How to plug oak barrel hole?

[hunterlab]

Hi everyone,

I recently picked up a used 5 gallons barrel from my LHBS for placing a lambic in it as this barrel has no oak flavor. Now for the past 2 weeks the barrel has been leak free until yesterday, I made up a soda ash solution in hot water and dumped into barrel. That's when the leak began, the barrel used to have a spigot which was plugged then waxed over but appears to be leaking from there.

The wax is hardly sticking and appears to be a bottle wax, i would bring back to my store but he is away till next week. Any thoughts on using a oak dowel and plugging with that? Is there a special wax that actually flows into the grain of the wood to " BITE" the wood?

Dan

 

[hunterlab]

So a somewhat quick fix. I scraped all the blue bottle was off and cleaned where the head and staves meet. The spigot plug was a old cork that was crumbling. I let the outside dry and bought a tapered cork and barrel wax (paraffin) . Just sealed the head and tapped the cork into the hole then cutting it flush with the barrel. I sealed over the cork with wax and is now holding very well.

 

[divvy9]

This is by no means a quick fix and not exactly what you are looking for, but I read this blog from time to time and this is something long term that could be a good idea if you plan to keep and use the barrel for years. It's the most recent post I am talking about.

http://funkfactorybrewing.blogspot.com/

Cheers!