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→Using Barrels for fermentation and/or aging
in progress
'''Should you top off or not?''' Yes (Tilqiun, Rare Barrel) No (Rare Barrel<ref name='Jester King on the Sour Hour, pt.2'>[http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/the-sour-hour-episode-15/ Jester King on the Sour Hour part 2]</ref>(~7 minutes in), Jester King<ref name='Jester King on the Sour Hour, pt.2'/>(~7 minutes in), Crooked Stave, The Bruery)
'''How long should you leave a beer in a barrel?''' The aging time will depend on what sort of beer you are making, what your desired outcomes are, and the characteristics your barrel gives. Belgian lambic is aged in barrels upwards of 4 years with no ill effects. Other beers can go through a barrel primary fermentation or very short aging and be out of the barrel in weeks to months. The longer you age a beer in a barrel, the more barrel character you will extract (in terms of both flavor and tannin structure). This is probably of secondary importance to how much the barrel has been used/how neutral it is, so keep your individual barrel characteristics in mind when determining aging time. Generally, producers of mixed fermentation beers do not report noticing problems from autolysis in prolonged aging on yeast sediment <ref name='Jester King on the Sour Hour, pt.2'/>(~9 minutes in).