Sampling from oak barrel

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B-Dub

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I am looking into the ability of sampling from an oak barrel.

Some use SS nails. Anyone know what size hole and nail is used? IE Russian River

I have seen spiles used in cask beer. Any information on that? I hear a tapered bit sized for the spile. The problem with that is so far I would have to buy 25 spiles, but only need a few.

Thanks for the help,

BW
 
FWIW I got a 5G barrel from Saccromycenes, and the wine thief doesnt fit!
I just got one of those barrels too. I didn't even have a wine thief but I just got one of these from Midwest. Looks pretty fragile...I'll have to be careful. It will take at least 3 'dunks' to get enough for my hydro tube (I dunno why I measured that...these samples are for tasting).

In a pinch you can always use a racking cane or similar.
 
Piece of sanitized tubing, dip into barrel, put thumb over end?
I have one of those barrels, too. I have not tried taking samples yet.
 
I would like to just sample through the bung hole, but some say it is taboo to disrupt the pellicle.

I know Russian River uses SS nails for sampling mid way down the barrel. Cascade Brewing in the NW uses spiles that can be pulled out to easily sample the beer.

So with those two breweries sampling through the side of the barrel, I thought it sounded like a good idea.

The barrels are 60 gallon, 2004's used for white wine in Sonoma.

BW
 
I'm fairly certain that RR does that for his sour beers, becuase he is not worried about potential contanimation at that point. But if you want to sample beer, you have to have access to the bung anyway to do top offs. So I would say that unless this is for lambics, I woudl use a wine thief.
 
FWIW I got a 5G barrel from Saccromycenes, and the wine thief doesnt fit!

I picked up a few of these 100ml pipettes a while back, and use them for pulling samples out of my carboys, and when I get my barrel started I'll be using one. It's nice because you can flame sterilize it before you use it, and it reaches fairly far in the the carboy.
 
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