Hi. On my vacation in France I bought a couple of beautiful new oak barrels for our reenactment group to store our drinks in. Prices in France are a lot lower than in The Netherlands because many folk still use oak barrels there for wine, calvados and other liquors. The barrels came with a big filling hole in the side but there are no holes yet in the front where a tap would go. I bought a couple of wooden taps along with the barrels, but before I start drilling I would like to know if such taps were actually used in medieval times.

I have been looking at the various indexes on larsdatter.com but I have trouble digging up images. I have been looking at the cooper, tavern and beer brewing sections. I found a couple of images showing barrels with holes and taps on the front, but just a few. It looks like (to me) that taps were used in the 15th-16th century, but our group portays the 13th century.

Does anyone have any idea how 13th century folk got the wine out of the barrels and into the jugs?

Things I found so far:

Cooper (1518). Looks like a hole in the top.
Guy pouring wine (16th century). Looks like some kind of tap.
Beer brewer (16th century). Holes where taps could go.
Tavern scene (13th century). Looks like a tap maybe? It's hard to see. I'd love a bigger image.
Wine (15th century). Looks like holes with corks, and maybe a tap of some sort in the back? Very hard to see in detail.
Innkeeper (15th century). Most definitely a tap, but maybe copper of something instead of wood.

Thanks in advance for any help! I'd love to have some more sources before I start drilling holes in my 150 euro oak barrels.

Some other things I found:

Copper cast barrel tap (1400-1600)
Copper barrel tap (15th-16th century)

Lay underneath with mouth open and get friend to hit barrel with axe.
:cool:

Sander,

You have fermentation and storage barrels. It would be normal to rack the contents, either by tube or by rolling it sideways on the stillion to decant to another vessel. Until the barrel was no longer useful for aging, having had too many batches through it, one wouldn't tap the face. Its very difficult to bung the hole effectively. Keeping one bung upward on the rack means the other is under load and will leak. Admittedly this is from observation in modern vintners and breweries as well as my own experience with mead aging. Having a smaller vessel to draw off a short term supply for serving seems to be more practical.

Find a book on cellaring, preferably for the wine industry. Ale cellarmen handle the finished product a little differently.

K

@Kel: Thanks for the tips.

Kel Rekuta wrote:

Having a smaller vessel to draw off a short term supply for serving seems to be more practical.

I have a 10 liter barrel and a 30 liter barrel. But how would I draw off a key or something through the top bung hole without too much spillage? I would tapping the face and leaking not be a problem for these small barrels?

@Dan: I'd love to, but I think our group treasurer wouldn't like it very much :-)

Sander,
I've seen images from early beer making wherein the big filler plug was bored for a smaller tap, probably a second plug swapped in after fermentation. I don't know what time period that belonged to, or if the drawings were accurate. Also, beer and ale are a bit different from wine, both in making and enjoying!
Is your group planning to actually vint or are they for storage and serving only?

You can buy valves that fit the cork or bung hole from some home brew suppliers.

You will probably end up with very strong "oak" tasting beverage for a while. The ratio of surface area of wood / volume of beverage changes dramatically as you vary from small barrels to larger (standard 44 gallon) barrels. Miniature barrels as sold through home brewing type suppliers tend to have excessive intensity of wood flavor. It sounds like you got small ones. I would would start off with a couple of batches of water, rinsed, and replaced on a week or two interval to dilute the wood flavor. I know one local brewer with a 5 gallon oak " mini barrel" who used a bottle of whiskey the first couple of rinses to help purge the wood intensity out.

If these are traditional barrels, once you get them wet, you need to keep them wet or they will loosen up and leak. Water is fine for preserving the fit of the slats as well as for diluting the intensity of wood flavor while breaking them in.

A misericord in a choir stall, circa 1532 http://www.bildindex.de/bilder/be00098f03a.jpg

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Thanks for all the advice!

Eric W. Norenberg wrote:

Is your group planning to actually vint or are they for storage and serving only?

The 30 liter barrel will probably be used just for storage and serving. Most likely water. With 18 people running around, half of them in armour, we use a lot of water. I want to expand our groups storage so that we only need to get water once a day.

I'm not sure yet about the 10 liter barrel. It might go to out group and be used for serving beer, wine or mead. But I am also inclined to keep it myself and use it for my own mead. My girlfriend's uncle is a beekeeper so I can get good quality honey at low prices. And I love mead :)

Jared Smith wrote:

If these are traditional barrels, once you get them wet, you need to keep them wet or they will loosen up and leak. Water is fine for preserving the fit of the slats as well as for diluting the intensity of wood flavor while breaking them in.

I've been told that by the cooper in France that I bought the barrels from. Also, supposedly you can't just store water in them to keep them wet, because it can cause molds to form. I found out online that you need to fill the barrels with a solution of 1 tablespoon of metabisulfite and 2 teaspoons of citric acid for every 5 gallons of water, with needs to be replaced every couple of months.

Kel Rekuta wrote:

Tapping the face of a keg or the side requires a tapered hole predrilled and bunged with soft wood.

My barrels don't have holes predrilled in the face. Just the big bunghole in the side for filling it. Could I just drill a straight hole and snugly fit the tap using some cloth? That's what the copper did with the big bungholes (cork + cloth). I was smart enough to buy a couple of those wooden taps in France, but I wanted to get some more advice here before I started drilling :)

PS: I'd love to hear about some of your experiences with mead aging. I got all the ingredients and materials together for mead and I think I'll start mixing up my very first batch of JOAM in a week or two.