what containers should I use for aging?
 

I currently only have 1 gallon demijohns for wine making, however I want
to start thinking about moving up to 5 gallon/25 litre quantities. I'm
undecided about what to age my wines in. I'm looking for something that
I can put on heavy duty shelving for a couple of years. I've had a good
search and the only containers I can find are plastic, oak or glass. Oak
sounds nice in theory, but sounds hard to look after and is quite
expensive to replace if things go wrong. I can also get oak tones with
beads/staves. Glass is something I'm thinking about and commonly
available. What other alternatives are there?

I've seen mentions of stainless steel, but can't find anywhere in the UK
that seems to sell kegs suitable for wine making. Does anyone know of a
retailer? There's lots of (expensive) beer stuff with pressure valves
and stuff, would they be usable? There several local metal workers who
could probably weld me something together. Does anyone know of any plans
I could use if I go this route?

Would storing in the plastic barrels most home brew shops for two years
or more be a problem?

I would strongly advise you NOT to use the polyethylene type barrels for
long term bulk aging. I have never used wooden barrels and from the comments
I have seen on here it is fraught with possible problems -- especially for
the small time home winemaker. I have never used stainless steel but
certainly some of our US winemakers do use them.
I have 8 x 23 litre glass carboys for my bulk aging and about 30 x 1
gallon ( imp). I used to have over 60 1 gallon jars but they occupied to
much space! The 23 litre glass jars are readily available from your local
home brew store complete with a cap which allows insertion of fermentation
locks. You can also buy a suitable carrying handle which is necessary. ( see
below)

The trouble with the"plastic" carboys is that in the long term they will
admit oxygen to your stored wine. They also are very susceptible to off
flavours being admitted to the wine. I do use them for fermenting in but
transfer to glass once it is complete for bulk aging.

The disadvantage of the 23 litre glass is that they are very heavy
especially when full -- over 60lbs and you should think carefully where you
are going to store them

HTH

--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire, England
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"alien" > wrote in message
...
>I currently only have 1 gallon demijohns for wine making, however I want
<snip><snip>

I would strongly advise you NOT to use the polyethylene type barrels for
long term bulk aging. I have never used wooden barrels and from the comments
I have seen on here it is fraught with possible problems -- especially for
the small time home winemaker. I have never used stainless steel but
certainly some of our US winemakers do use them.
I have 8 x 23 litre glass carboys for my bulk aging and about 30 x 1
gallon ( imp). I used to have over 60 1 gallon jars but they occupied to
much space! The 23 litre glass jars are readily available from your local
home brew store complete with a cap which allows insertion of fermentation
locks. You can also buy a suitable carrying handle which is necessary. ( see
below)

The trouble with the"plastic" carboys is that in the long term they will
admit oxygen to your stored wine. They also are very susceptible to off
flavours being admitted to the wine. I do use them for fermenting in but
transfer to glass once it is complete for bulk aging.

The disadvantage of the 23 litre glass is that they are very heavy
especially when full -- over 60lbs and you should think carefully where you
are going to store them

HTH

--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire, England
Remove "PSANTISPAM" from my address line to reply.
All outgoing mail is scanned by Norton
Anti Virus for your protection too!
"alien" > wrote in message
...
>I currently only have 1 gallon demijohns for wine making, however I want
<snip><snip>

pinky wrote:
> I would strongly advise you NOT to use the polyethylene type barrels for
> long term bulk aging. I have never used wooden barrels and from the comments
> I have seen on here it is fraught with possible problems -- especially for
> the small time home winemaker. I have never used stainless steel but
> certainly some of our US winemakers do use them.
> I have 8 x 23 litre glass carboys for my bulk aging and about 30 x 1
> gallon ( imp). I used to have over 60 1 gallon jars but they occupied to
> much space! The 23 litre glass jars are readily available from your local
> home brew store complete with a cap which allows insertion of fermentation
> locks. You can also buy a suitable carrying handle which is necessary. ( see
> below)
>
> The trouble with the"plastic" carboys is that in the long term they will
> admit oxygen to your stored wine. They also are very susceptible to off
> flavours being admitted to the wine. I do use them for fermenting in but
> transfer to glass once it is complete for bulk aging.
>
> The disadvantage of the 23 litre glass is that they are very heavy
> especially when full -- over 60lbs and you should think carefully where you
> are going to store them
>
> HTH
>
All of the large glass carbouys I've seen have been tulip shaped with a
long stemmed mouth, hardly optimised for space, which I don't have a
great deal of. After a bit more hunting, I discovered
www.hopandgrape.co.uk which sell a 30 and 50 litre stainless steel bin
that looks like it might be suitable. They also do a better shaped
glass carbouy than I have previously seen, but they prefer not to mail
order these items. However they are in county Durham, and a friend
regularly drives there, so I'll pick some up next time he does. As for
weight, said friend has arms like tree trunks and seems to be immune to
the physics of weight and inertia. He also likes my wine.

pinky wrote:
> I would strongly advise you NOT to use the polyethylene type barrels for
> long term bulk aging. I have never used wooden barrels and from the comments
> I have seen on here it is fraught with possible problems -- especially for
> the small time home winemaker. I have never used stainless steel but
> certainly some of our US winemakers do use them.
> I have 8 x 23 litre glass carboys for my bulk aging and about 30 x 1
> gallon ( imp). I used to have over 60 1 gallon jars but they occupied to
> much space! The 23 litre glass jars are readily available from your local
> home brew store complete with a cap which allows insertion of fermentation
> locks. You can also buy a suitable carrying handle which is necessary. ( see
> below)
>
> The trouble with the"plastic" carboys is that in the long term they will
> admit oxygen to your stored wine. They also are very susceptible to off
> flavours being admitted to the wine. I do use them for fermenting in but
> transfer to glass once it is complete for bulk aging.
>
> The disadvantage of the 23 litre glass is that they are very heavy
> especially when full -- over 60lbs and you should think carefully where you
> are going to store them
>
> HTH
>
All of the large glass carbouys I've seen have been tulip shaped with a
long stemmed mouth, hardly optimised for space, which I don't have a
great deal of. After a bit more hunting, I discovered
www.hopandgrape.co.uk which sell a 30 and 50 litre stainless steel bin
that looks like it might be suitable. They also do a better shaped
glass carbouy than I have previously seen, but they prefer not to mail
order these items. However they are in county Durham, and a friend
regularly drives there, so I'll pick some up next time he does. As for
weight, said friend has arms like tree trunks and seems to be immune to
the physics of weight and inertia. He also likes my wine.

The 23 litre carboys I use are not tulip shaped but upright with a flat
shoulder and short neck. They are, I believe made in Italy. The ones you
mention which, if they are the same as I think, come in a plastic basket and
have a very long neck and have a quite wide maximum diameter --- and are
just not very good -- even the neck is very wide and difficult to stopper.
You don't say where you are but there is a very good on line Home brew shop
which is based in Aldershot.
www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk but they will not sell glass products on line.

or just do a search to find one nearer to you. There are lots of them
around. Very few, if any on line shops will sell glass anyway!

--
Trevor A Panther
In South Yorkshire, England
Remove "PSANTISPAM" from my address line to reply.
All outgoing mail is scanned by Norton
Anti Virus for your protection too!


alien" > wrote in message
...
>
> All of the large glass carbouys I've seen have been tulip shaped with a
> long stemmed mouth, hardly optimised for space, which I don't have a great
> deal of. After a bit more hunting, I discovered www.hopandgrape.co.uk
> which sell a 30 and 50 litre stainless steel bin that looks like it might
> be suitable. They also do a better shaped glass carbouy than I have
> previously seen, but they prefer not to mail order these items. However
> they are in county Durham, and a friend regularly drives there, so I'll
> pick some up next time he does. As for weight, said friend has arms like
> tree trunks and seems to be immune to the physics of weight and inertia.
> He also likes my wine.

"alien" > wrote in message
...
> I've had a good
> search and the only containers I can find are plastic, oak or glass. Oak
> sounds nice in theory, but sounds hard to look after and is quite
> expensive to replace if things go wrong. I can also get oak tones with
> beads/staves. Glass is something I'm thinking about and commonly
> available. What other alternatives are there?
>
> I've seen mentions of stainless steel, but can't find anywhere in the UK
> that seems to sell kegs suitable for wine making. Does anyone know of a
> retailer? There's lots of (expensive) beer stuff with pressure valves
> and stuff, would they be usable? There several local metal workers who
> could probably weld me something together. Does anyone know of any plans
> I could use if I go this route?
>
If you want to go with steel make sure you are buying food grade stainless
steel. Any other steel is not suitable for wine making as it will transfer
compounds into your product.

I know of several wineries that will store upto 2500L in polyethelyene
tanks for short durations ( less than a year) but longer terms are always
done either in oak barrels or food grade steel. Further more they always but
a CO2/N2 or Argon/N2 gas mix in the head space of the tank frequenlty to
keep the O2 out.

Pinky made a note of saying air transfer through plastic which is true but
he should also beaware that this occurs in oak barrels as well.

You could contact a labratory supply company and see if you could order
lexan containers. Lexan is a plastic that has no taste or air transfer and
is used regularily as lab stock bottles or hiking water bottles under the
Nalgene name.



> Would storing in the plastic barrels most home brew shops for two years
> or more be a problem?

It could be done but you would realy have to supervise the barrels to make
sure they aren't oxidizing too fast.

"alien" > wrote in message
...
> I've had a good
> search and the only containers I can find are plastic, oak or glass. Oak
> sounds nice in theory, but sounds hard to look after and is quite
> expensive to replace if things go wrong. I can also get oak tones with
> beads/staves. Glass is something I'm thinking about and commonly
> available. What other alternatives are there?
>
> I've seen mentions of stainless steel, but can't find anywhere in the UK
> that seems to sell kegs suitable for wine making. Does anyone know of a
> retailer? There's lots of (expensive) beer stuff with pressure valves
> and stuff, would they be usable? There several local metal workers who
> could probably weld me something together. Does anyone know of any plans
> I could use if I go this route?
>
If you want to go with steel make sure you are buying food grade stainless
steel. Any other steel is not suitable for wine making as it will transfer
compounds into your product.

I know of several wineries that will store upto 2500L in polyethelyene
tanks for short durations ( less than a year) but longer terms are always
done either in oak barrels or food grade steel. Further more they always but
a CO2/N2 or Argon/N2 gas mix in the head space of the tank frequenlty to
keep the O2 out.

Pinky made a note of saying air transfer through plastic which is true but
he should also beaware that this occurs in oak barrels as well.

You could contact a labratory supply company and see if you could order
lexan containers. Lexan is a plastic that has no taste or air transfer and
is used regularily as lab stock bottles or hiking water bottles under the
Nalgene name.



> Would storing in the plastic barrels most home brew shops for two years
> or more be a problem?

It could be done but you would realy have to supervise the barrels to make
sure they aren't oxidizing too fast.