CASKS.
Casks are almost universally made of oak, though other material has
been tried, but generally to be abandoned in favor of the first named.
Large, covered tanks of redwood are used to some extent in California
for storing red wine, being first well steamed to extract the coloring
matter of the wood, but they are not considered desirable, and had
better be replaced by oak casks.
=Oak Wood.=—In France very nice distinctions used to be made as to
the kind and nationality of the wood used, the shook from the north,
Dantzig, Lubeck, Memel, Riga, and Stettin, taking the first rank, that
from America the second, and that known as Bosnian, from the southern
provinces of Austria and the north of Turkey in Europe, the third, and
that of France the fourth. That from America is the most pliable, but
is liable to be found worm-eaten.
All kinds of oak wood contain in different proportions fourteen
different principles, several of which are dissolved by wine, and
among the most important of which are tannin, gallic acid, a bitter
extractive, mucilage, vegetable albumen, and several of pronounced
smell and taste. The Bosnian oak contains the most tannin and soluble
matter, and is suitable for highly colored wines. But now-a-days there
is not so much stress laid upon the quality of the wood as formerly.
Their extracts serve often to correct some of the defects of the wine,
and many of them are neutralized by the ingredients of the latter. By
the introduction of their tannin and albumen the clarification of wine
is facilitated; but none but new wine whose insensible fermentation is
not yet completed should be put into new casks, for they cause older
wines to lose their transparency, and give them a woody flavor which
may last a long time. Therefore, temper your new casks with new wine.
=Storing Casks.=—Casks should be kept in a closed place, not so dry as
to cause much shrinkage, nor so damp as to cause mould. In California
during the summer, there is no danger from the latter, but the former
should be guarded against. In winter, the reverse is the rule. Where
casks are to be kept a long time empty, they should be sulphured and
tightly bunged, and the sulphuring should be repeated every six months.
But they must be carefully washed before putting wine into them. They
are less liable to be attacked by the borer if stored in a dark place.
=New Casks.=—Before putting wine into a new cask, it is ordinarily
sufficient to give it a thorough washing with boiling water. Pour in
one or two gallons of hot water, bung it up, and roll it and shake it
about till it is thoroughly rinsed, letting it rest awhile on each end,
and not only will this sufficiently cleanse the cask, but will show if
there are any leaks. When the water is nearly cold, let it run out, and
thoroughly rinse with cold water, and turn down the bung-hole and leave
till well drained.
Mr. Maigne recommends that a couple of pounds of salt be dissolved in
the first water, and that the second washing be made with a decoction
of peach leaves. Often the casks are soaked for a day with cold water,
then washed with lime water, prepared by adding four pounds of lime
to two gallons of boiling water for a 100-gallon cask. After thorough
agitation, it is washed with cold water. Sometimes, too, the cask is
washed with a gallon or so of boiling wine, but it is an unnecessary
waste.
Mr. Boireau says that when it is necessary to put old or very delicate
wines into new casks, the greater part of the soluble matters can be
extracted in the following manner: Pour in about two gallons of boiling
lye made from ashes or potash, or other alkaline substance, such as
slacked lime or pulverized chalk, etc., for they will dissolve out more
of those soluble matters than pure water. After thoroughly agitating
the cask, pour out the lye, and repeat the process; afterwards rinse
with boiling water, and run it out before cold; then wash with cold
water acidulated with one-tenth part of sulphuric acid, which enfeebles
the solubility of these matters; finally, rinse with cold water and
drain.
These latter operations may be avoided by first washing with hot water,
and then filling the casks with common wine of the color of that
intended to be put into them, and leaving them for about two weeks.
And before filling them with a grand red wine, it will be well to
moisten the inner walls of the cask with a glass or so of good, old
brandy.
[Illustration: _Fig. 11._ Rinsing Chain.]
[Illustration: _Fig. 12._ Visitor.]
=Old Casks=, or those which have been in use, should be well washed as
soon as emptied, and the washings should be repeated with clean water
until it runs out perfectly clear. Oftentimes the cask will have more
or less lees adhering to its inner walls, which cannot be removed by an
ordinary washing, but it will be necessary to make use of the _rinsing
chain_. This chain is about six feet long, consisting of links made of
square iron whose corners will more readily detach the lees. One end is
attached to a long conical bung to keep it from falling into the cask,
and the other is armed with a square block of iron of a size to easily
go into the bung-hole (fig. 11). After pouring in two or three gallons
of boiling water, leave the cask for a while so that the lees may
become softened, then introduce the chain by the bung-hole, and close
it with the bung at the other end of the instrument. Thoroughly roll
and agitate the cask until the chain and its iron block have removed
the lees so that they will run out with the water. Repeat the operation
with clean water as often as necessary, and rinse till the water runs
out limpid, and let the cask drain.
=To Examine the Inside of a Cask=, an instrument called a _visitor_ is
used. This is simply a piece of heavy wire bent into a loop or handle
at the upper end, with the lower end turned up and bent around into the
form of a small ring into which a candle can be inserted (fig. 12).
Put a piece of a candle into this candlestick or socket, light it,
and lower it into the cask through the bung, and the interior can be
inspected.
=Empty Casks should not be allowed to remain long without Washing=;
as soon as the lees are removed, they should be rinsed as already
mentioned, and they should not be put to drain in the sun, for the heat
will transform the alcohol remaining into vinegar in a few hours.
=Sulphuring Casks.=—If the cask is to be kept empty for some time,
after it has been washed and then drained for a few minutes, it should
be sulphured by burning in it a piece of sulphur match about an inch
square, and it should then be left to drain dry. After twenty-four
hours, burn in it three or four inches of the match, and bung it up
with the gas in it. Store it in a suitable place as described for new
casks, and sulphur it every three months. (See _Sulphuring_.)
=Condition to be Examined.=—In using an old cask, as well as a new one,
the first thing to ascertain is if it leaks. If the hoops are loose,
they should be driven; then pour in two or three pails of water, and
stand the cask alternately on each end, and if it is found to leak,
soak it till it is tight. If the leaks cannot be stopped by driving the
hoops and by soaking, it must be repaired.
The next thing to ascertain is, if the cask has become sour, mouldy,
or has been otherwise injuriously affected, as it is liable to be if
put away without being carefully washed and cared for. This can be
ascertained by examining with the _visitor_, or by smelling. If, when
the candle or a piece of lighted sulphur match is lowered into the
cask, it ceases to burn, the cask probably contains a noxious gas,
which must be expelled. This may be done by blowing in the bung-hole
with a hand-bellows till the air is changed, or by standing the cask on
its lower end with the hole in the upper head open, and the open bung
turned towards the wind. If, however, it is in the condition which the
French call _eventé_, which corresponds with that diseased condition of
wine called by the same name and which we call flatness, the gas being
carbonic acid, and heavier than air, will run out of its own accord
if the open bung is turned down and the cask left for a while in that
position.
=Flatness in the Cask=, as we will call it for want of a better term,
Boireau says, consists in the disengagement of carbonic acid gas which
is produced in the interior, and is generally found in casks which
have been bunged up without washing, and which gives them an odor of
stagnant lees with slight acidity, and will extinguish the sulphur
match. After the bad air has been expelled the cask should be well
washed with the use of the chain. A cask which has contained wine that
has become flat should receive the same treatment. If a large tun is to
be treated, the foul air should be expelled, and a man should not enter
till a light will burn in it. (See _the disease, Flatness_.)
=Acidity= will be found in the cask if it is left for several days
uncared for; the alcohol contained in the wine remaining on the inside
of the cask acidifies in contact with the oxygen of the air, and is
soon changed into acetic acid, and the change is much more rapid in a
high temperature. Instead of being simply flat, the cask is now really
sour, and smells of vinegar. The treatment consists in either removing
or neutralizing the acid. The first can be done by steam. Turn the
bung-hole down, and conduct a jet of steam into the cask either through
the faucet-hole or the bung; the water condensed from the steam charged
with acid runs out at the bung-hole, and the process must be continued
till the water no longer has an acid flavor.
Where it is not convenient to use steam, rinse the cask by using the
chain, and scald it out with hot lye made from wood ashes or potash, or
with quicklime dissolved in hot water. Give it several rinsings with
the alkaline solution without allowing it to cool, and, if possible,
fill it with cold water and let it soak three or four days, and rinse
as usual. If the water is allowed to remain longer in the cask it may
become stagnant.
=Mouldy Casks.=—Casks may become mouldy inside when left in a damp
place, if the bungs are left out, or if they are leaky through
defective staves or hoops, sometimes even when they have been
sulphured, and much more if they have not been. This condition is
recognized by a mouldy smell. The surest way to treat a mouldy cask
is to take out the head, and give it a thorough scrubbing with a
stiff broom and water. If after removing the mould the staves resume
the color of wine-stained wood, it is proof that the wood has not been
affected, and the head may be replaced, and the cask rinsed in the
usual way. If, however, after removing the mould, the wood is found to
be of a brown color, it is more or less rotten.
=Rottenness= is due to the same causes as mouldiness, and when the
inside of a cask is decayed, it is no longer fit for wine. If, however,
the mouldy cask is brown only in spots, they should be entirely scraped
off, and then it may be used. But it is best not to put good wine into
such casks, for there is danger of spoiling it.
=Brandy Casks=, when emptied, should simply be bunged up, without
washing, as the alcohol remaining will have a preservative effect. They
should not be kept in a place which is too damp.
=Do not Sulphur Old Brandy or Whisky Casks= which have recently been
emptied or in which any alcohol remains, or you may cause a disastrous
explosion. In preparing new casks for the reception of brandy, they
should be washed and left to drain for twenty-four hours and until
they are dry, and if they are to be kept some time, throw in a glass
or two of brandy, bung tightly, and roll and shake till the inside is
moistened with the liquor. If they are to be used at once, they ought
to be first soaked with water for three or four days to remove the
woody taste.
Boireau says that common wines may be put into brandy barrels, or
even oil barrels which have not become rancid (olive oil barrels, I
presume), but that fine wines should never be put into them. He also
adds that wine should not be put into casks which have been used for
rum, kirsch, vinegar, absinthe, vermouth, or any other liquor having
a strong odor, traces of which will be preserved in the pores of the
wood, even after the staves have been scraped.
=Cask Borers.=—There is a beetle which is very destructive of casks
in California, which Mr. J. J. Rivers, curator of the museum of the
University, describes as _Sinoxlylon declive_ of the family of
_Bostrichidae_. In a paper read before the Anthrozoic Club, and
reported in the _Rural Press_, Vol. XX, p. 153, 1880, he states that
at the request of Mr. Schram, of Napa county, he experimented with the
insect in order to ascertain a remedy for the ruin caused by it. He
says that “Its primary mischief is caused by the habit of the parent
insect boring a hole three or more inches for the purpose of depositing
eggs. As casks are usually much less than three inches in thickness,
the beetle taps the liquid contents, and loss accrues by leakage. The
remedy I first thought of was to select some species of wood suitable
for cask making that would be unpalatable to this insect. My endeavors
in that way have resulted in failure for the reason that this beetle
appears to have no particular dislike to oak, chesnut, pine, whitewood,
and several of the eucalypti. The next step was to saturate the outside
of the cask with a strong solution of alum water applied hot, and when
dry, a coat of linseed oil, this latter to prevent the alum from being
washed out, as it would be in time. This proved a success, for all the
examples treated with the solution were untouched, while the unprepared
were riddled by the borer.” The insect is more destructive to casks
stored in light places; it is therefore better to keep them in the dark.
=The Size of the Casks= is a matter of a good deal of importance. For
shipping, the ordinary pipe or puncheon holding from 150 to 200 gallons
is of a convenient size for handling, but for storing it is better
to use as large a vessel as possible, and where the quantity stored
is large, tuns of from 1000 to 3000 gallons or more in size are far
preferable. In the first place, it is a well known fact that wine made
at the same time, of grapes of like varieties, from the same vineyard,
and under the same apparent conditions, turns out quite differently in
different casks, and the contents of one cask may far excel in quality
that of another. In order to insure uniformity in a large quantity of
wine, it is necessary to store it in large receptacles.
Another, and perhaps still more important consideration, is that there
is much less loss by evaporation when the wine is stored in large
casks. The evaporation in a small barrel will be almost as great as in
a cask three or four times the size, and to keep the small one full
will require about the same amount of wine at each ulling, which must
be performed nearly as often. There are two reasons for this: first,
because the staves of small casks are thinner, and secondly, because in
them a greater surface of wine is exposed to evaporation, according to
the volume, than in the case of the larger vessel.
Guyot says, however, that the larger the receptacles, other conditions
being equal, the more rapid the development of the wines, and the
sooner they go through the periods of their life, and arrive at
decrepitude. He says that the greater part of wines, especially light
wines and white wines, cannot endure a long sojourn in tuns, vats, and
cisterns. They go through the phases of their life with a rapidity
fatal to their good qualities; nevertheless, this fact may be utilized
to hasten the epoch when wine may be used or put upon the market;
also to produce dry wines, to vinify sweet ones, and to age those of
good body. If, therefore, his theory is well founded—and we know that
fermentation once established is more active, if the mass is great—the
intelligent man will act in this behalf as circumstances require. It
would seem, however, that a large mass would be less affected by sudden
changes of temperature, and therefore, better protected from their
consequent ill effects.
And Boireau recommends that white wines be stored in tuns, when mature,
as already mentioned. (See _Aging_.)