I have my barrel against an interior concrete wall here in Napa and I thought that would be ok to age it. I just checked the internal temperature of the wine to find it is 76 degrees, way too warm in my opinion. Is there a way of cooling just a barrel without spending the money to AC the entire basement? I spend a good deal of time away from my home here, so just putting a blanket on it during the warmth of the day won't work. It's always in the 60's or below at night, but during the day it can get 105+. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
You will speed up the aging of the wine if you let it warm up. I know of some great reds which are made this way. At Rosemount in Australia in the old barrel cellar the wine would warm up at the start of summer, and we would have to check the bungs daily, as the would pop out as the wine expands, and gives off dissolved CO2 gas. I have even heard of people intentionally heating up white wine and putting it into barrel to age quicker. Make sure you have plenty of SO2 in it though.
Do you know what a swamp cooler is? If your humidity is lower you could drip water on it and have a fan blow across it to provide evaporative cooling. It only works if there is a difference in wet and dry bulb temperatures.
he mentioned storing in a basement, so a swamp cooler may not work.
I'd make a cardboard box, enclose the barrel, and put a block of ice in there. start this on a weekend to see how much ice would be needed to keep at X tempature
Thanks all.. I think I'll use a variation on this idea. I'll get some foam insulation board, make a box and take a tap off of an AC duct to run a four inch line to it. Should be enough leakage around the box to allow cool air in.. I'll let everyone know how it comes out. Could be a good temp solution for others needing to keep their wine cool during a few extra hot summer months. Wow, was 105 here yesterday.
The homebrew beer guys have this problem a lot too. There are several options that are given out frequently: 1. The swamp cooler that was mentioned. They usually put the carboy in a big tub of water, put a tower or T-shirt over the carboy and down into the water and, possibly, blow a fan over it. The functionality of this depends on your relative humidity. 2. Get an old fridge. The highest setting may be OK, but if it is still too cold, then you can put a simple timer on it or you can get a special temperature controller for it. (Common temp controllers are the Johnson Controls A419 and the Ranco. Online homebrew places have them.) 3. Put it into a tub of water and keep ice in the water. I've used 1/2 or gallon jugs of ice and swapped them out once or twice a day - however often it takes to keep the temp where you want it. Twice a day and I was able to "lager" beer at around 50F in a 75F basement. Insulating the tub only helps. 4. The insulated box with ice trick works too... The common plans for that are the "son of fermentator" at:
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