



Hopefully that provided a semi detailed look into filling barrels on the nanobrewery level. Future posts will focus more on new lessons learned and more details on each batch. If you have questions please feel to ask in the comments or let me know if you want to check it out in person.

My little one having fun with the sign at Council Brewing

Barrel Pilot Batches: 100% Brett Beer Trials

It has taken some time for the group to decide on what to make for the second fill of our Chardonnay barrel. After we emptied the American Saison we noticed there was still plenty of oak and Chardonnay flavor remaining so the next batch will need to go well with those flavors. We are planning to eventually do a pale colored sour in the barrel, but if there is too much wine character still remaining it might over power the beer with the long contact time needed for souring. We thought a hoppy 100% brett beer would work well and really doesn't need much time in the barrel. The only issue is that none of us have that much experience with the style to jump right into a 60 gal batch. Therefore,Steven (the barrel babysitter) and I have been working on a couple pilot batches.

The first batch we wanted to build up and test that new strain of Brett Custersianus (Yes, Custer's anus) sent to me by Don at Small Place Big Brews. Steven had already planned to brew a Belgian Wit beer and both of us thought the description of ECY019 Brett Custersianus sounded like it would work well. So here is the recipe for that beer:


Recipe: Belgian Wit

Batch Size 12.0 gal         O.G.-1.057       F.G.-TBD
IBU-18.6                          SRM-5.4         ABV-TBD

Grain Bill (77% Efficiency):
11 lb Pilsner Malt (52%)
6.6 lb Raw White Summer Wheat (31%)
1.65 lb CaraRed (8%)
.9 lb Acid Malt (4%)
.9 lb Flaked Wheat (4%)

Hops:
.55 oz Pacific Jade, 14.2%, pellet, 60 min 16 IBU
.3 oz Pacific Jade, 14.2%, pellet, 15 min 2 IBU
.3 oz Pacific Jade, 14.2%, pellet, 10 min

Spices:
10 g Coriander Seed
.5 lb Crushed Kumquat
1 g Black Pepper

Yeast:
WLP400 Belgian Wit Ale - 5 gal
ECY019 Brett Custersianus - 5 gal

Mash/Boil Details:
Protein Rest. Temp/Time: 122F @ 30min
Sacc Rest. Temp/Time: 148F @ 75min
Boil Time: 90min

So that plan didn't work too well, the gravity didn't move and no change in taste for a week  We think we tried to step it up to 5 gals too quickly and didn't have enough yeast (This is a time when the brew day was planned before the beer). Thankfully Steven is an extremely clean brewer and nothing else started to ferment. At that point, we talked and decide to add some wine yeast. I've wanted to experiment with wine yeasts in beer (some good info here and here) and this seemed a good time. The wine yeast kicked in and fermented to 1.020 (it is incapable of fermenting maltotriose), so we are hoping the Brett will kick in (per Steven's last check it seems so). This might be an interesting beer that will need some time to finish out. Not sure how this will turn out, so we decided to start another batch.

We decided to go with the Brett Drie strain since I have a good amount of experience with it. The flavor profile we really want to hit with this beer is " intense juicy tropical fruit flavors in a well balanced, medium mouthfeel beer". We have picked out the malt bill to help with building body (Because Brett can't produce glycerol, which helps with mouthfeel). We also wanted some complex sugar (from CaraMunich) because in my experience that helps Brett Drie produce more fruit esters. We plan to mash a tad high at 153-154 to prevent the beer from drying out too much.

Next the hop bill, we want to hop burst this for max flavor and aroma with just enough IBUs to help balance the beer. I'm thinking around 30, since Brett seems to accentuate bitterness and we will have some "perceived" bitterness with the flameout and dry-hopping. We are thinking of a blend of hops:

• Belma for its round tropical notes and it's cheap ($5/lb when it was available)
• Citra for the melon notes
• Nelson for the passion fruit (matches well with the esters from Brett Drie).

I found both Citra and Nelson in bulk, so we'll have plenty when we step it up to the barrel. I got them from Label Peelers, which also had some Amarillo and Mosaic so those will find themselves in some beer soon. I'm think of making a series of single hop pale ales to have on draft. I'm think they will be super short brew sessions with extract, a 15 min boil, and lots of late hops - my goal is to brew under an hour.

Recipe: Hoppy Brett Beer

Batch Size 5.0 gal         O.G.-1.065          F.G.-TBD
IBU-33                          SRM-7                ABV-TBD

Grain Bill (77% Efficiency):
2 Row Malt Grain 8.000 lb
Wheat, Flaked Grain 2.000 lb
Caramunich Malt Grain 8.000 oz 56 L
Oats, Flaked Grain 16.000 oz
Acid Malt Grain 6.000 oz

Hops
2 oz Belma 9.8% -15 min 23 IBUS
1 oz Nelson Sauvin 12.5% - 5.000 min 10.2 IBUs

Whirlpool
0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin 12.5%
0.5 oz Belma 9.8%
0.5 oz Citra 12.0%

Dry Hop
0.5 oz Nelson Sauvin 12.5%
0.5 oz Belma 9.8%
0.5 oz Citra 12.0%

Yeast:
Drie Brett

Mash/Boil Details:
Sacc. Rest 153 F

As we I'm writing this, we just decided to make this a 10 gal batch and try the Alchemist's Heady Topper, Conan yeast that Derek at Bear Flavored Ales sent me recently.

I'll post tasting notes of the two pilot batches soon.

Homebrew Tasting: Chardonnay Barrel American Saison

Part 1: Brew-Day
Part 2: Bottling

Barrel Aging is worth it. This beer is easily one of the better homebrews I've had. I have done other oak aged beers, but this is the first barrel aged. It is hard to nail down exactly what is different. I think it just tastes more "finished". The flavor complexity is there, but it is subtle and makes the beer easy to enjoy. I ended up sharing a couple bottles with a wide audience of beer drinkers and it was universally liked. The hardcore beer drinkers could pick out the individual flavors (as discussed in detail in my tasting notes) while the novice drinkers thought it was "smooth" (a description I hate, but translates into the flavors meld together well).

My detailed review using the BJCP Score Sheet:

We are still deciding on the next brew for this barrel, but we are leaning toward a pale beer with lots of tropical hops and 100% Brett Custersianus fermented (thanks to Don at Small Place Big Brews).

Barrel Project: Bottling Chardonnay American Saison

It has come time to bottle our American Farmhouse Chardonnay Saison. We were expecting a pretty quick turn-around on this barrel for a few reasons:

1. This was a fresh Chardonnay barrel and we didn't want too much flavor extraction
2. A Saison with Brett does not need the extended timeline as true sour beers with bacteria. The Saison yeast is capable of fermenting a large portion of the sugars, which reduces the rick of the Brett over-carbing the beer once it's in the bottle. (This beer finished at 1.005)
3. We are going to cork and cage the beer - so high carbonation is just fine.

The difficult part about these projects is communication. Our group has used an email thread to organize who is bringing what and discuss ideas on the best way to accomplish the task. One thing that we learned from this process, is that with 6 people trying to communicate it is difficult to keep up with the all the information. With our group there ended up being confusion on how many bottles we needed and who was bringing bottles. So tips for next time:

•  Create a Google Doc or Forum so the ideas and tasks can be better organized
• Have 1 person get all the ingredients 
• Start getting the ingredients several weeks before the bottling session (we had a tough time finding appropriate Belgian beer corks locally and even online)

We decided to bottle half and to keg half of everyone's share. Below is a list of all the supplies we needed to bottle 1 - 60 gal barrel (55 gals of beer):

The other trick to this process is to get a good assembly line going. First, crack open a super nice bottle of beer like Lost Abbey Veritas 011 (thanks Chris - this also solidified me brewing a strong malty Brett beer aged with Cognac since trying Crooked Stave Sentience in Cognac)

Clean your bottles. Rinse with the faucet attachment and then the bottling tree is a huge time saver.

Get a couple people filling bottles (we used a bottling bucket and a beer gun from a keg).

Then the bottle is passed to the corker (it takes some adjusting at the beginning to get the correct insertion distance (TWSS)). Then put on the cage and give it 7 twists. (use a pencil or other round object to twist the wire)

We didn't quite get the full volume we were expecting. Mostly because we were a few gallons short when filling the barrel. In a last minute audible  Steven got some of his year old Berliner Weisse and we blended it half and half for the final 5 gals.

Expect to see a tasting of this beer shortly as I have heard from 2 of the guys that the beer is carbed and tasting fantastic. Also I have 5 gals in a keg I'm considering to mess around with, let me know if you have any ideas.

We are still working on the next beer to fill the barrel. There is still a lot of Chardonnay flavor left, so we are leaning towards a pale base and going full sour.

Tasting Session

Barrel Project: American Farmhouse Chardonnay Saison

I finally got to brew some funky beer in a barrel. This has been a goal of mine for quite some time. In my limited experience tasting sour beers, the beers that come from barrels seem to have a better complexity and blending of flavors. (And they also have much higher chances of failing.) The other reason I've been excited to brew in a barrel is because of the idea of collaborative brewing in a group.

This whole project started when a fellow QUAFF member (Steven) sent out an announcement:

I just picked up a Chardonnay barrel (French Oak) from Caruth Cellars in Solana Beach, and was wondering if anyone from the group would like to join me in filling it up. I’m wanting to make a Saison using the WLP 670 american farmhouse...

I instantly jumped at the opportunity and so did 4 other brewers for a total of 6 brewers. We end up having 3 brewing 12 gals, 2 brewing 10 gals and 1 brewing 6 gals - totaling 62 gals. This number is just about perfect for brewing in a 59 gal wine barrel.










Steven wanted to do primary fermentation in the barrel. I thought this was a fun idea and would make the organizing a bit easier. I contacted a few people with experience - Sam Tierney (intothebrew) who fills the barrels in Firestone's Union System and Levi (Funk Factory) who has done primary fermentation of a lambic in a barrel - they both concurred to leave about 10 gals of headspace in the barrel. So that was our plan, 50 gals in the barrel and 12 gals in carboys that can be added once fermentation calms down in the barrel. We also all found a day that we could brew at the same time and fill the barrel straight from each of our brew kettles.





The next big task was recipe generation. Steven did a good job by starting us all with a solid Saison recipe that was based on Jamil's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles. After about 20 emails, the group we had tweaked the recipe with everyone's comments.










After another 20 emails, we figured out who was going to pick up what supplies and bring them to the group brew day. We were able to get the base malt in bulk and also the hops, which really helps to reduce cost. The next mission was getting enough yeast to ferment 60 gals. According to Mr.Malty, we would need 24 vials or 8 vials with a 36 liter starter (~10 gals). The first plan was for all of us to make a 2 liter starter with 2 vials.








Then one of the group members, Chris, came up with the idea to ask White Labs for a 2 BBL (63 gal) pitch of WLP670. White Labs had the yeast ready in about a week and Chris picked it up the day before our brew session. Just as an FYI, this 2 BBL pitch cost us $150 ( I don't think we got a QUAFF discount). It makes me wonder how much big breweries pay and I guess it makes sense that they re-use the yeast so often. For our next barrel, I'm going to recommend that one of the members brews a 10 gal batch and then we use the yeast cake for the barrel.

Recipe: American Farmhouse Chardonnay Saison

Batch Size 60.0 gal        O.G.-1.055           F.G.-TBD
IBU-25                             SRM-4.5               ABV-TBD

Grain Bill (77% Efficiency):

100 lb Pilsner Malt (85%)

7.5 lb Munich (6%)

7.5 lb Wheat Wheat Malt (6%)

3 lb Acid Malt (3%)

Hops:

6 oz Premiant, 11%, pellet, 90 min 25.6 IBU

6 oz Pacific Jade, 14%, pellet, Whirlpool
6 oz Pacific Jade, 14%, pellet,  Optional Dry-hop

Yeast:
White Labs American Farmhouse Blend - WLP670

Brew Day:
Brewed: 7/29/12

Water:
50/50 Blend of San Diego tap water and Distilled

Mash Details:
H2O/Grain Ratio: 1.25 qt/lb
Sacc Rest. Temp/Time: 148F @ 60min
Sparge Temp/Time: 170F

Boil Details:
Boil Time: 90min

Ferment Details:
Ferment Temp: Encinitas Garage Ambient




The Brew Day was about as much fun as I've ever had brewing. It was a long brew day starting around 9 and ending close to 6. Most of that time was spent sharing beers and other beer geeking activities.

Here are a few lessons we learned on our first Barrel Project:

• Give yourself plenty of time to plan - with our group of 6 brewers it took about 4 weeks and 40+ emails to get everything arranged.
• Bring a corded drill - we lost over an hour on brew day because the cordless drill can't mill that much grain on a single charge.
• American Malt comes in 50 lb bags instead of 55 lb - we were dangerously close to not having enough malt.
• Keep your group as small as possible - even with 6 people communication starts becoming more difficult.
• Work out the financials and brewing calculations before brew day - homebrew and math don't mix well.

We are predicting about 3 months in the barrel. Then corking a case of 750s and a 5 gal corny for each person.

And since the barrel now has Brett in it, I think the next batch will have to go total funky with something like Russian River Temptation.

Update 08.10.12
The fermentation has been steady going this whole month and the 2 - 5 gal carboys have been added to the barrel. We will also top up the barrel with about 3 gals of boiled water with 2 lbs of sugar added to help with producing CO2 in the headspace, reducing the amount of headspace and the simple sugar should dry the beer out a tad more.

The gravity is down to 1.010 and since it is still fermenting plus will age for a few month with the Brett I imagine this will drop down a few more points.




This is the comment on the taste so far, "I must say this tastes absolutely amazing right now!! It has a nice fruity taste from the chardonnay. Let the funk begin."

Part 2 - Bottling
Part 3 - Tasting