Reconditioning Barrels

[Cider Supply, LLC]

Has anyone heard of or tried to recondition spent wine or liqueur barrels? What i may attempt is use an adjustable band clamp and jig to unload and de-band the top half of some oak barrels. Then i think i could relieve the staves and remove the top for access to inside of the barrel. Then using a paint scraping hook, strip out the inside to somewhat fesh wood, reburn the inside with a rosebud torch and reassemble. A bit of work and technique no dbout, but it may beat spending the serious bucks on new barrels. Any thoughts and laughs are welcome.

[Dick Dunn]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 08:02:15PM -0700, Cider Supply, LLC wrote:
> Has anyone heard of or tried to recondition spent wine or liqueur barrels?...

(I think you mean liquor [spirit], not liqueur:)
Are you asking specifically about reconditioning a barrel which is in bad
condition, such as having been allowed to dry out?

If you're just asking about using a spent wine barrel, it's done all the
time, at least around here (Colorado front range) and we have a barrel
supplier specializing in such barrels. If you really need to get down to
new wood, it can be done with a heavy chain inside the barrel, and rolled
around, then of course a lot of cleaning/flushing.

>...What i may attempt is use an adjustable band clamp and jig to unload and de-band the top half of some oak barrels. Then i think i could relieve the staves and remove the top for access to inside of the barrel...

The extent of work you're contemplating should be handed off to a cooper.
This is not a beginner task. Making, or especially repairing, barrels takes
some serious skill. (I'd say seriously, if you want to do it yourself, the
first step is to apprentice yourself to a cooper.)

If you're contemplating starting with a barrel which has spoilage inside,
it's really not worth the effort unless your wallet and your calendar are
both entirely empty.

If you're contemplating starting with a barrel which is relatively clean
but which has been allowed to dry out, it's a thankless task. (Ask me how
I know:-( Getting it to where it doesn't leak is nearly impossible.

Consider, instead, knocking down the barrel and using the stave material in
your regular fermenters. You can clean up the wood easily enough once it's
out of the barrel. You can char it with a torch or roast it in an oven.
You can slice it into strips with a bandsaw to get more surface area if you
want more character. There's a lot you can do to get "barrel character"
without the task of maintaining a barrel.

--
Dick Dunn rc...@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA

[Richard Anderson]

In a past life, I made family wine, mostly zinfandel which came in by the boxcar load from California. Being poor we bought used whiskey barrels and remove several hoops on one end using a large flat chisel and removed the lid. Removed the char with wire brush grinder and reassemble. Not knowing anything about barrel characteristics did not try more in terms of reconditioning. The really fun barrels were the one left by the previous generation, they would never wash them just bung them up when empty each year. Needless to say the wine from these was often acetic. These we scrubbed and used as fermenters. And yes we burned sulfur sticks to sanitize them.

[Cider Supply, LLC]

I see, i imagine that without running some sort of wine test on the residuals in a barrel i would be at best assuming that the barrel had produced good wine. And if a barrel at one time in its unused state had dried out but was rehydrated before sale its sealing geometry or interference fits would forever be compromised creating a high-maintenance container. Possibly i should focus on small 10 gallon wisky or rum barrels that may be easier to work with? I have used staves in stainless or glass fermenters, but they just dont create that same visual ambiance in the aging room. The barrels would be for dessert cider and dessert perries and have really enjoyed the strongerbarrel-aged flavors.

[Jody Scott]

As dick says, rejuvenating old oak barrels is often done with some companies in larger wine areas specialising in the technique.

The problems that can arise is in the re-toasting. Wine penetrates the barrel very deeply, even more with higher alcohol such as whiskey. You will toast this residual wine and risk creating off flavours. But in practice is works reasonably well but only with barrels that are not too old. A rule of thumb is that it might freshen up the barrel to taste a year younger (usually used on a two year old barrel to taste like a one year old barrel).

It also weakens the barrel but unless you're looking to stack more than two high it probably isn't a major concern.

Toasting is a specialist area. While I have a reasonable amount of barrel repair experience I wouldn't try it myself.

Jody

Sent from my iPhone

> On 30 Oct 2015, at 19:13, "Cider Supply, LLC" <cryl...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I see, i imagine that without running some sort of wine test on the residuals in a barrel i would be at best assuming that the barrel had produced good wine. And if a barrel at one time in its unused state had dried out but was rehydrated before sale its sealing geometry or interference fits would forever be compromised creating a high-maintenance container. Possibly i should focus on small 10 gallon wisky or rum barrels that may be easier to work with? I have used staves in stainless or glass fermenters, but they just dont create that same visual ambiance in the aging room. The barrels would be for dessert cider and dessert perries and have really enjoyed the strongerbarrel-aged flavors.
>

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