I bought a full sized used bourbon barrell that used to house Heaven Hill. Before I gather enough people for a big brew day to fill it, what preparations do I need to do? I heard to fill it up with very hot water to sanitize and swell it to prevent leaks. Is there anything else I should do to sanitize it?
Gordon Strong has a nice little story at the beginning of his book where he tries to use flammable liquid and lights a match to sanitize it. He nearly killed himself.
You can burn a sulfur stick inside of the barrel to kill anything that is living in it and then rinse it out well with water. They are commonly used by people aging wine in barrels that want to make sure nothing is alive in the barrel before they add new wine.
You generally do not want to ignite anything in barrels that have previously contained liquids with high alcohol %s. Hot water of ~150F is usually sufficient.
Gordon was using a sulfur stick to sanitize, and as said, it blew up. The ABV of a wine is lower, so no problem. The problem with wood is that some nasties get deep into the pores. Hard to clean and sanitze.
I think if you give the barrel a little bit of time to air out you do not need to worry about it blowing up. If it is still that full of alcohol though you probably do not need to sanitize it because nothing will be living in the high alcohol environment and you can just rinse it out.
I use 5 gallon barrels and just filll them with ~180F water the night before I want to fill them... So far no problem for me with sanitation.
I don't think that there needs to be that much actual fluid left to make it dangerous. It's how much vapor that is present that is dangerous.
Is the distillery bung still sealing the barrel? If so, just scrub around it with iodine, pop that thing out, and fill. The barrel is still sanitary if still sealed form the distillery. If it's been opened and sat around, you'll need to pressure wash the inside and then steam it or use sulfur dioxide. As stated above, make sure all the alcohol is washed out before you burn anything, and gaseous SO2 is a safe bet either way (though may be difficult or impossible to acquire for a home brewer, not sure). If the barrel is small enough, you could also fill it with boiling water and let it soak.
Thanks everyone. The bung is still in, but I don't know if it was in from the distillary. I bought it from a third party at a shop in VA. I don't think there is any bourbon still in it, but I haven't opened it. Didn't hear any kind of sloshing at all though. I guess I'll just go with the 150 water method.
I suggest getting a bottle of the bourbon from that distillery and sanitize it with that. I would always leave some in the barrel and rotate it every now and then to get all the areas covered
This is a good suggestion as well, especially if the barrel has been sitting dry for a while. If it has been sitting dry for a while (i.e. several months or more) you will want to do a water soak first to re-swell the staves. If you were to pour the liquor in without doing the presoak it would all just leak right out. Also, be aware that the barrel will soak up / evaporate an entire 1/5th of whiskey in fairly short amount of time... I had one soak up an entire bottle in about 2 weeks, I turned it every day to expose all surface and it was dry 2 weeks later.
Speaking of Gordon.. every year at the AHA Conference, the Governing Committee awards a sort of "lifetime achievement" award to someone who's made a big impact in the homebrewing community. Since Gordon was no longer part of the Governing Committee we planned in secret to award him the honor. But of course we had to make a small loving poke at him as well..
