How to do barrel ferment?

[WI_Wino]

So there may be an obvious answer to this question but I'll ask anyway. When barrel fermenting a wine, do you seriously pour everything into the small bung hole? With my lack of barrel experience, this seems problematic. Both getting everything in and then during the fermentation I would think you would have issues with foam and what not since the opening is tiny... Especially if you have a smaller barrel (5 or 6 gallon).

I would have thought that barrel fermentation would be in a wood barrel with one end off, standing on it's side. Basically like my primary bucket fermentors but with wood.

 

[Boatboy24]

From what I've read, you don't want to put a 6 gallon wine into a 6 gallon barrel for fermentation. I think you'd want to mix everything up, innoculate, then transfer into the barrel, leaving some head room. I guess you could just do this with a simple siphon, or a large funnel, if you'e feeling daring.

 

[Rocky]

WI wino, long ago when we made wine at home in Pittsburgh from California grapes, we had both open working barrels (one end removed) and closed (except for the bung hole and hole for the spigot in one end) barrels. The open barrels were used for "primary fermentation" (at the time we monitored the fermentation activity which usually lasted from 10 days to 2 weeks) and the closed barrels were used for "secondary" fermentation (that was from mid to late October to the first part of December). During this secondary period, we had to closely watch the closed barrels and add wine daily so that the only exposure to air was the diameter of the bung hole. These barrels were anywhere from 20 gallons to 55 gallons.

 

[WI_Wino]

Doing secondary fermentation in a closed barrel makes a lot more sense than what I had in my head late last night. ? Is that what most people are talking around here for barrel ferments?

I was getting hung up on the primary fermentation and how the heck do you get a grape pack in there...

 

[ibglowin]

Barrel ferments are done on white wines usually so no grapes or skins etc.

 

[robie]

I've never had a problem fermenting a 6-gallon white kit in a 6 gallon barrel. Generally, not that much foaming goes on for something like a Chardonnay with clean juice. I don't think I would try it with a big foaming red. To be safe and careful, I have always carried out the fermentation with the barrel in the bathtub or setting in a larger container that could catch any potential overflow.

 

[WI_Wino]

I've never had a problem fermenting a 6-gallon white kit in a 6 gallon barrel. Generally, not that much foaming goes on for something like a Chardonnay with clean juice. I don't think I would try it with a big foaming red. To be safe and careful, I have always carried out the fermentation with the barrel in the bathtub or setting in a larger container that could catch any potential overflow.

Do you get the ferment going outside of the barrel for a day or so, then siphon to the barrel (as boatboay suggested)?

 

[robie]

Do you get the ferment going outside of the barrel for a day or so, then siphon to the barrel (as boatboay suggested)?

That is a more sure method. I mixed mine in a fermenter bucket, because it is very important to get the water and juice mixed really well. I then poured it into the barrel, and pitched the yeast through the bung hole. I used a vented silicone bung (waterless air lock type). I did a fairly cold fermentation each time with D47 yeast.