Getting some used wine barrels

I have a wine making friend that is giving me two 14 gallon barrels he has used to produce wine. Myself and my club are excited to get some beer into them for aging and souring.

I am getting the barrels delivered full of water and sodium metabisulfate. I believe this is a sanitizer. My questions:

1. Once the barrel is emptied, do I need to prepare it in any way before putting in the beer? I believe I should not allow it to dry, but not sure.

2. I will be adding fermented beer and then inoculating with the bugs. Will the sanatizer being used negatively effect that?

I would leave the barrels filled until very close to the time you're going to fill them. You don't want them to dry out or give other organisms time to start reproducing. Once you dump them I'd probably give a quick rinse with filtered tap water to get the sodium metabisulfate all out, then put the beer in right away. I would use filtered water so you're not introducing chlorine or chloromine in to the barrels/beer, which can cause medicinal/band aid off flavors. If you have chloromine in the water, I'd probably use a campden tablet to volatilize it -1 tablet per 20 gallons, just like you'd do with brewing water.

Very good. Once beer is in there, it is my understanding that some of it will evaporate away. Should I keep some beer on hand to fill back up during the aging?

How long do you plan on letting it age? There's about a 2% volume loss per year or so from what I understand, so I wouldn't worry too much about evaporation. It's always a good idea to keep things topped off to minimize headspace, but if you're not doing a solera kind of thing, I wouldn't worry with it too much.

I would definitely keep a beer to top off the barrel around. We are in the same town and I was topping my 5 gallon barrel off every couple of weeks.

pjk49202 said:

I would definitely keep a beer to top off the barrel around. We are in the same town and I was topping my 5 gallon barrel off every couple of weeks.

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How much were you adding back every couple of weeks? Was your barrel well hydrated before you filled it?

My club got a 55 gallon Jack Daniels barrel, and ended up losing 5 gallons over two months. I'm not sure how that would translate to a 14 gallon barrel, though. I gotta say, I'm super jealous. I really want to start a Solera project.

TheZymurgist said:

My club got a 55 gallon Jack Daniels barrel, and ended up losing 5 gallons over two months. I'm not sure how that would translate to a 14 gallon barrel, though. I gotta say, I'm super jealous. I really want to start a Solera project.

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Was the barrel freshly emptied and well hydrated when you put beer in it? I have a 60 gallon wine barrel solera in my basement and I did lose a bit with the initial fill to the barrel absorption, but my barrel was siting empty for a very long time before I got it. I even had to rehydrate it to get the staves to swell and for it to not leak.

If the barrel is well hydrated and you're not planning on aging for extended periods of time, adding other beer to top it off will probably introduce more oxygen. Then you have to worry with headspace in the container you're storing the top off beer too.

I would say I was topping off a couple of pints every time. It was a freshly dumped barrel as well.