Wine Barrels / Casks

[adryargument]

Spent the last 10 minutes searching the forum and no topics have come up.

I have a 100L Wine Barrel which is french oak sent up from somewhere down south (Yalumba?).
Its been sitting in the back gathering dust.

I currently have a 60 liter choc porter that was poured onto 500 grams of dark choc and 500g of cocoa, and i would like to stick this in the barrel and purge with CO2.

Assuming i first need to clean the barrel, i'm lost on ideas.

Will using cleaning solution infiltrate the inner wood layer? Provide off-flavours?
Should there be bacteria inside already?

Filling:
Do i need to fill in entirely?
Will it be safe with 60L only and purged?
The best way to bung it? Pound in the current bung? (Currently it has a cloth with the bung in the cloth.)
Do i keep the cloth for ease of removal?

Anyone have any tips / tricks to proceed?

Cheers.

Edit: stumbled upon the holy grail:
http://www.winebarrels.com/barrelcare.asp

1. Rinse the barrel and fill half way with cool water.
2. Dissolve Sod. Perc. in a container of warm (not hot) water (see table) and add to the barrel.
3. Fill the barrel with cool water and loosely bung.
4. Let stand for 24 hours, rinse several times and empty
5. Use a bit of citric acid in the last rinse to neutralize.
6. Add wine or prepare barrel for storage.

SOLUTIONS TABLE

Potassium Metabisulphite
2% solution 100 grams per 4L water or 16 tsp per Imperial Gallon
100 ppm Solution 6 grams per 23L water or 1 tsp per 5 Imperial Gallons

Sodium Percarbonate
Standard Cleaning Solution
2/3 – cup full 225L barrel
1/3 - cup full 100L barrel
cup full 46-50L barrel
1/8 – cup full 23 or 25L barrel

Citric Acid
3 cups full 225L barrel
1.5 cups full 100L barrel
2/3 cup full 46-50L barrel
1/3 cup full 23 or 25L barrel

 

[CONNOR BREWARE]

Are you worried that anything less than full will give you oxidation issues?

I know you said you would purge it with co2 but will it hold pressure and keep the o2 at bay?

Also when reading up on aeration I noticed a few wine makers contributing. I think one of the mods Kirem is a pro wino. Maybe they can give some good insight into the oak barrel.

Cheers
Ciro

 

[Phoney]

Personally I wouldn't be willing to risk 60L of beer on a potentially risky experiment like that, when you could buy several hundred grams of oak chips and achieve the same flavor.

 

[barls]

im more interested in the fact that you got the bung out.
stu and i couldnt get it out. ended up drilling the bung and splitting it. now has a rubber one in there.

 

[adryargument]

Are you worried that anything less than full will give you oxidation issues?

Beers already fermented, i'm thinking of purging with CO2 and then adding in a slight bulk prime to keep her gassed.

 

[adryargument]

im more interested in the fact that you got the bung out.
stu and i couldnt get it out. ended up drilling the bung and splitting it. now has a rubber one in there.

Have not tried yet, however my bung is inserted into a cloth, hoping i can simply pull the cloth out and the bung with it?

 

[drsmurto]

You need to fill the barrel.

60L in a 100L barrel is asking for a trip to funky town and not the good part.

Purging with CO2 daily, even hourly won't prevent oxidation or bacterial spoilage. Barrels 'breathe' - allow air in which is part of the maturation process of wine/port in barrel. The same will occur to your beer.

If/when i attempt to age beer in a barrel it will be a big beer that can handle some oxidation, RIS or barleywine >10% abv.

So if you only have 60L currently don't do it, brew another 40L plus some spare to top it up as it will evaporate slowly over time and the oak will absorb some.

 

[CONNOR BREWARE]

Last week I was reading a wine blog. The guys were topping up their oak casks with wine from corny kegs so they could further reduce oxidation. They used, I think, nitrogen as the gas.
I'll see if I can find it later and put the link in this thread.

Ciro

 

[adryargument]

Cheers guys, will soak it this weekend and look into making 100 liters of something dark and strong.

 

[Josh]

I haven't touched mine yet. But am interested in how you guys will use it.

I was thinking of brewing 118L of whatever I make. Filling a corny with the extra, so that I can top up regularly.

At this stage, thinking a barleywine, which should work well with the shiraz.