How do I make a barrel?
I want one to put liquor in but they are expensive as hell
Could I make a white trash barrel by taking a log, hollowing it out then capping it off?
Some sort of ratchet strap or clamp could put pressure on the caps from the outside to prevent leaks.
If you have to ask, you're going to spend more on wood, parts, and tools than the cost of a barrel.
Here's a 5 gallon barrel for $150
http://www.ebay.com/itm/20-Liter-5-2-Gallon-American-Oak-Barrel-for-Aging-Wine-Spirits-Rum-or-Beer-/
>>925382
your jerry-rig barrel would probably split because of wood movement, if you store dry stuff in it it would probably work
The term you need to look up is cooperage.
That is pretty much making and repairing barrels and it is a specialized skills
>>925382
get white oak boards 1x10 or so
rabbet and dado joint pic related on the sides
dado on bottom and top square
drill bung hole
strap clamp
fill and plug bung
enjoy
>>925424
Also, don't forget to char the interior with a hot propane flame
unless you are doing this to be swag
in which case fuck opff
This is how barrels are made
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78uPeAqVac8
>>925443
nope, he just points out how it's sealed
>>925444
That is the modern process. Back in ye olde days they had much less machinery.
>>925461
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu5KgQn7Cwg
>>925464
Still too much machinery.
>>925382
OP, i can't make a barrel to save my life, my grandpa did it for a living for a while, and he still dose it when he has time and energy.
The material isn't too expensive, but the tools you need will set you back quite a bit.
You need woodworking tools to get your lumber to the tight size shape, you need to have something to round out the top and bottom (Think ye old'y lathe), a steam chamber to shape it, metalworking furnace to place the hoops. and you need to fire it when you're done. All in all it's cheaper to buy one, than invest in the machinery needed. Unless you plan to make a businesses making barrels it's not worth the effort. And if you are trying to make a businesses fuck you I ain't giving up trade secrets.
>>925470
This isn't medieval guild years
Share the wealth of knowledge!
Is barrel making a viable trade to do by hand?
>>925509
Not the guy you asked, but you'll need a couple of planes, a "router" which is more of a curved rabbit plane to cut the aforementioned dadoes to hold the top and bottom, and some heat source to work the hoops (I think they were riveted back in the day?). Don't think they used a steamer way back when. Roy Underhill did a few episodes with the Colonial Williamsburg cooper, they're on YouTube. As far as making a trade out of it, making a living? Not sure the customer base is there for that, sir.
>>925509
YouTube how it's made barrels. The staves are mostly automated but a cooper needs to fit them together, then machines help with the banding.
They are a consumable item and lots of alcoholic drinks use them because they are traditional and delicious, so market is pretty stable. For the same reason it would be hard to break into the market unless you just want to make shitty barrel halves for people to put plants in.
OP here's a link you need to watch.
http://youtu.be/L6t2AZubF8U
The guy puts two blocks of wood, one red oak the other white oak, into pools of denatured alcohol. It will show how how alcohol is easily effected by capillary action. He even mentions that this is why they don't make whisky barrels from red oak, because all the alcohol would spill out everywhere. This is why I thought it would be relevant to your thread.
Here's another good link. Ralfy is a whisky reviewer on youtube.
http://youtu.be/bN-1mNqCLpc
He got a totally garbage bottle of expensive whisky and remedied it by adding sweeter and a toasted oak stick.
You could take that idea a step further and put booze in cheap food grade 55 gallon drums, and pioneer a way to use small roasted oak planks to impart the same flavor. The alcohol industry could use some fresh ideas that conserve wood while giving an identical final product.
If you're set on making a wooden barrel, this is the most helpful video I've seen so far. It's not much, but it shows you the process from log to finished barrel.
http://youtu.be/bu5KgQn7Cwg
The wood will soak up alcohol, and the goal is to use the hoops to press the wood together so the wood can't expand all the way, which restricts the capillary action. Alcohol is lighter than water so it probably permeates the wood easier, flavoring your booze.
You could coat the outside of your barrel with a mixture of epoxy and denatured alcohol, which would mean the outside of the barrel is sealed and you wouldn't have to worry about your booze evaporating.
Here's a link showing a guy using alcohol to make epoxy soak into balsa wood.
http://youtu.be/ujk-wBQDUSk
>>925470
>fuck you I'm not sharing trade secrets
Oh yea, I'm sure those secrets are why you're a rich bastard in a mansion with servants, and if you told us your super secret barrel techniques it would all go away.
Actually, I'm sure you're just a douche. Trade secrets exist to force young people to spend time with bitter old men under the guise of apprenticeship.
Trade secrets are why the original recipe for Greek fire was lost.
>get old keg
>fill with desired alcohol
>Make whiskey sticks (chared white oak sticks)
>add whiskey sticks
>wait a month
Enjoy
>>925602
Would wine soaked wood chips make it brandy?
>>925640
No. Brandy is distilled wine.
Learn something new every day!
Here's a GREAT link. The most educational and helpful site I've found.
http://homedistiller.org/intro
>>925509
God I miss the guild years.
I'll go in with a camera and catch a few snapshots of gramps when he starts putting together a new lot on Monday. Take a few snapshot, maybe a video.
It's not really a full time gig. The family trade is lumber (fulltime gig decent pay for a family business and is paying for college) so we have enough of it left over that's too short or too thin for construction material left over, and the tools are there anyway, why not make a few extra bucks with odd's and ends, like barrels beehives stuff like that...
The "secret" is to have a lot of jigs. Use them for everything and don't freehand a thing. Always have a jig clone in case one brakes. These define your barrel shape and size. and from there it's just finger chopping Lego.
We got a propane furnace, usually used to fix up tools, to heat iron strips and than hammer them on to damp wood to shape re heat with torch in needed , use 2 big ass rivet head nails.
I don't remember how or why we own a steamer but we just do. It's nothing complicated and I'm sure you could make one in a few days and a few hundred bucks. Might need a press to get the shape right, or just use something real heavy if you have a strong back or slave labour.
The actual making process is easy in my opinion. It's getting the right type of wood for the right liquor that's the trick. And I don't know that. We usually just get an order for a barrel made of X wood.
>>925525
I will miss my mansion and servants :(
Also greek fire is white phosphorus and olive oil.
They sure boiled down a lot of piss with iron to get to the sucker tho...
>>925443
>sin tax
Taxing people is a sin inof itself. They are just greedy.
>>925650
Jesus Christ, it's a family business and they keep secrets from you?
What a bunch of bullass.
The wood is probably white oak, btw.
>>925658
The don't really know ether, we take orders from companies or brewers and just make what they ask for. As to what goes in witch barrel, well for all I know and care it could be piss
>>925658
Because they know he is a think that will spill the beans on four chins.
>>925516
>using denatured alcohol to make something you want to drink
pls stop talking.
>>925449
That's not how barrels are sealed, though. They're friction fit. There's no dado or anything.
>>925382
Just make a plywood box. Easy to do even when you'd drunk on swish
use these to add wood character. lots of surface area in a small size. fuck barrels.
>>925677
Denatured alcohol is used as a thinner for constructions. He mixed it with epoxy until it was the consistency of water so the epoxy could penetrate deep into the wood grain.
Did you watch the video?
>>925516
Second. An old moonshiner trick of turning white lighting into much more drinkable whiskey is to use blocks of charred oak in 5gal mason jars (the moonshiner's container of choice because it's easy to hump out of the woods etc.).
It's not quite as good as a barrel for aging alcohol, because you don't get the evaporation of a few of the compounds that soak through the barrel, or the introduction of just tiny amounts of oxygen that is enough to let some of it oxidize but not enough to feed any bacteria, but probably somewhere in the 80-90% as good if you age it for 5 years or so.
IDK that i'd use food grade 55 gal drums, I'd worry about some of the plastic dissolving in the alcohol and affecting the taste. If you do, make DAMN sure it's food grade, because a lot of the other stuff not only has plastic that will leech, some of the chemicals in them won't wash out.
>>925382
Did you even google this, you retarded faggot canadian?
I fucked a canadian girl while she was on the phone with her canadicuck boyfriend. It was probably you, you big faggot
>>925680
Croze:
The croze is the groove that is created at the top and bottom of the barrel staves. It is created to hold the head.
http://woodenbarrelwarehouse.com/cooperage-ancient-art-barrel-making/#Head
>>925443
Can you build it? idk
I could build it.
>>925382
I dont know. do you have the tools to cut timber straight to within fractions of a degree? how about steam forming equipment?
>>925514
the customer base is certainly there. it's just that people are generally unwilling to pay 1000$ for a fresh barrel.
>>925443
you can distill hooch and then add "whiskey flavoring" or whatever flavor you want. the cheap whiskey is all just vodka+barrel essence. then when you double the price you start hitting something that once touched a barrel. although most of it is made in steel/glass vats with barrel essence + woodchips. once you move over 70$ a bottle you stop getting tailings and actually get something aged in a barrel.
>>925525
that is state secrets. you dont want your enemy learning how to boil pitch.
but srsly, what you need to understand about the greeks is that their stories are quite colorful. like all we know about the spartans is from what the athenians and the various people they raped wrote about them.
trade secrets are the reason we dont have the recipe for the disgusting soup that only old spartans can and will only eat. a soup so disgusting that only a true spartan could stand it. or so the story goes. that or they were illiterate. you dont find anything written by spartans.
>>925657
One of the cons of socialized medicine
>>925516
>You could take that idea a step further and put booze in cheap food grade 55 gallon drums, and pioneer a way to use small roasted oak planks to impart the same flavor.
This is widely done.
>>925443
Do they have sin tax in Canuck?
>>925922
In Canada alcoholic beverages are taxed based on their alcoholic content I think?
Beer and wine aren't taxed terribly but around half the cost of hard alcohol is the tax.
I haven't smoked since high school but a pack of smokes here is nearly 20 dollars.
Oak taste is overrated imo tbqh.
>>925382
>they are expensive as hell
well they are expensive as hell because they are very labour intesive and take alot of skill to make
The scotch whisky industry uses old thrown away sherry casks (from Spain, duh!).
They fire the insides out before maturing the whisky in them.
Find a Spanish bodega to supply you. They also supply stupid garden centres with cut down barrels for planting in.
>>925424
This method sounds vaguely sexual
>>925382
>>925383
>>925388
Yes, hollowing out a log would be a poor idea to store liquid.
A barrel has multiple planks, so that as they become wet, they swell which seals the seams between planks.
When you first use a new barrel that is dry, it will leak until it swells. This us why you need to keep barrels filled with something.
To try this with a hollow log would eventually split it.
Also, the chance of finding a log youbcould use of a optimal species of wood would prove problematic.
wha province u at m8 ?
i know a cooper but hes foreign ask fuk and doesnt have a website or telephone
