Buying a Used Pinot Barrel

[Emian]

I want to get a used Pinot Barrel to try aging a sour beer.

Anyone who's done this, can you tell me what sort of thing should I be asking for from one of my local wineries? How old does it need to be? Any problems if it's sat empty? Do wineries only disposed of them when they're no good for anything, or just when their no good for their wine anymore? And of so - is it still good for beer?

Thanks
Ian

[Rosie]

Ian,

I have some limited experience in this as I've got a handful ex Pinot casks aging some tasty sours at the moment. Here's a couple things to think about...

You want to avoid getting wood that has been infected, especially infected with acetobacter. One easy way to infect wood with acetobacter is to empty an alcoholic beverage from it and leave it empty...so if you aren't getting them from your winery freshly emptied, make sure that they clean and sulphur the barrel for you when emptied. When I bought mine, the winery happily did this for me as it is standard procedure for them when emptying a cask.

The winemaker was getting rid of the barrels I bought because they were no longer pulling any oak flavour from the wood, which is what I wanted anyway.

Make sure you have a think through the process of where these barrels are going to live, how you are going to clean them, move them around, maybe stack them, then don't move them for a long time, sample from them, empty them to somehow package, repeat. I've got some other barrels going and it's been real fun figuring all of the above out...

Other observation...the wood on mine were stained deep red and I thought my golden sour would be from it. 20 months in and still golden

Good luck,
Jeff