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50L Hungarian barrel Timing will work perfectly for Spring ‘20 grapes and then roll right into fall grapes. 👍 Much obliged @mainshipfred. It was great seeing you this morning. Enjoy your South African crush today and good luck! View attachment 60258

AJ, do you have wine in the barrel yet? If you don't do you have any way of weighing it and giving me the dimensions. If there is already wine in it the dimensions would be great. I need it to estimate shipping costs for another member.
 
Question for the barrel owning community. I have a Cab-Syrah blend that will be turning 1 year old. I hit it with 90 gr of French and Hungarian medium+ Toast oak cubes for each 6 gal of wine. I also have a 2 year old OVZin, which I think I dropped 60 gr of oak/6 gal carboy. The OVZ is a little light and tart while the C/S blend is really spot on.

They’re both going to be shuffled after this year’s crush and I have about 16 gallons of each.

Here’s the question: would you barrel age either of them? I was thinking I might. Suggestions please.
 
AJ, do you have wine in the barrel yet? If you don't do you have any way of weighing it and giving me the dimensions. If there is already wine in it the dimensions would be great. I need it to estimate shipping costs for another member.
Just seeing this post now. If you still need this info I can get it for you. Barrel is still empty. Been busy lately and have yet to fill ‘r up.
 
That would be great if you could and glad your busy.

50L barrel specs

44 lbs.
20” length
17” diameter heads
19-1/4” diameter middle

Not exact but good enough for shipping estimate purposes. If the container was exactly 20” x 20” x 20” and the barrel was factory wrapped with the cardboard around the heads then it would be tight. Might need to bump to the next size up. 👍
3E728228-7225-4148-811F-509A2F386ABA.jpeg
 
50L barrel specs

44 lbs.
20” length
17” diameter heads
19-1/4” diameter middle

Not exact but good enough for shipping estimate purposes. If the container was exactly 20” x 20” x 20” and the barrel was factory wrapped with the cardboard around the heads then it would be tight. Might need to bump to the next size up. 👍
View attachment 64530
Thank you AJ!
 
Getting those measurements prompted me to get this thing prepped and filled finally. Spring wines are stabilized but still not racked. Time to get to work! It’s already August lol

Barrel has sat so long was inevitable that seams opened up. 1st fill was pouring out the heads on both sides at multiple locations. Staves looked good tho. Ihad already tightened the hell out of the rings.
Rinsed out and soaked with piping hot water and could literally see the oak swell and gaps closing up. I did the heads and inside 1/2 at a time a couple times and let soak over night. Lookin good. Just gotta sanitize and get filled this weekend now. Anticipating at least a little seepage at first

Was awesome that the barrel fit in the sink and was strong enough to hold it. looking forward to getting this filled, getting all the new wines in order and shift my focus to fall harvest!16A117ED-C36B-424E-A7BB-4F70FB8C2DA4.jpeg53700E40-0E23-4EBF-9235-6E8D9DD86AD2.jpeg
 
What size barrel is that?
Its a 50L. (~14gal) which is still just 1/ 4 of a standard full sized barrel. it’s my 2nd barrel My 1st one was a 30L also purchased from @mainshipfred

and yea I was hesitant with all the weight since the corners are all just welds but held up just fine. Love playing with new “toys” and some Tim the Toolman Taylor type grunts may or may not be overheard coming from my basement lol.
 
Dry as a bone. 👌🏻

Previous times I sanitized my barrel I’m pretty sure I went way overkill. I use a 3tbs of kmeta per gal dosage for solution. So I had made that dosage up for the full volume of the barrel. Seemed like a lot and a waste of kmeta.

so for this one mixed enough kmeta for 3gal (9tbs) and just filled it up with water and let sit overnight. Not sure if that’s gonna do the trick tho. The smell doesn’t punch you in the face like it normally would. any advice here?

*Decision was made because kmeta supply running low and didn’t wanna empty the bag
 
Dry as a bone. 👌🏻

Previous times I sanitized my barrel I’m pretty sure I went way overkill. I use a 3tbs of kmeta per gal dosage for solution. So I had made that dosage up for the full volume of the barrel. Seemed like a lot and a waste of kmeta.

so for this one mixed enough kmeta for 3gal (9tbs) and just filled it up with water and let sit overnight. Not sure if that’s gonna do the trick tho. The smell doesn’t punch you in the face like it normally would. any advice here?

*Decision was made because kmeta supply running low and didn’t wanna empty the bag

I'd say it's fine. A new barrel shouldn't have any bugs in it anyway.
 
Just in case it wasn't clear in the previous post, when I referred to just rinsing before putting a new wine in I was referring to a barrel that was just emptied. When I said "So far" I should have followed with I never had to leave a red barrel empty.
I don’t even rinse when re-filling. I took a tip from @stickman and I will rotate the barrel for a few days. Rotate to 2:00 and 10:00 to make sure the roof is saturated well. (Random thought- “Roof” is the accepted term. But isn’t this technically the ceiling?)

then after emptying the residual wine remaining I like to view as a little gift left for the incoming wine 😁 (unless gunked up. But I’ve been mainly using already cleared wines)
 
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