Strong Sulfur in Barrels

[porter]

Hey all, I started a barrel aged sour program at our pub in November 2010 with 10 freshly dumped wine barrels.
There was a lag between pickup and filling, so I burned sulphur sticks in half of them. They were hot rinsed right before filling.

Now at almost 5 months in, there is still a ton of residual sulphur aroma when I pull out the bung to have a look and smell (along with a beautiful pellicle).
There is a slight sulphury aroma and taste in the samples pulled from the bottom of the barrel as well.

Will this fade away or will I have to scrub it out? I was planning on moving them to stainless when blending and then force carbonating or maybe bottle conditioning. Anyone have experience sulphuring barrels?

Thanks

[kyle.carbaugh]

- Curious -

Out of curiousity, are you planning on blending at packaging? Are the sulfur notes noticeable enough that you're anticipating they'll still be prevalent post-blend?

Not a whole lot of experience to lend, just curious...

[Guest]

We had this issue a while back. The real sulfur for us showed up in the bottled product, and got pretty intense for a few months; but it did fade, and the beer is now quite delicious.
I think our sulfur was coming more from the funky fermentation than the barrel/cleaning itself. I spoke with Frank Boon last year, while tasting his gueuze; which was quite sulfury. He said it was still young, and would fade soon enough; and for the time being to just let it breath in the glass for a few minutes. He mentioned that brett can throw quite a bit of sulfur, but again, it does fade with time.
I've also read that if you are burning sulfur sticks, you want to make sure you don't get any of the stick wet in the barrel, as this can lead to a pretty intense egginess.
Good luck,
Gerard

[Ted R.]

sulfur

In my experience, brettanomyces will generate some sulfur. It will dissipate.

[porter]

When I burned the sulfur sticks, it was in a holder and the stick itself did not stay in the barrel or get wet when I rinsed.

I guess the sulfur put out by Brett combined with the residual from the sticks just seems intense at this point.

brewninja- was your bottled product bottle conditioned? If so, how did you calculate your sugar additions? What F.G. did you assume?
I have used the terminal gravity after aging (about 1.009) and then found that the sugar addition restarted the brett and it went past the assumed terminal gravity and over carbonated.

I'll wait and see if the sulfur dissipates. Thanks!

[Guest]

"How did we measure our sugar additions?"
Not very scientific, but we figure a pint glass of table sugar carbonates a half bbl right about where we like our saisons and pretty highly carbonated stuff. We sort of work backwards from there depending on how much we actually yield out of the barrels.
Never really take a terminal reading, but I assume it's pretty low. Our beers are typically around 1.5plato going into some funky barrels where they'll spend a few months to a year.

We will occasionally have gushers, but I attribute it as much to user error as anything else, and I ain't afraid of a little gush in a rustic barrel aged funky beer.