Maple Syrup Barrel - to clean or not to clean?

[drubes14]

Hi all! Hope this is the right sub forum for this.

I received my first barrel today - 8 gallon rye whiskey barrel, aged once with maple syrup. I'm really excited.

Here's my quandary - the maple syrup has crystallized to a good degree on the inside of the barrel. the wood seems pretty dense still, and the staves don't appear to have dried out at all. It just arrived, so is fresh.

Would you guys recommend filling it with water first to plug up leaks, risking to leach the dried maple syrup from the inside? or risk it, in the hopes that the crystallized maple syrup and freshness of the barrel will have plugged up holes?

Cheers!
Drubes

 

[cactusgarrett]

Bump; interested.

 

[drubes14]

Bump; interested.

I ended up soaking with hot water a few times, and then leaving water in for 3 days. It was a bit leaky, but I ended up certainly losing initial flavor bump having tasted the water I dumped after the 3 days. I tried to restore some with adding bourbon and maple syrup back in which helped a bit.

I found (too late) that if it's not too dehydrated, some Brewers just add bourbon or rye in directly and shake it about. Few oz at a time. I would recommend this first if it's not too dried out.

 

[myndflyte]

I was just going to say that my coworker was telling me about a brewery near him that threw beer into maple syrup bourbon barrels and they ended up leaking at first because the maple syrup dried it out. So it was probably good that you soaked it to get it to close up.