Barrel Aging- How Many Times Can I Use One?

Last month I bottled my 09 Chardonnay. I had a small (15 gallon) french oak barrel on the side that I aged some of my topping wine in, blended into the final blend. It was used for Brandy once, then reconditioned (shaved) and re-toasted before I used it to age a Chardonnay for 10 months. I just threw an IPA into it, sat it for 10 days w/ dry hops. Booya.

Question: with wine you can use a barrel 3 times (3 years) if you're religious about barrel sanitation and burn sulfur 1x/month while storing. With beer, how many batches can I get out of the thing before all the oak tannin is extracted? This 15 gallon barrel is so perfectly conditioned for IPA that I'd like to keep her in the mix as long as possible.

Topic barrels homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

I can't really speak to non-sour brews, but that is a great question. As far as sour beer goes, there's a belgian brewery that will reuse barrels for 70-80 years. Pretty much until the structural integrity is too worn down by the acidic nature of the sour. They also don't pitch yeast, merely using what is left in the pores of the wood.

Do you know why you can only use a wine barrel 3 times? I realize that the "guess and check" method is dangerous, because that's a lot of beer to waste. But can you tell the difference batch to batch? If not, then just keep on keeping on until the barrel falls apart. If so, then maybe when one batch isn't quite oaky enough, that's the end of that barrel?

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