Personally I would never use a whiskey barrel for wine. A neighbor used
one and it gave his wine a real burbon flavor, but I'm sure he didn't
treat it first with barrel kleen.

You need to make sure not to allow the Chardonnay to finish fermenting
in the barrel. The more alcohol it has the more oak it will get. It's
a good way to break in a new barrel though. Just have something waiting
to go in.

I currently have a 5 gal american and a 60 gallon french oak barrel in
the basement. This fall I'm going to do a big batch of Cabernet and
plan on buying a couple 30's for long term aging.

I bought my 60 gallon barrel on ebay for $100 + $65 shipping using
Fedex. They advertised that the barrels were ozone'd after being
cleaned out. I have had a cab/merlot in it with no problems for a year.
The barrel new is about $700. It still had a lot of oak left in it.
You could smell the sweetness in it.


Frank Bacon wrote:
> I'm considering barrel fermentation for a fall batch of Chardonnay. I was
> thinking of purchasing a pair of 30 gallon barrels. I'm a little leery
> however because I once tried a small (13gl.) barrel storage and the barrel
> became infected with TLC (some really gross black stuff) which ruined my
> wine.
>
> My questions a
>
> Do any wine making hobbyist use non-whiskey barrels for fermentation and
> storage?
>
> What do you have to be careful of? What are your sanitation practices? (I
> used Barrelclean last time - nasty stuff.)
>
> Do you have a North-east coast source of new oak barrels that won't bankrupt
> me?
>
>
> Thanks.
>
>