Bought 2 used oak barrels, need advice.

[MCOMISSO]

My father and I have been making our own wine from grapes for atleast 15 years now and have decided to purchase some used oak barrels to experiment / add some flavor to our wines. One barrel is a used Napa valley wine barrel and the other is a used whiskey barrel and oh boy can you smell the whiskey . This is our first time using a barrel and haven't the slightest clue where to start!! My father's father used to ferment in oak barrels but I'm not sure that's the best idea... Can someone please point us in the right direction with some basics we should know, wine making season is right around the corner. Thank you!

 

[Johnd]

There's certainly a lot to be learned, this is a good place. First thing I'd do would be to check and tighten all of the hoops on both barrels, fill them with water and check for leaks. The bourbon barrel will be very unlikely to have any bacterial challenges, as the high alcohol content will prevent that for the most part. The wine barrel on the other hand, needs to be sanitized ASAP. A good long steam would be best, but if you don't have access to a steam generator, filling with a strong solution of potassium metabisulfite / citric acid mixture will do the trick, just keep it refreshed until you are ready to fill with wine. Alternatively, you could burn sulfur sticks in the barrels and keep them sealed up afterwards, I've not done this so can't offer much on that topic, and prefer to keep them filled with sulfite water to keep the wood soaked with sulfite anyway.

Both barrels need to be kept filled to keep them hydrated and the wood swollen and watertight until you're ready to fill. I'd assume that since they've both been used for a few years that you won't get much in the way of oak flavoring from them unless they are re-cooped, but that's a whole different topic.

Once filled, maintaining them is pretty simple, keep them topped up on a regular basis (monthly) and monitor the sulfite levels to keep them in the right range as well. You should be a able to get many more years of service out of the barrels if they're in good shape. The micro-oxygenation and concentration, in my opinion, makes a very positive and noticeable difference in wine as it ages in barrels. I'm certain you'll get lots more good advice and tips from other members here, there are a lot of us who have been aging in barrels for quite some time. Good luck!!!

 

[mainshipfred]

I can't offer much more than what John has already stated. I just assume they are 50+ gallon barrels and you make enough wine to fill them with some to spare.

 

[MCOMISSO]

There's certainly a lot to be learned, this is a good place. First thing I'd do would be to check and tighten all of the hoops on both barrels, fill them with water and check for leaks. The bourbon barrel will be very unlikely to have any bacterial challenges, as the high alcohol content will prevent that for the most part. The wine barrel on the other hand, needs to be sanitized ASAP. A good long steam would be best, but if you don't have access to a steam generator, filling with a strong solution of potassium metabisulfite / citric acid mixture will do the trick, just keep it refreshed until you are ready to fill with wine. Alternatively, you could burn sulfur sticks in the barrels and keep them sealed up afterwards, I've not done this so can't offer much on that topic, and prefer to keep them filled with sulfite water to keep the wood soaked with sulfite anyway.

Both barrels need to be kept filled to keep them hydrated and the wood swollen and watertight until you're ready to fill. I'd assume that since they've both been used for a few years that you won't get much in the way of oak flavoring from them unless they are re-cooped, but that's a whole different topic.

Once filled, maintaining them is pretty simple, keep them topped up on a regular basis (monthly) and monitor the sulfite levels to keep them in the right range as well. You should be a able to get many more years of service out of the barrels if they're in good shape. The micro-oxygenation and concentration, in my opinion, makes a very positive and noticeable difference in wine as it ages in barrels. I'm certain you'll get lots more good advice and tips from other members here, there are a lot of us who have been aging in barrels for quite some time. Good luck!!!

Thanks for all the great advice John! Will definitely be getting around to all that asap.
So when it comes to making the wine what process would change? When do I put the wine into these barrels? We usually crush the grapes, let them ferment in large plastic barrels for a week or so, press and remove seeds & skins, let it ferment a little more in the barrels, then rack it off and transfer to demijohns. Would we be best doing the initial fermentation in the oak barrels or swap out the aging in demijohns for oak barrels?

Thank you again for the advice

 

[Johnd]

Thanks for all the great advice John! Will definitely be getting around to all that asap.
So when it comes to making the wine what process would change? When do I put the wine into these barrels? We usually crush the grapes, let them ferment in large plastic barrels for a week or so, press and remove seeds & skins, let it ferment a little more in the barrels, then rack it off and transfer to demijohns. Would we be best doing the initial fermentation in the oak barrels or swap out the aging in demijohns for oak barrels?

Thank you again for the advice

Personally, I follow a similar path that you described, ferment in plastic containers til nearly all sugar is gone, press, wine goes into carboys for 3 days, gets racked again into carboys to eliminate gross lees. Then it sits for a couple of months to complete MLF and drop more sediment. After that two months or so in glass, I put the wine into wood barrels. The reduction in sediment before loading the barrel is the goal for me, as I don’t rack my wine out of the barrels, clean them, and rack back in. I just let it sit for 1-2 years.

 

[MCOMISSO]

Personally, I follow a similar path that you described, ferment in plastic containers til nearly all sugar is gone, press, wine goes into carboys for 3 days, gets racked again into carboys to eliminate gross lees. Then it sits for a couple of months to complete MLF and drop more sediment. After that two months or so in glass, I put the wine into wood barrels. The reduction in sediment before loading the barrel is the goal for me, as I don’t rack my wine out of the barrels, clean them, and rack back in. I just let it sit for 1-2 years.

Okay, so essentially the goal is to transfer to wood barrels once racking off is complete. We usually crush in September, enjoy in January. Our best bet would be to prolong the process by allowing a longer aging process in the wood barrels then.

 

[Johnd]

Okay, so essentially the goal is to transfer to wood barrels once racking off is complete. We usually crush in September, enjoy in January. Our best bet would be to prolong the process by allowing a longer aging process in the wood barrels then.

Yes, that is generally the goal, wine needs time to develop, there are still many chemical and physical changes that it undergoes for a long period of time. Right now, I'm enjoying my 14's-17's. The 18 vintage will be bottled this fall after a two year sit in the barrel. Once you get a couple vintages under your belt, you'll always have aged wine to enjoy. It's always a lot easier to take the wine out of a barrel for bottling, and immediately load your latest vintage, in essence, keeping the barrel full year round...

That said, you are free to leave your wine in the barrel for whatever length of time you like, most decent commercial wines don't get bottled and hit the shelves for 1-2 years after the grapes were harvested. You won't really get much, if any, of the benefits of using barrels in such a short period of time, and your barrels will probably not impart any oak flavor at their age, but you will get some whiskey hints from that whiskey barrel.

 

[MCOMISSO]

Yes, that is generally the goal, wine needs time to develop, there are still many chemical and physical changes that it undergoes for a long period of time. Right now, I'm enjoying my 14's-17's. The 18 vintage will be bottled this fall after a two year sit in the barrel. Once you get a couple vintages under your belt, you'll always have aged wine to enjoy. It's always a lot easier to take the wine out of a barrel for bottling, and immediately load your latest vintage, in essence, keeping the barrel full year round...

That said, you are free to leave your wine in the barrel for whatever length of time you like, most decent commercial wines don't get bottled and hit the shelves for 1-2 years after the grapes were harvested. You won't really get much, if any, of the benefits of using barrels in such a short period of time, and your barrels will probably not impart any oak flavor at their age, but you will get some whiskey hints from that whiskey barrel.

Thanks John! Very helpful advice! Cheers

 

[winemaker81]

If you want oak character in a neutral barrel, oak products work well. I purchased a 10 yo barrel last fall and it has zero oak character. This was intentional; I wanted no oak character from the barrel itself.

I added oak cubes to the barrel -- there are many choices -- French, American, Hungarian oak. Light, medium, and dark toast. You can even mix-n-match, which enables a lot of variability. Besides, the cubes can be removed at any point while continuing to barrel age.

In addition to cubes, staves and spirals are available, although I have used neither. I use chips during fermentation, but the surface area is so variable (chips are many sizes) that I'm happier with cubes for barrel aging.

Funny story -- when we racked my barrel in March, I poured the remnant in the bottom of the barrel into a 1.5 liter bottle and put it in the fridge. There was some sediment in the barrel so I was letting it clear. My son & I tasted it a week later -- OH MY GAWD! FAR too much oak. It was undrinkable, yet the sample we tasted during racking was fine.

It occurred to me that the bottom of the barrel was where the oak cubes were, and the wine does not circulate in the barrel. Hence the "bottom of the barrel" had the most oak character.

Later I used that wine to top the barrel -- 1.5 liters into a 54 liter barrel raised the oak character a bit and improved it.

 

[pete1325]

I've had good success with the oak spirals. You can adjust the oaky ness by how long you leave them in. The max is 8 weeks to get the most out of it. After eight weeks I think it dies off/stops working. either way you can adjust the flavor.

 

[winemaker81]

I haven't tried spirals. I'm not sure how hard they'd be to get out of the barrel. For the cubes, I added water to the empty barrel and shook it over a bucket. Had to do this several times to get 'em all out. This works with a 54 liter (14.25 gallon) barrel, but would be iffy with a big barrel.

My plan had been to put the cubes in a hops bag (cheesecloth), tie with nylon fishing line, and wedge the line between the barrel and the stopper. This was going great until I realized there was no way I'd get the bag through the hole. No matter how I manipulated it, it wasn't going to work. So I went with Plan B.

 

[mainshipfred]

I use oak sticks now and just tied a piece of fishing line to them.

 

[pete1325]

Yep, the fishing line makes it much easier to remove, when you're ready. Haven't lost a spiral.....yet.

 

[winemaker81]

I'm leaning towards staves or spirals for the barrel .... I'll probably continue using cubes for carboys.