Barrel aging of home-made Porter

Barrel aging of home-made Porter

if you want to do it, try to be original...

Recently, I have brewed a porter. After finishing primary fermentation, I have released that it turned out to be very good.

And then, I had an Idea.

Barrel Age it!

Brilliant idea, with one constrain. The only wooden barrel at home was the rain water tank outside. Wrong choice, unless you want to do lambic…

OK, barrel age it for the poor. 

Oak chips from the local beer maniacs supplier.

First: short boil in the water and dried in the oven. I am quite sure that they are rather sterile now. But they are boring...

If I can do it, everybody can do it.

Life is too short to drink boring beer…

And then I had the idea. Recently, a friend on mine have gave me this aromatic alcohol his uncle is preparing at home. It is self-made Grape Juice/ aguardente /sugar mixture. Fermented and bottled. Amazing stuff, smells with sherry and grapes. Rather sweet. Probably 20% alc. And they call it Abafado!

Yes, aguardente.

And yes, I have never heard the name before. Its as Portuguese as my friend. The name defines a type of strong alcoholic beverage that can be distilled from wine or pomace. You may have stumbled upon it, as it is used to fortify port wines sometimes.

I spend an hour trying to imagine the aromas and notes from adding this to the oak aromas. My mouth watered, like Niagara Falls…

Yep that’s it. So, half of the chips was kept as they were, half was soaked in the amazing thing for a week.

At the end I expect to have 3 beers – original porter, barrel aged and barrel aged in the amazing stuff barrels. Hope that they all kick ass.