Barrel Aging Saison

[CaptainEBC]

We're looking into aging some of our saison in a wine barrel. I've contacted a couple of wineries for barrels and it looks like I can get a Cabernet barrel that's been filled for 10 years.

Theres obviously not enough wood character to use it again for wine, but will this work for a Saison? How much flavor will be derived from the wine?

Any other info would be great. This is our first barrel beer.

[william.heinric]

Cab Barrels

When aging beers in wood, I always look at the variables that I am changing in order to predict possible outcomes versus objectives. With barrels in particular, there are 4 main variables that I look at (I'm sure there are more, but I think that these are the big ones):

1. Wood flavor
2. Previous fill flavor
3. Microbial action
4. Wood action (i.e. oxygen ingress, carbon filtration in charred barrels, etc.)

Many of these are dependent on the state of the barrel, and can only be judged roughly by inspection of the barrel and the product that came out of it.

If you have any information on the barrel, the wine, or the saison, I'd like to hear it. Maybe we could give some ideas as to the direction the aging would take.

Bill

[CaptainEBC]

All I know about the barrel is that it contained Syrah (I said Cab earlier, but was mistaken). I'm not sure about the wood type.

They were cleaned with a high pressure barrel cleaner and ozoned then SO2 gassed.

We're not doing anything crazy with the saison in terms of bacteria etc., so we're only looking for some wine and possibly some wood influence.

Thanks for the response,

Cheers!

[farmbrewernw]

I have aged beers in wine barrels (specifically Merlot barrels) and yes you will get a lot of wine character, as well as color if you are using a red wine barrel. Course this is all dependent on how long you age as well, if it's a month your going to get a lot less character than if you do 6 months or more. One thing to keep in mind is that the possibility for infection by an unwanted organism such as brett or lacto can be pretty high. I had one of the two russian imperial stout barrels that I did last time go sour. Next time I do a wine barrel aged beer I'll probably make sure I have the barrels steamed, ozone and SO2 only do so much.