Brand new Oak Barrel

[mredge73]

So, my wife surprised me today with a brand new oak barrel from morebeer.
It is a beautiful medium char barrel but I am a bit intimidated on what to do now. I am a beer homebrewer and have done a few ciders and meads but never a grape wine. So help me out here, what do I do with this thing?
I will be following the directions on the sealing process tomorrow but will need to fill it in the next few weeks.
What kind of wine benefits from barrel aging? Any kit recommendations?

 

[Treeman]

I wouldn't start the sealing process until you have 1-2 kit wines finished. The barrel is stable dry, as soon as you add water or wine the clock starts ticking for microbial growth and you will need to add sulfite to keep the bacteria under control.

 

[mredge73]

What to make first?

Thanks, I kinda thought that you had to seal it immediately.
Good thing that I didn't start yet.

What is the best wine for a new barrel?
I have a 50L barrel so whatever I make will not be cheap. I am an experienced homebrewer (beer) so the wine fermentation process does not intimidate me and I have plenty of equipment that can handle the volume. Because of the oak character of a new barrel what goes in first and how long?

 

[JohnT]

I like a nice cab or merlot.

For a 50 liter barrel, or approx. 13 gallons, I would plan to oak age it for 13 weeks. I would check it every 2 or 3 weeks and "de-barrel" when you feel that you have enough oak flavor.

You also want to have another wine waiting to go into the barrel. It is best that a barrel not sit empty.

 

[mredge73]

I bought 2x Barolo kits this weekend and put them in primary. (select + world vineyard)
I will primary in a SS keg then age/secondary in the wooden barrel.
Total of 26L of concentrate and 24L of RO water, OG was at 1.08.
The only thing that I am worried about is the low OG, do I need to add a little sugar to bring it up or will it be fine?

 

[sour_grapes]

I bought 2x Barolo kits this weekend and put them in primary. (select + world vineyard)
I will primary in a SS keg then age/secondary in the wooden barrel.
Total of 26L of concentrate and 24L of RO water, OG was at 1.08.
The only thing that I am worried about is the low OG, do I need to add a little sugar to bring it up or will it be fine?

I am curious why you chose to add so much water? If I understand your post correctly, you used two kits, one a 10L kit (World Vineyard), and one a 16L (Selection), each of which is meant to make 23L of wine. It seems to me that you should have added 20L of water, not 24L, to arrive at the correct final volume. This would explain your low starting SG.

Of course, you can bump the ABV back up with sugar. However, to bring the body back up, too, you may want to consider adding grape juice concentrate, like Alexander's, instead of just adding sugar?

 

[mredge73]

Oh, my barrel that I will use as a secondary is 50L as mentioned in the original post.
I had to add the extra gallon but knew that it would affect my OG and thin the body a little.
I would rather do this top off exercise now while in the primary rather than later in the secondary.

The kits do not note the intended OG, says between 1.08 and 1.10.
I don't want a watered down wine but don't want to mess with it either if it will be fine as is.
If it ferments dry I am looking at 11% ABV, I am not experienced enough in wine to know if this is good enough for this style or not.
Sugar will bump up the ABV but does nothing to body. I didn't even think about the Alexander juice, I have no experience in using it.
At this point it would add too much volume.

 

[sour_grapes]

Oh, my barrel that I will use as a secondary is 50L as mentioned in the original post.


Sugar will bump up the ABV but does nothing to body. I didn't even think about the Alexander juice, I have no experience in using it.
At this point it would add too much volume.

But you WANT to have a fair amount of extra volume, for several reasons. You will lose some volume to the lees. And then you will lose volume from the barrel over time ("the angel's share"). And you should keep your barrel topped up as it ages.

If it were mine, I would add a can of concentrate for sure. This would get you the extra sugar to bring up the ABV to something a bit more reasonable, improve the thin body, and get you some extra volume to work with. You can keep the excess in a gallon jug, perhaps in the fridge, and top the barrel as needed.

 

[sour_grapes]

Just another piece of info: by my math, adding 1 can of Alexander's concentrate would raise your SG to about 1.087, and about 1.3 L more volume.

 

[mredge73]

Which Alexander concentrate would you recommend?
My LHBS has a large selection.

As far as the lees go I get very little on my cider and mead; I didn't expect kitted wine to be that much different.
How much volume do you usually lose?

 

[ibglowin]

You can expect to lose ~ 2L worth due to the lees

 

[mredge73]

Added 1 can of Alexander's Barbera yesterday.
I learned something new the hard way when I splashed it around a little too much when mixing the concentrate in; lost a little volume to co2 infused foam.

 

[mredge73]

Just an update on this thread to close it out; mostly for my benefit.
Lost a lot more that I had thought; had to add a full 5L box wine and about 1/2 gallon of distilled water to top the barrel off.
Aged 16 weeks, bottled right before Christmas. Overall success, gave out 3/4 of the bottles for Christmas presents and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Ran out of bottles while filling and had to resort to beer growler for the last few gallons. I am not a wine guy but I enjoyed it enough to finish off one of the growlers at my Christmas party. Defiantly made my wife's family bearable.

Had a cab ready to go into the barrel right behind it.
This was one eclipse kit and one selection kit. The skins really messed me up and I lost a lot of volume; will not likely use skins again.
Hopefully this one turns out just as good.