Using Oak Barrels in Cidermaking - What do you want to know?
Ryan Monkman of FieldBird Cider based in Prince Edward County, Ontario Canada presented an extended seminar on Oak Barrels at CiderCon 2019 in Chicago.
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Ryan Monkman - FieldBird Cider in cellar[/caption]
The workshop description:
It's like a Choose-Your-Own Adventure book...but with booze. A dozen mini-talks on oak. The crowd decides what to cover and what to scrap. We'll open with an introduction on barrels then throw it to the horde. A vote at the end of each mini-talk will determine what we explore next. We'll finish when the clock stops - leaving time for Q&A.
During the presentation Ryan had 4 ciders to taste that he with different degrees of oak applied ~ Some in barrels, some with oak chips with different levels of toasting.
Ryan has already been on 2 episodes of Cider Chat
Topics Covered:
- Do you lose the oak overtures in carbonated cider?
- How is the barrel made and why it matters?
- And how does the barrel's design and wood used affect the cider
- Topping up your barrel with lees and cider
- What to do with the lees.
- Ryan keeps the yeast lees around.
- He uses less as part of the top up of the barrel
- You can also top it off with gas.
"Stirring is my favorite part"
- Use whatever you can to keep the lees back into suspension
- To stir or not to stir?
- Not everyone does stir.
- Lees are reductive and can reduce fruit aroma in a cider
- Does Ryan exclusively use French oak barrels. - No
- He has one American Barrel (named "Ria" and filled with Perry!! and plans on getting more American barrels and also a Canadian barrels too.
- How often to stir barrels
- Ryan stirs 2x/day during initial fermentation
- Then twice a week
- Long term twice a month or every two weeks to top off the barrel
- Ryan leaves the cider on lees until it is ready to bottle
- The toasting of a barrel impacts the toasting of the barrel.
- The lighter it is toasted the lighter the oak overtures.
- more toasted more flavor
"With oak you can build complexity!"
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FieldBird Cider "Buzzing Chatter" 2017[/caption]
- Using oak chips
- Question is - when do I want to use them?
- Which oak to use - not all oak is alike.
- What % of a French oak tree can be used to make barrels? 20%
- The remaining 80% of the tree is used to make railroad ties in France
- The oak planks are dried outside for 2-4 years
- Coopers can use a reed between pieces of wooden staves
- They use to use wheat flour - but no one use wheat flour anymore
- Because only 20% of the tree can be used is one of the reasons why French oak barrels are so expensive.
- Reconditioned barrels? Worth it?
- Different oak barrels
- Whiskey barrels are more loose grained
- Chardonnay barrels in CA are tighter
The main wood of choice is white oak
Main variety of French oak used is "Quercus robur" (Limousin oak) which has a high levels of tannin and low levels of flavor
- What do you want to say with your cider
What to do? Do a whole bunch of different things.
- Any barrel is better than no barrel
Bourbon barrels - coarse grain - heavy grain into the fire zone - aromatic but not a the structure side - to get vanillin note it requires time.
Wine barrel - tight grain - light to medium toast - french or European oak
Contact for FieldBird Cider
Website: https://fieldbirdcider.com/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fieldbird.cider/
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