Please click on an FAQ link below to view information regarding that question.   Question: Why bother with a barrel?   Answer: Oak adds a compelling complexity to wine. You should make sure the kind of wine you want to make is well suited for oak, since it is more expensive and more work. For example, just about any high tannin red wine will benefit. Many whites such as chardonnay or sauvignon blanc will benefit as well. However, riesling should be left alone. Oak barrels also have an aesthetic quality that other materials can’t match. Midwest offers a wide variety of oak barrels, starting at $119.95 for the 2-gallon American Oak Barrel (#B2959). Our new Hungarian Oak Barrels (#B3000, #B3010, #B3020, #B3030) hold between 5 and 12.7 Gallons and come with an attractive wooden stand. If you wish to oak your wine but can’t afford a barrel (or don’t have the space), Midwest also offers oak cubes, oak chips, oak powder, oak sticks, or the carboy link system (#OL001, OL002). Be very careful not to add too much or leave them in the wine too long as the surface to liquid ratio is quite high and therefore oaking is very quick. Sometimes this may only be equal to the time it takes to ferment your wine, depending on how oaky you like your wine and how much you put in. It is recommended that you closely follow a wine oaked in this fashion by tasting often. An easy way to add oak flavor wine to just the degree that pleases your taste is to take a regular wine bottle, fill it half full of oak chips and add Vodka to fill the bottle. Let it set for a month or two. Drain off the liquid and keep it to flavour your wine. Experiment, using a tablespoon per gallon; if this is insufficient, keep adding a teaspoon until you reach the desired result. Make a note of the amount used for future reference.   Question: How do I care for my oak barrel?   Answer: Empty unused barrels can usually be stored indefinitely. Once filled with wine, the barrels must either be always full or specially treated when emptied. To store a ten gallon barrel, use the following recipe: 1 tsp. citric acid, 1 tsp. sodium or potassium metabisulfite, and enough water to fill the barrel. Bung it tight until the next use. Considering the possible loss of tannin by leaching to the above conditioner, others do the following with their barrels when empty: - wash out the barrel thoroughly - let it dry for one week without bung stopper - burn a sulphur stick in barrel with stopper applied This should take care of the barrel for one year. There is a possibility that the staves will warp using this method, so be careful. You should also refill with storage solution several weeks before reuse.   Question: What do I need to do to a brand new barrel to prepare it for use?   Answer: A new barrel should be filled with water for a week or so before filling with wine as a new barrel will often leak. For leaks there are three things to do: A) wait a few days. Swelling will stop a lot of leaks. B) if it still leaks between staves, pound the hoops towards the middle of the barrel to tighten the pressure. C) if your leak is from a defect in the wood such as a small hole, whittle a small plug out of a piece of oak and jam it into the hole. Bleach and other cleaners not specifically labelled for wood barrel cleaning shouldn’t be used to clean your barrel as it could remain in the wood and affect the wine you put in it. If the barrel is dirty, then scrub it with water. One trick is to drop a length of chain inside and shake the barrel around. Midwest suggests using Barolkleen (#B2977, B2979), which will remove excess tannins from new barrels. Use a ratio of 1 pound per 5 gallons of water. Fill the barrel with this solution and let it soak for 48 hours. Then drain and rinse thoroughly. OR You may also use Soda Ash (#8326) in a ratio of 2 oz. for each 3 gallons of water. Fill the barrel 1/2 full with water as hot as you can get it. Then add the Soda Ash that has previously been dissolved in a little hot water. Shake or roll the barrel until well mixed. Now finish filling barrel with water as hot as you can get it. Bung up the barrel tightly and roll it around to agitate it. Roll barrel several times during a 24 hour period. Then empty and rinse several times until all the solution has been washed out.   Question: General Barrel Information   Answer: Don’t reuse a barrel in which wine has turned to vinegar; it’s impossible to get rid of the vinegar bacteria from the wood. Use the barrel as a planter in your yard. It’s generally not a good idea to mix wine types in a barrel, or white and red wine. You’ll taste the previous wine in the subsequent wine. Barrels need regular topping off with wine to keep them full. Since a barrel is porous, wine evaporates through the wood. Once a week for topping off works fine; some wineries top off twice a week. Keeping the humidity up in your winery cuts evaporative loss. Losing half a liter a month is normal. The stave with the hole in it (“bung stave”) often cracks just at the hole as this is the weakest part of the barrel. Either replace the stave or seal the crack with melted wax. Wipe the area around the bung hole often with a sulphite solution. This is the area that gets seepage and spills, and the sulphite keeps this area from being a source of spoilage. Five gallon barrels have a high surface to volume ratio. The wine can get too oaky relatively quickly. When using a five gallon barrel, keep the wine in for a shorter period of time, then blend it with wine from the same vintage that was not in the barrel; the key is to not let it sit too long.   Question: What wine styles benefit from oaking?   Answer: Several types of wine lend themselves well to oaking, most notably the Cabernets, Chardonnays, Merlots, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Bordeaux, Chianti, Burgundy, Fume Blanc, Semillon, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Gris, Shiraz, and Pinot Blanc, just to name a few. Generally speaking, German wines are not usually oaked. Depending upon the type of oak used, and the type of wine that is being oaked, a wide variety of desirable complexity can be achieved. In general, the scents of oak are non-fruit aromatics in nature. Oak can add flavors ranging from vanilla and coconut, to aromatic spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. It can even add an earthy or lightly organic tone to wine. For instance, a noticeable vanilla aroma is common, especially with American oak in white wines like Chardonnay and fruity reds like Merlot. Most of the oak that is used to flavor wine is French and American in origin, although Hungarian oak has been becoming popular as well. Midwest stocks several different products for the home winemaker to achieve oaking; oak barrels, oak chips and cubes, oak powder, oak sticks, and a carboy link system (#OL001, OL002) that suspends oak inside your carboy.   Question: I’m not sure if I’m ready to spend the money on an oak barrel. What other methods are there for oaking?   Answer: Until recently, vintners had little choice when it came to oaking a wine. They simply placed the wine in an oak barrel and waited until the desired taste and aroma was achieved. About the only control they had was the type of oak used, the age and size of the barrel, and whether the barrel was charred (toasted) or not. Vintners needed a lot of patience, because it took a while for large barrels of wine to take on the flavor of oak. This is because only a relatively small portion of the wine came in direct contact with the inside walls of the barrel. Worse yet, the older the oak barrel was, the longer it took to get the desired results! Thankfully, some math wiz that happened to enjoy making wine at home figured out that instead of using a wooden barrel to surround the wine, why not let the wine surround small pieces of oak? Thus, oak chips, cubes, staves, and powders were born. These products allow the home vintner to achieve the same great oak flavor we desire - without the huge, costly barrels. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages. See the FAQs following this one for details on each individual method.