Oak barrel for aging/serving?

So after tasting my last batch of mead that i aged half of it with oak chips, i've decided that i really like the oak! I've seen these small barrels online for just over a hundred bucks that hold about 10 liters of liquid, have a medium toast inside and a bung for pouring. I would really be interested in aging my mead in one of these and use it for serving. Just a barrel of mead, on a stand and a wooden spigot, there ya go. Anybody do this? do you have to use it up quickly? I'm wondering if it takes a while to empty it, would the empty top dry out? I've gotten some info from the barrel maker's site, but it doesn't say anything about it being half empty (full? lol).

If anyone has tried this, i'd love to hear from you. I'm not looking for this to particularly give me the oak flavor, even though it will. I use the chips in my secondary. Its mostly for show and also to help me hoard my stash, or at least keep it here!

In addition to the barrel potentially drying out on top, unless you were to be drinking this over a fairly short period of time (say, for a wedding or some other celebration), there would be some risk of it getting over-oaked, although in general I've heard that chips impart flavor faster than a barrel will. The size of the barrel is a factor in this too; ie, a 1 gallon barrel has greater surface area per volume than a 50 gallon one, so smaller barrels have a greater risk of producing an over-oaked flavor....

hmm... i see your point. my plan was to let it age in there for the better part of a year and slowly drink it over the course of a few months. there are ways of cleaning/treating these barrels between batches, so maybe if i dont treat it, it wont over oak the second batch i put in it. i guess the only way to tell with that is to test it out. but that still leaves me with it possibly drying out.

i'm thinking that the fact that there is liquid in there may keep the inside mostly moist. this is something that i may have to write to the company about. having this would certainly be a nice presentation piece to have if i were to have a mead party or something of that nature. if i am going to run the risk of it drying out, i guess i could just be sure to take it somewhere or have a mead party here with enough people that will drink it in it's entirety. but it would be nice to have a barrel that i could just pour myself a glass when i want out of it...

how's that caramel quad coming along?

I wouldn't serve out of the barrel. I might use a barrel front on a keg system and install the tap where the tap bung would go. Same aesthetic presentation but sanitary pump/forced keg hardware inside.

For reasons I have mentioned?

There was a thread on here not long ago with a person that ages, stores and dispenses from his oak barrels, I'll try to find it, he may be able to add some thoughts to it for you.

thanks, i did some looking around myself and haven't quite found what i was looking for.

I toured the JD distillery a couple of days ago. They said the greatest amount of oak flavor imparted into a batch of whiskey comes from barrels subjected to the greatest temperature fluctuation. When a batch in a barrel goes from hot to cold and back again several times, it soaks into the barrel and back out again just the same. This would lead me to believe that temperature control would play a big part in controlling the oak flavor.

that's some really good info. thanks!