Topic: Barrels-and-Oaking
Prepping Your First Barrel
FREETips for beginners on how to prepare their first barrel.
Your First Wine Barrel
MEMBERS ONLYAfter 15 years of making wine, I am finally embarking upon the use of barrels and it is very exciting. Just having the barrels in my homewinery creates an ambiance that is softer, more aromatic and a bit primitive. I’m feeling that my homewinery is now more in sync with the Old World milieu of
Wines Two Ways: Oaked and Unoaked
MEMBERS ONLYTo Oak, or not to Oak, a phrase I took from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet and changed the words around a little. But going a step further and delving into the tools that winemaker’s have in their hip pocket, are all the tools necessary? Some winemakers think they have to follow a certain recipe or protocol
Impact of Barrel Kinetics and Dynamics on Wine
MEMBERS ONLYOak barrels have long been used primarily for aging red wines but also to shape the style of certain white varietals, such as Chardonnay, into fuller-bodied wines. Oak wood imparts what is generally referred to as toasted-oak aromas and flavors, but more specifically, these include a varied set of volatile compounds, from aldehydes to oak
Used Spirit Barrel Experiment
FREEIs aging wine in a barrel that once held spirits totally off limits? One hobby winemaker made some experimental wines to test it out.
How to Build a Barrel
MEMBERS ONLYAn amateur barrel maker shares his advice to build your own wine barrel at home.
Year in a Life of a Wine Part VI (Bulk Aging and Bottling)
MEMBERS ONLYIn the final installment of our year-long series, the wines are bulk aged, oaked, and bottled.
First-Time Oak Barrel Soaking
MEMBERS ONLYYour pictures of the barrel you made are very impressive and I applaud both your ambition and skill! The artistry it takes to cut, shape, curve, and toast wood so it will hold liquid is not easy to acquire. Bravo to you. To answer your question, it’s possible that some iron filings (from grinding the
Post-Fermentation Wine Tweaks
MEMBERS ONLYSometimes, a wine you believed would be balanced during fermentation comes up a little short after fermentation is complete. Learn what you can do to restore it to an order of balance with these post-fermentation adjustments.
Submerge Those Oak Chips
FREEI love your innovation. A “chip sock” can be a real boon to winemakers. In fact, I mention using one in The Winemaker’s Answer Book where I suggest using a nylon stocking
Wine Flower
MEMBERS ONLYI agree with your local winery supply store employee; it’s most likely a surface yeast or “flor” yeast of some kind, forming a floating plaque on top of your wine. Sometimes referred to as “wine flower” (or the Spanish word, flor), these yeast aren’t turning sugar into alcohol, they’re actually eating alcohol and oxidizing it
Oak Chip Recommendations For Chardonnay
MEMBERS ONLYFirst, make sure that the portion left over, i.e. the portion you are not bottling now and will be adding more oak to, will be stored in a completely full (or “topped up”) container. This is critical to protect wine, especially white wines, from the ravages of oxygen and aerophilic spoilage organisms. Now, on to
Can I Salvage an Oak Barrel if I Burned a Sulfur Stick While the Barrel Was Wet?
MEMBERS ONLYI think your barrels should be salvageable. Since you fished out the sulfur stick and are aware that you might have some residual sulfurous acid hanging about, you’ve already won half the battle; you know you need to do something to neutralize any acid in there. I would imagine you could get rid of most
Oak Barrel Chemistry
FREEThe benefits of fermenting or aging wine in toasted oak barrels are indisputable and unmatched by any other type of wood. Not only do oak compounds impart aromas and flavors as well
Is this a sure way of determining that the barrel is infected?
MEMBERS ONLYFirst off, one should never burn a sulfur wick in a wet barrel; only do this (which releases the antimicrobial SO2 gas, which we want) when your barrel is well dried-out. This is because the sulfur gas will combine with the water in the wet barrel and form sulfurous acid, which can lead to a
Testing Wine Barrels, Dry Ice: Wine Wizard
MEMBERS ONLYWine barrel testing My barrels are American oak, repeatedly used for wine, and about five years old. When empty, I fill them with water containing a strong solution of potassium metabisulfite (one pound to 50 gallons). I find that when the water solution is a little low, and prior to topping with more solution,
I am using Flextanks and oak chips for my wine and am really liking the results…
MEMBERS ONLYLike you I find oak pieces (segments, beans and sometimes chips) are a great way to practice elevage (aging and development) with small lots that won’t fit into a 60-gallon (227-L) barrel or for larger lots where I just don’t want the hassle of barrels. If you’re using small pieces of wood in winemaking, you
Topping Up With Gas, Freezing Kit Juice: Wine Wizard
MEMBERS ONLYArgon gas My carboys are 6 1⁄4 gallons (24 L). I am making mostly heavy reds and want to bulk age in glass carboys for up to twelve months before bottling. I don’t mind topping off with a small amount of similar wine every once in a while but what do you do when making
Oak Alternatives
FREEA song to the oak, the brave old oak, Who hath ruled in the greenwood long; Here’s health and renown to his broad green crown, And his fifty arms so strong. There’s
Wine Wizard Revealed & Top 10 Winemaking Questions
MEMBERS ONLYA Word From the Publisher And the Wine Wizard is……. “When will my fermentation stop?” “Why did my fermentation stop?” One thing I can count on as publisher of WineMaker magazine is that each day winemakers will email us asking for help and looking for answers. When WineMaker launched in 1998, we realized the importance
When using oak cubes in a recipe from concentrate, at what stage in the process should they be added?
FREEAh, the timeless pairing of American oak and Zinfandel. It’s a taste combination that’s got more than 100 years of history in U.S. winemaking and if the number of Zin labels that
How do you prepare ahead for topping up your barrels with wine? Do you set aside wine in a carboy to use later in the barrels?
MEMBERS ONLYDear Wine Wizard, I am a novice home winemaker and have been contemplating making the move from carboy and bottle-aging to barrel-aging some of my reds. It is my understanding that a new barrel can soak up quite a bit of wine when first placed in use. However, my question is what do you do
Could you provide me some ideas on an easy and cost effective way to properly frame a stand for my barrels?
MEMBERS ONLYCongrats on embarking on the ever-fascinating and (just as often) maddening adventure of using oak in home winemaking! You’ve discovered what many of your predecessors already have — that it is sometimes difficult to locate appropriate equipment, additives and supplies, especially in the smaller quantities and sizes that so many of us home winemakers require.
I was thinking of adding oak chips in cheesecloth to a gallon carboy of red Zinfandel for one month; any experience with this?
MEMBERS ONLYI firmly believe that — much like Sauternes and foie gras, Port and blue cheese — oak chips and cheese cloth were always destined for each other. Many winemakers, from purveyors of thousand-gallon commercial lots to 10-liter demijohnners, take advantage of homemade oak chip “tea bags.” I’ve been advocating their use for years as they
Barrel Care Techniques
FREEDo you yearn to create oak-style wines that rival Bordeaux first growths, Super Tuscans, or the so-called California cult wines, but have been hesitant to invest time and effort to care and
