Aging on a wine rack - waste of time or good idea?

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Steve Broady
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Aging on a wine rack - waste of time or good idea?

Post by Steve Broady »

I was reading a thread where someone used glass cylinders and oak end caps to make a small aging barrel, and solved the problem of wood swelling and breaking the glass by setting the glass into a circular grove in the wood. That got me thinking, which is always dangerous!

I have a large wine rack which I built into our pantry, but I rarely have it even close to half full. Meaning I have a lot of spare space. What if I could find a glass vase or something similar, about the size of a wine bottle, put an oak cap on it, and make a small aging “barrel” that fit in the wine rack?

A quick look on Amazon found this:
0601AAFE-A255-422D-B1FD-1F3CB62C727E.jpeg
I calculate a volume right around 1 liter, and a wooden surface area just a hair over 38 cm^2. That’s significantly less wood than in a barrel, which makes me think it would age more slowly, but also have little or no risk of over aging.

If I do this, and that’s a big if, the plan would be to buy some wide barre staves and mill a circular groove into the charred face. Drill and team a bung hole for a cork. Pre-soak the wood, then set the glass into the groove with the rim potted in molten beeswax. Then fill with whatever I want to age, put it up at the top of the wine rack and forget about it for a year or two.

I welcome any comments, as many people here have tried some creative aging solutions. Is this an insane idea? A pointless exercise? Or a good use of space?
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Knife_man
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Re: Aging on a wine rack - waste of time or good idea?

Post by Knife_man »

Doesn't have to be glass 😉.

Search for badmotivator I recently made a few 2ltr "barrels" which are just a bit too big for a wine rack but I'm sure some searching will bring up a suitable stainless receptacle , a spaghetti tin perhaps ?

Using stainless you don't have to worry about the glass breaking.
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Re: Aging on a wine rack - waste of time or good idea?

Post by Knife_man »

Knife_man wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:55 am Doesn't have to be glass 😉.

Search for badmotivator I recently made a few 2ltr "barrels" which are just a bit too big for a wine rack but I'm sure some searching will bring up a suitable stainless receptacle , a spaghetti tin perhaps ?

Using stainless you don't have to worry about the glass breaking.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stainless-St ... 635-2958-0

Looks like a contender, I'm not at home so can't measure but that was literally a 30sec search so I'm sure you can fine something.
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Steve Broady
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Re: Aging on a wine rack - waste of time or good idea?

Post by Steve Broady »

I’m familiar with the BadMo barrels .. got 8 of them, and I want more! That’s part of what inspired me. And I like the stainless idea as well. Glass just sounded nice for both appearance and the ability to monitor what’s going on inside.

Thinking more about this idea, I don’t think that wax alone would be reliable to bind wood and glass over time. Which led to the idea of a metal cage which could securely hold container and cap together.

I also thought about milling a pattern of grooves into the oak to increase the surface area.

To be clear, this is just an idea that popped into my head this morning, not a fully fledged and well considered plan. I figured folks here might have some good feedback before I did something stupid.
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Re: Aging on a wine rack - waste of time or good idea?

Post by NormandieStill »

Steve Broady wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 12:47 pm Thinking more about this idea, I don’t think that wax alone would be reliable to bind wood and glass over time. Which led to the idea of a metal cage which could securely hold container and cap together.

I also thought about milling a pattern of grooves into the oak to increase the surface area.
I've been planning something similar for a while now. I was originally planning on using swing top jars and replacing the glass with oak. This would require some complicated machining though.

Then my plan was oak plates and threaded rod (where the threaded rod goes down the outside of the container to a matching base plate... possibly made of metal). The idea was not to machine a groove but actually a complete depression in the oak in which the jar would fit. You don't want to put sideways pressure on the glass if the oak expands.

But the larger glass containers that I have are swing tops and they leave a surface area : volume ratio that's extremely light compared to a barrel. And I've not yet found an alternative that I'd trust with the clamping forces that are necessary.
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Re: Aging on a wine rack - waste of time or good idea?

Post by Photoguy-70 »

Why not just use wine bottles and cork them? Corks are cheap when needing replacing due to tasting the progress.
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Re: Aging on a wine rack - waste of time or good idea?

Post by squigglefunk »

Knife_man wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 9:55 am Doesn't have to be glass 😉.

Search for badmotivator I recently made a few 2ltr "barrels" which are just a bit too big for a wine rack but I'm sure some searching will bring up a suitable stainless receptacle , a spaghetti tin perhaps ?

Using stainless you don't have to worry about the glass breaking.
for what it's worth I haven't been able to find a source of stainless steel bain marie containers that are 304 or 316 stainless. The ones I found online are lower grade and honestly I don't know if I'd want to put years worth of work into a container that's going to corrode/rust. If someone has a source I'm interested.
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