Barrel treatment

Brian Lundeen · 2004-01-01T16:25:18+00:00

OK, barrel purists, move along, this paragraph will only upset you... ;-)Given that I have a very small (30 l) barrel made from Portuguese oak, I'vedecided to assault the inside to get rid of some of the "fresh" oak tannins.I've heard of a product called Barolkleen that can be used for this purpose.However, the local store sells something called soda ash. Are thesebasically the same thing? How much soda ash should I use, and how longshould I leave the solution in there to take the edge off the tannins?The next thing I plan to do in there to work off some tannins is barrelferment some apple cider. How full can the barrel be for a fermentationwithout running into stuff foaming out through the bung hole?TIABrian

Jan 01, 2004 23 Replies

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MikeMTM 22 years ago

Dave,

Mind if I jump in?

I had the same question about percarbonate as a sanitizer. A web search turned up a handful of references loosely calling it a sanitizer, but I don't think they had anything to back it up. A couple of references said emphatically that it was only a cleaner, _not_ a sanitizer. One reference was Five Star Chemicals, who manufacture PBW, a percarbonate product, and list it as a cleaner only. The other was an environmental safety group which said it was a good cleaner & whitener, but "It does not sanitize."

I guess I tend to believe the last two.

BTW, at least one brewery management site discussed NaOH as a sterilizer in copper wort chillers. Time & temps weren't mentioned, though.

HTH, Mike MTM

David C Breeden wrote:

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David C Breeden 22 years ago

No, not at all.

But I guess since I haven't got anything else I can use to sanitize (except occasionally NaOH), I'm going to go on pretending that percarbonate does sanitize. I should probably ask the microbiology guy at Cornell Ag Extension in Enology, but I guess I'm not sure I really want to know.

:-)

Dave

-- Dave

**************************************************************************** Dave Breeden snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

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Andrew L Drumm 22 years ago

Hmm, I don't have ready access to my notes, so I can't tell you where I got the information from, but it is "generally regarded" as a sanitiser. NaOH probably does sanitise, but it is "generally regarded" as being only a cleaner. So I can't help you as yet. I'll have another look tomorrow.

Cheers,

Andrew

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snipped-for-privacy@lightlink.com

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JEP 22 years ago

I'll jump in too. The story I heard was that Five Star did not want to jump through the US Governments hoops to have it officially declared a sanitizer so they are not allows to state that it is, even though it is effective.

Please realize this is a second hand story and I'm not sure how true it is. I just figured I'd muddy the waters a little bit more :-)

Andy

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