The Badmotivator Bain-Marie and Oak Barrel

[firewater69]

what kind of coating did you put on the last 2 badmo? do you think it maybe hindering the swelling and sealing of the wood? great idea for aging btw!

[Badmotivator]

Thanks, FW. No coating at all. They look lacquered, but that's just because they are wet and dark and shiny during the swelling. The face dries to a normal oak color.

A coating on the oak would, I think, work against my goal of having them behave like a real barrel does. We want some communication through the wood between the spirit and the atmosphere.

[firewater69]

I'm gonna have to make a couple of those!

[der wo]

My best guess right now is that I over – toasted the wood, leaving it less able to swell. I had those wood blocks in the oven for like 2 or 3 hours at 425F. Way too much.

Yes. MUCH too long also for taste. You will get a burned sugar taste.

[Hillbilly Popstar]

The toasting should not prevent the wood from swelling. It should actually help the fibers absorb more water.

What did you use to cut your circle out? If you used a bandsaw or jigsaw then sanded, it's quite possible that small imperfections could be creating low pressure points after swelling.

Look into the circle jig I linked to earlier, it cuts a perfect circle every time.

Plus I really think wrapping the outer circumference in a few layers of Teflon tape would help a bunch.

[MichiganCornhusker]

Toasting definitely changes the wood fibers.
I've used thermal treated wood for making tables, and we weren't able to use any conventional wood glues. None would hold. We ended up using epoxy.

Great experiments, BadMo, keep rollin!

[Badmotivator]

What did you use to cut your circle out? If you used a bandsaw or jigsaw then sanded, it's quite possible that small imperfections could be creating low pressure points after swelling.

Scroll saw and belt sander on these two. You're totally right, there could have been deviations from a perfect circle. If my next experiment fails to seal I will definitely get a circle jig. I'm hoping that a better job of toasting will solve my problem first.

Plus I really think wrapping the outer circumference in a few layers of Teflon tape would help a bunch.

Totally, and that's another possible fix if I can't figure out a reliable seal. I'm only avoiding it out of pride. It's a very sensible idea.

[Hillbilly Popstar]

I can understand that. At the heart of this hobby lay a purist's philosophy.

Keep it up. As soon as you get this nailed down perfect, I'm gonna copy you.

[nzjordy]

Saw this idea and loved it so I started looking at making my own, sadly bain marie inserts are in short supply around these parts, or are priced so dear it wouldnt be worth doing.
looking around at alternatives, stainless steel buckets, i thought maybe i could cut the bottom off a 12L one and cap both ends in oak to give the right surface area, or close enough to anyway.
but that would be a pain, two different sized circles to cut out and seal, and extra effort, so maybe not... i thought about using large diameter pipe, but thats expensive and/or hard to find.
so i decided using stainless steel sheet metal would actually be a good idea, my first thought was, well welding, which is a pain, and not something everyone can do so what else can be done and came up with this:

paint design

hopefully that's understandable
1 and 2 being stainless steel sheet folded twice to give a [ shape, (at the sizes we would be doing this could be done pretty well in a home made bending rig, I think)
3 and 4 being oak planks, one having the edges routed down so the stainless sheet would sit flush, or one oak plank with a thin grove routed out of the side for the stainless steel to fit into
held in place by 5, which would be stainless screws or bolts.
6/7 being the end plates. being square(kinda) would make assembly much easier (no awkward circle jig) and if made out of 3 planks the appropriate sizes ie middle one shorter to account for the oak splines down the sides of the cask. It should all seal up pretty well once it swells. oh and you might not even need dowels with a design like this
due to the container not being tapered id guess these would need some stainless steel screws as well so they don't blow out.

anyway what do you guys think?

nzjordy

p.s. please excuse the bad drawing on paint

[nzjordy]

doing some math (I prefer metric but did it your way anyway so i may have made a mistake or two)

make this 8" x 8" x 10" long it would hold a bit over 10L (2.7gallons I think) and would have an oaking area of 128 square inches giving it about 47 sq/in a gallon, thats not accounting for the oak splines area though. you could also do the math and wake these pretty much any size you wanted with pretty much any oaking area you wanted.
they would be stackable and you could get the stainless steel sheet pretty cheaply, and probably even cut to the right sizes at a lot of places

[Badmotivator]

anyway what do you guys think?

Interesting! If you can see a way to get that done with a reasonable chance of success, then go for it!

Some problems to think about:
1. oak swells quite a bit in the across-the-grain direction, but very very little in the with-the-grain direction. Swelling a square will be somewhat unpredictable. Corners may not seal well.
2. If you can silver-solder a cylinder shape you might have a simpler, cheaper, less risky build. Even if your cylinder is imperfect, the swelling round barrel head may force it into correct shape.

[cuginosgrizzo]

anyway what do you guys think?

if you think you can make it work joining two steel half parallelepipeds with a, oak plank, I wonder why not make it all oak? build a square barrel...it would be much easier to join two grooved oak planks (and without nails or screws) than it is to join a steel section with an oak plank. then keep it all together with a few banks (of whatever material) around.

I might even try it now that I think of it

[nzjordy]

I had thought about that, and I guess with a bit of reinforcement the sides wouldn't blow out once it starts swelling. The only reason I wanted to try using stainless steel as well would be to mimic the surface area inside a full sized barrel on a smaller scale, doing an all oak one would make over oaking a small risk. You're definitely right though, making an all oak one would definitely be easier

[Badmotivator]

Progress!

After the failure of BBOBs 3 and 4, I decided to try thoroughly dried oak, toasted only on one side, jammed tighter into the Bain-Marie insert.

For toasting, I used a panini press, set to 425, and toasted for about 80 minutes:


I wanted to be sure that the top of the wood stayed totally raw, so I put ice in a baking sheet and put it on top of the oak:


Here is the color I got on the toasted side. One stick is turned over to provide a comparison to the raw color. :


Now that I've got the oak carefully toasted on one side and as thirsty as it can be on the other, I built the barrel heads.

[Badmotivator]

Here is the round, ready for charring. I want to be careful not to char inside the holes, so I put some spare metal parts over them to protect them from the torch.

Here's where I really learned something. When I hammered the round into the insert, I noticed a couple of slits between the staves. These are here because I used my planer to smooth out the edges of the staves, and my planer "snipes" the wood at the beginning and end of the wood's travel through the machine. This means that my staves did not have the flat flush interface with each other that I wanted. A table saw pass on the stave edges would be a more reliable treatment than the planer.

The second one I did today did not have that uneven-stave-edge problem, it was wonderfully snug when I hammered it down into the insert, and it sealed up completely in less that two hours.

[Badmotivator]

New & Improved Guidance on Wood Preparation:
1. Seasoned wood should be as dry as practical before toasting and shaping. This means the raw wood is as thirsty as possible, and promotes the sealing of the barrel head.
2. Take care to ensure that toasting occurs on one side of the wood only. Toasted wood does not swell as well as raw wood.
3. Make sure that the barrel head staves contact each other with perfectly flat faces. Smooth is probably not especially important, but flat is. Any deviations may make the swelling/sealing take longer or fail altogether.
4. When refining the round, dry fit it often into the Bain-Marie insert. When it just barely begins to go down into place, it's time to drill holes, char, set in the tap, and then hammer that head fully down into the insert. This ensures that (even before soaking and swelling) the wood is seated really firmly into place.

[Oldvine Zin]

I really like this Idea and plan on making a few myself. Since I want to use these for aging and not dispensing I plan on not using the tap and vent hole but have a solid head and a tri clover fitting on top.

3/4" tri ferule soldered and capped - waiting for the oak to arrive

[bitter]

To help make things seal better you could make a template and use a route flush trim bit to cut the exact size you need. Also keep in mind wood does not swell much in length but a fair bit in width. So might want to go slightly larger on length.. so when the wood swells it has equal pressure on all sides.

A good example of this is a breadboard edge on a table. Things must be made to swell as length and width swell at different rates.

B

[Badmotivator]

I really like this Idea and plan on making a few myself. Since I want to use these for aging and not dispensing I plan on not using the tap and vent hole but have a solid head and a tri clover fitting on top.

Fabulous. I've been thinking about omitting the tap lately too. They are a small cost and a small bother. Maybe a bung in the top is the way to go. Did you choose triclover because you had one lying around? or for some functional reason I'm not seeing?

[Badmotivator]

Just filled a BBOB with UJSSM. This time I remembered to weigh the empty soaked barrel, then weigh it again after filling. With this info I can figure out loss rate and ratio easily at any time using just the scale.

[Ferment_It]

Sub'd

[der wo]

This time I remembered to weigh the empty soaked barrel, then weigh it again after filling. With this info I can figure out loss rate and ratio easily at any time using just the scale.

I always note this two numbers too for my aging in jars (the lid with a hole closed with coffee filters). I am much intersted in your numbers after a few months.

[Oldvine Zin]

Maybe a bung in the top is the way to go. Did you choose triclover because you had one lying around? or for some functional reason I'm not seeing?

Going the tri clover route gives me a clean and sanitary seal for around 5 bucks - not sure how well a bung would seal in that thin stainless.

[Badmotivator]

Going the tri clover route gives me a clean and sanitary seal for around 5 bucks - not sure how well a bung would seal in that thin stainless.

Nice. Can you name your supplier or are they too naughty?

Even just the ferrule (no gasket or clamp) with a wood bung would be a big improvement over trying to seat a bung in that thin stainless. But your idea (ferrule+gasket+blank cap) is certainly the most secure. It's a great variation, and I'm chewing on it. But man, after my boiler build and a failed shotgun build I am so done with cutting stainless. I think.

[IanD]

I did a small 2-day-soak test with some blocks of oak, and indeed, the untoasted wood gained about 2% width whereas the thoroughly-toasted offcut from these BBOBs didn't change dimension at all.

Sorry for the off topic post but, as a woodwind instrument maker, this is very interesting information. Thanks. Toasted flute coming up.

[Oldvine Zin]

Nice. Can you name your supplier or are they too naughty?

A mix of the two glacier tanks and ...

Even just the ferrule (no gasket or clamp) with a wood bung would be a big improvement over trying to seat a bung in that thin stainless. But your idea (ferrule+gasket+blank cap) is certainly the most secure. It's a great variation, and I'm chewing on it. But man, after my boiler build and a failed shotgun build I am so done with cutting stainless. I think.

Good Idea on just the ferrule, and I think that if you get a little more practice soldering you will get perfect results. And by the way your boiler looks great

[Badmotivator]

By the way, if anyone is still following along, I have settled on using no glue or flour paste for the dowels. On my last round I used three dowels between staves, and they held pretty well. Four would hold even better, by friction alone. Since I have switched from a jigsaw to a scroll saw there is much less violent vibration, reducing the need for glue of any kind.

Also, I now believe that a very very tight fit is a big help for sealing the barrel. It helps at the stainless-to-oak interface, and also compresses the staves together nicely. During shaping and sanding, I stop when I sense that the barrel head is just barely starting to fit into the insert. Then (after charring and putting the tap in) I hammer the hell out of that barrel head, a little at a time working around in a circle, to get it seated in the insert.

[Yummyrum]

Oh yeah Badmo , still watching ...and learning . Keep it coming

[MichiganCornhusker]

If you are using a scroll saw now, and if it has a tilting table, you could make up a circle jig where you cut in to the edge of your circle and then just spin it. Just need to put a nail, screw, or a pin slightly into the center of your oak circle.

Not sure how to describe it, but you use a piece of plywood as a table clamped to the scroll saw table, then have the pin in the table and the oak.

[Badmotivator]

If you are using a scroll saw now, and if it has a tilting table, you could make up a circle jig where you cut in to the edge of your circle and then just spin it. Just need to put a nail, screw, or a pin slightly into the center of your oak circle.

Not sure how to describe it, but you use a piece of plywood as a table clamped to the scroll saw table, then have the pin in the table and the oak.

Sweet. As it is I'm not having any trouble following the line with the scroll saw, but your idea sounds fun anyway. I might play around with scroll saw circle jigs in the future. Thanks.