Beer Forum

Anyone else fermenting in wood casks?

I bought 2-5 gallon wooden casks and just filled one with a Flanders Red. Next up is Lambic.

I would like to. Did you buy them brand new?

sheikyerbouti wrote:Anyone else fermenting in wood casks?

I bought 2-5 gallon wooden casks and just filled one with a Flanders Red. Next up is Lambic.

You are obviously made of money, and you probably live in a climate that wouldn't require you to top them off daily. You suck.


Mylo

The local HBS has an oak barrel that I think is around 6 gallons. It is brand new and still in the shrink wrap.

I was curious about how you would use a NEW barrel without getting excesive wood flavor. I was thinking you would do something like leave the beer in the barrel for a couple of months and then transfer to a glass carboy. Seems like you might have to cycle a few beers through the barrel to mellow it out a bit.

Do you have any pictures?

@mylo -blow me

I picked up 2 fugly casks from my LHBS. He had them filled with water to make sure they didn't leak. One had a bunch of wax to fill the leaking areas and the other some idiot decided to paint it yellow, then cover up their stupidity with fire engine red paint, so I've been scraping off their mistake. the other one was nice, dry wood.

I decided to use them because 1-they will let a small amount of o2 in for the various sour bugs, and 2- once I innoculate these barrels with the various bacteria, I can just refill and not have to pitch anything again if I fill them right away.

Weird f'n thing to douche them out though. When I picked them up, i emptied them at the store. One, just emptied plain water with no foul smells. The other smelled like rotten eggs and spit forth large balls of phlegm like shizat. A couple of chemicals and a sulphur candle, and they're clean enough to eat out of. Sort of.

Well, you do get points in my book for the FZ reference. However, you still suck.... and Bub and I hate you.


Mylo

Lol...I can live with that.

But like you said, its a PITA cause you have to top them off every week or so. The barrels can lose up 10-13 ounces of liquid due to evaporation every 7-10 days...ugh. We'll have to see if the extra effort is worth it. I'll split some batches and leave some in glass to see what the differences are. I also want to see how different pitching a single 'combo pack' of roselare or the lambic blend is compared to multiple inoculations. I have a friend who wins quite a few awards with his sour beers and he swears by the inoculations in addition to the blends.

And I thought brewing would be easy

Flanders Red...still putting out