I emailed Russian river, Avery, Boulevard, The Breury, and Lost Abbey
From Vinnie at Russian River
The first thing you’ll need to do is
make sure the barrel is water tight,
try cold water first, after that if it
still leaks you’ll need to revert to
hot water, the hotter the water the
more flavor will leach out so start
with warm water and work your way up
with the temperature of the water.
At that point, let the barrel dry and
smell it, if it smells clean than move
forward. If it smells off, you most
likely won’t get the off character out
of the wood as it is porous. Good
luck, Vinnie
From Tyler King at the Breury
Hey Derrick,
4 months is a long time for a barrel
to sit empty. You have two major
issues at hand; if the barrel was
stored empty it will most likely not
hold any liquid (it will leak from the
staves and heads), secondly, if there
is any bacteria or wild yeast in the
wood there's nothing you can do.
Before you fill the barrel you will
want to soak it with water to make
sure it will hold your product. You
can fill the barrel up with warm water
and let it sit till it seals (this
will strip flavor from the barrel) or
you can turn the barrel on its heads
and soak it with water (flipping the
barrel and soaking the other head
every other day) till it is sealed
from the outside in (this is what I
do.) Once the barrel is sealed you
can fill it. You can't effectively
sanitize a barrel, if anything is
living in it - it WILL be in your
product! Any intelligent brewer who
has worked with enough oak barrels to
know will tell you this, you cannot
kill all of the microbes living in the
wood. I personally don't sanitize any
oak barrel before I fill it, if the
barrel has a funky smell and/or look
it is made into a planter.
From Tomme Arthur at Lost Abbey
Derrick
Thanks for the email about the barrel you guys are planning on filling. If the barrel is >new and has been bunged for the 4 months, you shouldn't have any issues with stability >(alcohol in the wood is still present and a great sanitizer). If you're concerned about >the barrel condition, you can always roll a bit of bourbon around to wet the wood on the >inside. My one concern would be the taughtness of the barrel and how tight the seal >between the stave is. If it were me, I'd roll the whiskey around just to get an idea of >how well the barrel is sealed.
Good luck and best wishes on an amazing beer
Tomme Arthur