With your wooden friend, you are entering a new and exciting level of winemaking. With due diligence and proper upkeep of your barrel, it will serve you in your winemaking for years to come.
First, let’s get to know your barrel with a little anatomy lesson:
New barrel care
The first thing to do when you get your barrel is to check for damage or defects. Make sure there are no cracked or dislocated staves, ensure the chime and croze are intact, and that there are no large gaps. If the barrel is excessively dry, make sure the hoops are in their proper location before proceeding to the next step.
Rehydrating your barrel
Depending on how long it has been since the barrel was made, it will be dry and will need to be swollen with water to ensure a liquid-tight seal. There are two ways to do this. Start with the first method and continue with the second method if necessary.
The French Method (Hot Water)
Start with hot chlorine-free water. Warning: if you do not have a filter on your tap water and you are on a municipal water system, you have chlorine in your water. If you set out the needed volume of water overnight, it should dissipate, or use store-bought water. Fill the barrel to 20% of its volume with hot water, insert a solid bung, and give it a thorough shaking. There will be some spraying from between the staves; this should subside quickly depending on how dry your barrel is.
Once the leaking from the stave joints has slowed down, turn the barrel on its head. Fill the outside of the head that is facing up with hot water. Wait 20 minutes and turn the barrel over, fill the other head with hot water and wait 20 minutes. At this point, if the barrel wasn’t overly dry, it should be watertight. To test this, fill the barrel all the way up and watch for leaks. If there are any leaks, leave it full of water for up to 24 hours (this is the second method). If your barrel still leaks after the 24-hour soak, empty and refill with fresh water and soak for 12 more hours. If it still leaks after 36 hours, there is probably a structural flaw, and you should not put wine in it (this happens in a very small percentage of barrels, contact the store if you experience this issue).
If your barrel is sealed, it is ready for wine.
Your new barrel is ready for wine!
Since the barrel was recently sanitized by fire during toasting, there is no need for chemical sanitation with new barrels. Simply rack wine into the barrel. Check the fill level often and top off as needed. Smaller barrels will need to be topped off more often. Make sure to maintain an adequate level of sulfur dioxide in the wine once malolactic fermentation is complete.
If there is an active malolactic fermentation, use a vented bung or airlock until all CO2 production has stopped.
Refilling your barrel with wine right away after racking wine out is the best way to store your barrel. After racking the aged wine out, simply rinse the sediment out with fresh chlorine-free water and rack new wine into it.
Care and upkeep of your barrel
The best way to keep your barrel hydrated and sanitary is to keep it full of wine. That may not be possible some years, so you will need to employ a few tactics to ensure the longevity of your barrel.
Dry storage 1-2 months
Clean, rinse, and drain the barrel. Burn a 1/4″ long piece of sulfur stick in the barrel stoppered with a solid bung. Wrap only the bilge area in plastic wrap to maintain moisture in the body of the barrel. Do not wrap the heads of the barrel as this will prevent it from breathing and will encourage mold growth (put a piece of wire through the piece of sulfur stick and suspend it through the bung hole and hold it in place with the bung). Do not allow burning sulfur to touch wood.
Dry storage 3-9 months
This length of time should be avoided, but if it cannot be, start with the first storage step. Then every 2 months, unwrap the barrel, rinse it with fresh chlorine-free water, fill it with water for a few hours to seal any leaks that have developed, and drain. Repeat steps from above (Dry storage 1-2 months).
Longer than 9 months
Fill the barrel with a holding solution of citric acid and potassium metabisulfite (KMS) at a rate of 4g citric acid and 8g KMS per gallon of barrel volume. Store the barrel as if it has wine in it and top off every few weeks. This method will leach oak flavor from the wood over time and should be used as a last resort.
