Wood Barrel Sours - Updates

Last weekend I found some time to transfer beer out of the wooden barrels into some plastic buckets to age with some fruit.  Here is a rundown of what happened.  This first batch of sours was a quick soured wort and then aged for 4 months with some Roeselare Yeast/Bugs.  Dregs from other bottles where added along the way all in an attempt to inoculate my barrel for future long-aged sours.

I collected 5 gallons from the barrel.  0.3 gallons must of been lost to the angels share or soaked up by the oak - or both.  Here is how I broke it all down.

1 Gallon - Straight
2 Gallons - On 2.5 lbs of tart cherries to create my version of a kriek
2 Gallons - On 2 lbs of Zante Currants.  Copying the idea of Consecration by Russian River

Another thing to know is that this is the same wooden barrel that stored one batch of Cab Sauv.

All three vessels got one last shot of Brett with White Labs Brett Trois and some more Lacto to hopefully add a bit more of a punch in the sour department.

If you go back and read some of my other quick sour experiments a lot of the times the beers seemed to be coming up a bit short in the complexity department.  This is why I decided to add the majority of the beer with fruit.  I hope this will create that next layer of depth it has been lacking - not to mention aging in a used wine barrel for 4 months vs a glass jug for 3 months.

I will let this age another month an begin to take gravity readings. I want to be at 1.008 or lower.  I was at 1.010 when i moved it over so hopefully the fruit and added Brett will stir up another round of fermentation and take it down a few more notches.  Once I read the desired level I will bottle with some red wine yeast and age for at least another month.


Meanwhile, after the barrel was emptied I transferred the batch that has been aging since the creation of my blog.  Back in November 2012 I created a batch of a Red Flanders ale and it has been aging ever since.  It is now taking some time in the barrel while it ages some more and picks up some of that oak flavor while hopefully getting hints of the Cab Sauv.  I will also add some more bottle dregs as I finish a few sours I have been saving for this sole purpose. 

I just added dregs from a Hill Farmstead Brewery Elaborative #1 bottle from last night.  I have a few sours from The Bruery that will also have the dregs saved and added to the barrel.

This beer was already down to 1.007 which is in the target range but I may let this sit for 3-4 more months and dose it with more Brett.  I will sample some in a month and see where it is at.

Next up - Angry Dwarf tasting...