Re-hydrating dry barrels.

[tonycaution]

In the past year my brewery has begun to do a lot more barrel aging. I, personally, have no real say when it comes to barrel sourcing, they arrive to the brewery and I’m expected to fill them. We generally are racking into whiskey/bourbon barrels. They usually arrive in great condition and are easy to fill. More recently, we did a imperial stout racked into 40 year old rum barrels shipped out of a tropical location. The barrels arrived bone dry and of the 28 received, only 24 held liquid. A little beer seeped through the cracks in the wood but eventually sealed itself. The other 4 barrels were too far gone and by the time I realized they wouldn’t seal themselves, I’d already lost a fair amount of expensive beer to the drains.

I’ve recently racked to brite tank, carbed, and packaged the beer. It came out great, but I’d like to find out the best way to rehydrate a dry barrel before use to ensure I don’t lose such tasty beer to the floor next time. Another brewer suggested filling the barrels with hot water prior to racking into them, but I fear we would lose to much of the spirits contribution to flavor and possibly risk contamination of the barrel. Any suggestions?

Anthony
Mercury Brewing

[Freakstorm]

G'day Anthony,


If you're using hot water, you don't need too much. Just 20 seconds of the hose in the bung hole with reasonably hot water (75-90C) and put the bung in TIGHT straight away, it's the steam that swells the barrels. If you're using cold water then fill the barrel and leave it overnight to swell.

Other than that, you can try using a block and hammer to (carefully) bang down each of the steel hoops of the barrel. Put the barrel on its head and start at the hoop closest to the centre; work your way around the hoop with the block and hammer to bang it down a couple of millimeters. repeat this process on all the hoops of the barrel including the one on the head. There is a tool for this but you can get away with improvising.

I hope that helps.

Cheers,

Paul

[Bainbridge]

Also FWIW, brewers I've talked to that have used rum barrels have said they are the jenkiest of all barrels.
Only used whisky, bourbon and wine barrels myself, can't comment directly.

[boatbeer]

dry rum barrels

We got twelve old rum barrles in about a year ago. We filled them all with hot water repeatedly until they swelled tight before we filled them with beer. two of the 12 never even held water. we didn't fill them with beer. we aged beer in the ones that would hold water for 10 months. the final product has a lot of rummy flavor, despite the fact that the barrels were filled and drained with water multiple times.

[EBC Commander]

swelling without filling

We just started barrel aging a little under a year ago, and with our bourbon barrels we stand them on their ends and soak each end for 24 hours with hot water prior to filling (got this advice from another brewer with a much larger barrel program). With this the tops swell out and force the rest of the barrel to seal as well. We had the same worry about rinsing out too much of the char or whiskey flavor by filling it with water.

Also, we found that having a heat gun and block of wax while filling can help plug any small leaks that may occur (found that out when we didn't swell properly on our first few barrels).

On another note, you said your barrels are coming to you dry and not holding water. Have you had any issues with bacteria yet? I would be worried that the dry barrels might pick up something during shipping if they are not water tight.

Cheers,

Matt Enegren
Enegren Brewing

[Freakstorm]

I forgot to mention also, for small leaks a good solution is to rub chalk in it. Any old stick of chalk will do, just draw over and over the leaking spot until it's nice and thick, should plug up nicely.

Cheers

[Bainbridge]

Once had a wine barrel with a pin-hole leak in it. Right on the gap at the croze. Filled that sucker twice over several days and it wouldn't seal. Finally, broke a toothpick in half and hammered it in. Sealed it up with a little barrel wax. Problem solved.

[Freakstorm]

larger holes like the one you describe can be caused by boring beetles and they're a pain in the ass if you get a population of them in your barrel room. They usually dig into the wood where the head fits into the staves. Your solution sounds good but it can help to hammer something like a small nail (there is a tool for this) in first to expand the hole then hammer in a cone shaped piece of oak.