Solera

[Draconian Hand]

Anyone experimented with fermenting/aging your beer in a pseudo-solera fashion.

As I understand it, basically you brew your beer (let's say 10g) and put it in a barrel. You let it age for an extended period and at the end of that period you rack off a portion of the aged beer. You then add a new brew to the partially filled barrel and let the blended beer age as before. Repeat.

I am thinking of doing this with a Sanke keg with some oak staves inside. I would like to try this with a oak barrel, but they are a bit pricey (I already have the keg) and take some special care to maintain. Additionally, with an oak barrel, once it is innoculated with yeast and/or bacteria, then the barrel is kinda limited to what it produces. With a keg, if I decide I don't like my experiment, I pitch the oak staves and try something else.

Any thoughts?

[DannyW]

Hell ya, I think it's a great idea.

I have a keg in my closet that we started in 1/05 and have drawn from and added to maybe 4 times. It is about due for another addition - some Barleywine and some oaked robust porter this time. We've had great fun tasting every 6 months or so and then deciding what to add.

I wouldn't plan to keep the oak in there the whole time or it will likely get overwhelming.

[Draconian Hand]

Danny,

From your previous post, I assume that you remove the oak from your keg after a period. What do you do with the oak after it has been removed? Do you throw it away or clean it, dry it and reuse it later?

Solera is just for aging, correct? Not for fermenting?

Do you get any pressure build up during the aging period?

[DannyW]

I oak the porter in a separate keg from the Solera. When the oakiness is just right I will rack to a clean keg then throw away the staves.

I only put finished beer in the Solera. I keep it carbonated and thus under pressure, but it does not generate any additional pressure on its own.

[Draconian Hand]

Hmm,

Keeping it under pressure might be a problem, since I will be using a Sanke keg.

For oak, I was thinking of using the Stavin oak infusion tube (B3 has it) and their oak beans/chips. I figure with the chips I can easily adjust the oakiness and replace them when needed.

[Thirsty Boy]

I have all the plans drawn up for a traditional 3 level solera... just as soon as I move to a house with a decent sized garage.

need 3 x 30L barrles (or whatever size I suppose)

Brew a 30L batch, put it in the top barrel of your three level solera. age for 3 months.

Drain to middle barrel, brew another 30L for top barrel wait 3 months

Drain middle barrel to bottom barrel, drain top barrel to midle barrel, brew another 30L for top barrel.

Now all three barrels are full...wait three more months then brew a 15L batch.

Drain 15L of beer from bottom barrel (now 12months old) 15L cascades down from middle to bottom and top to middle, then the new 15L batch goes into the top.

Repeat the cascade and brew schedule every three months or so.

The beer gets on average progressively older and you can incrementally change the final product... but you have to be patient. After the initial wait, there is 15L of 1+year old beer to be tapped every three months.

You can manipulate the average age of the product coming out of the bottom barrrel by a combination of how often you inject new brew and by what proportion of the volume you drain/cascade. Crunch the numbers and you can work out how to stabilise the age at a certain level, and brew as often or as little as you want for it.

Its all a derivation of the way they make sherry.

But... it all has to wait till I get me a house and a shed... damnit