Oak barrels? How would you clean?

[Nickrp83]

I have read on a few different sites that some people use oak barrels or old whicky barrels to ferment in. Sounds cool and sounds like it would give interesting flavor bit I have a question, how do you sterilize and clean in between batches? Aren't the barrels sealed with just a plug in the side? Just curious.

[dhempy]

I have read on a few different sites that some people use oak barrels or old whicky barrels to ferment in. Sounds cool and sounds like it would give interesting flavor bit I have a question, how do you sterilize and clean in between batches? Aren't the barrels sealed with just a plug in the side? Just curious.

Hopefully you'll hear from Patrick, Tyler, or perhaps one of the club members that participated in the club RIS project last year. The club RIS went into an oak barrel ... I wasn't there so I'm not sure what they did but certainly someone here will have the answer!

Dan

[maltbarley]

This is just my best guess, but when you use a distilled spirit barrel for aging (not fermenting) the barrel basically arrives in a sanitized condition as it contained a 35%+ alcohol solution for 5+ years. With wine, you are only around 12% so it may contain a few of its own bacteria (yeast), but not likely anything that will produce nasty flavors.

[BrewMasterBrad]

Used wine and spriti barrels are mainly used for aging, not for fermenting. The already fermented beer is racked into a barrel for aging and maturation. You wouldn't want to leave the beer on top of the spent yeast and trub for a year or more. Barrels built specifically for fermenting and storing beer are coated on the inside with a type of pitch so no wood character is imparted to the beer.

As far as sanitizing and cleaning is concerned, very hot water can be used to clean a barrel. Some people will burn some sulfur inside the barrel to sanitize it. You don't want to use chemicals as this is not good for the wood. Like maltbarley said, newly acquired spirit barrels should be good to go when then arrive.

[tylking]

You can burn sulfur in them but it won't kill anything that is deep in the wood, pretty much the answer is you don't sanitize them. If there is something in the barrel it is going to end up in your beer! We usually rinse barrels with hot and cold water, but this really depends on what beer is going into the barrel. After emptying a barrel without any plans on re-filling it anytime soon, we fill it with a sulfur solution (after rinsing) to keep the barrel hydrated and prevent any microbial growth.

Wine barrels are ready to fill when you receive them fresh. Wine is also very high in ethanol content and will keep for sometime, the hard part is finding a freshly emptied barrel to fill. Most wine barrels have been emptied for quite sometime, when you buy freshly emptied barrels you usually end up forking over a lot dough for them!

[Oskaar]

Just some additional information on wine barrels. When you purchase them new you must swell them first before adding your wine. You need to use unchlorinated clean water that is warm (like body temperature warm) and let it sit for 24 hours. Once that is done you can drain and fill to your heart's content.

Between fillings you'll need to use a mixture of 1 lb soda ash (or Barrel Kleen) per 5 gallons of water mixture and fill the barrel. Let stand for 24-48 hours and rinse with clean, unchlorinated water until it runs clear. Once it dpingoes you'll need to neutralizethe barrel with a mixture of citric acid and K metabisulfite in order to keep it bacteriostatic. I don't remember the exact mix-ratio but if you need that let me know.

Alternately you may burn a sulfur wick as mentioned below, but for any volume over 30 gallons you'll need to do that every other month up to 60 gallons. Over that and you'll need to do it monthly.

Hope that helps,

Oskaar