So with all this talk about fast turnaround on beers (nice article by the way Drew) It got me thinking. I have a 1.100 barley wine heading into it’s second week in primary. It is destined for a 20 litre rum barrel which is currently sitting in my spare shower. I have been soaking the outside of the barrel with water every couple of days in hope of preventing too much drying and was planning on going three weeks (given a finished beer in that time) before introducing the two. But now I wonder. Given that I did everything right with the BW (Except pure O2), Yeat nutrient, lots of shaking and a whole big, fresh eyast cake from a 5 gallon batch of bitter, can I get away with moving the beer to the barrel after two weeks (given a finished beer)?
And more importantly can I actually produce as good a beer as if I had left it for three weeks?
It appears to be more or less done fermenting, the krausen has dropped and the temp has dropped to ambient. Havn’t taken a gravity reading yet though.
Trying to balance letting the yeast have plenty of time and not ruining a really nice barrel with lack of filler.
on a side note do I need to be sure to have 20 litres in the 20 litre barrel or if there is only 17-19 will that be okay?
Thoughts?