I’ve always found it interesting the number and use of barrels aboard square rigged sailing ships back in the age of sail. Everything in the ships hold was stored in barrels, including stave and hoops for making even more barrels. The ship’s cooper was constantly either knocking up or tearing down barrels. Fascinating stuff.
It's a tough profession I've recently gained a lot of respect for. That used to be a major occupation! Crazy how the times change (just not for the wine or whiskey industry).
Nice video! The toasting and charring is so interesting to me. The flavor impacts those variables can have are profound (and are rightly treated as trade secrets by the professionals)
I'm sure they have worked out the most efficient way to construct a barrel. But there sure is a lot of installing and removing the hoops. Just when I think surely this has to be the final fitting they get knocked off with another round of processing and new bands pressed on. They sure look good and its impressive they don't leak, just held together by, you guessed it, more hoops. LOL.
After steam heating the wood must be allowed to cool of properly , otherwise it will spring back. They cut the groves for the bottom and top and install them afterwards,so the hoops has to go of to get these in to the grove. I think the removal and reinstalment of the hoops have something to do with coping with the wood drying an shrinking also. The general rule for oak steaming in boat building is one hour per 25 mm 1 " The baking time may vary depending on steam temp .... Oak is very nice to heat form (keeping it's new form very good )
@@perstaffanlundgren thank you for the technical insight. Knew there was a reason they don't appear to rush the job with full-on automation, just couldn't put my hand on it.
20+ years ago, made one small barrel. Getting the quarter sawn board to make into staves was the hardest. Did it, wasn't the best looking but I liked it. Watched some videos then where they used steel cables to draw it in. Interesting.
In 1986, I toured two of France's top vineyards, Chateau Pétrus and Chateau Cheval Blanc. At one of them (forget which now), I saw two men HAND CRAFTING barrels. They had none of the machinery shown here. They used hand held 'draw shave knives to taper the individual planks. Pretty friggin amazing that by hand, they could make them water tight. Purely by hand, they could produce two barrels per day.
Actually, it's not that difficult. Wood, even oak, is a fairly soft material; if there are any fit flaws somewhere, they will shrink when putting on the hoops. Also, in traditional technology, special leaves are used, laid between the boards; they also provide a tight seal due to crumpling. And finally, the wood swells with liquid, so first the barrel is prepared - steamed, or filled with water for several weeks, which causes the wood to swell and close all the cracks.
My friend, you are way too dismissive! And I believe wrong on a few points. If you pay close attention the stave widths are not at all uniform but just as all else in nature, random. Within a range of course, but it is quite remarkable to me that even with the help of some pretty cool machines (that have been developed to do nothing else than build barrels by the way!) that each cooper is able to build several barrels each day. And each of those barrels are held together only by the very specific and uniform bevel angle of each and every stave combined with the enormous pressure exerted when the galvanized steel hoops are pounded down around them. Only the two round headboards ever get any `flagging` or the dried and flattened reed from the cattail plant, not leaves. You may have also noticed a flour/water mixture being spread like grout into the groove ( the croze) which the head fits into. But other than some flour puddy, some water plant reeds and an occasional wooden dowel pins to keep the head boards stable, but these barrels are held together by an ancient woodworking complement of the stave bevel cut versus its specific elliptical pattern. That is the only thing besides a whole lot of human sweat energy holdingthese barrels tight. It's also amazing to me that although not the same thing as the golden mean, there is an important mathematical relationship at the heart of using barrels in the liquor business. The internal surface area of the barrel which will dictate the power of the oak influence on the beverage contained is based on square centimeters, while the volume of the liquid in the barrel is measured in units of milliliters cubed. This has the effect of causing different sized barrels to have rather drastically different effects on aging. These large puncheons are roughly double the size of the typical barrique style wine barrel. Some winemakers use these puncheons along with the smaller sized barrels but they are used much more frequently in the the much longer aging regime of ports and whiskys (Scottish not American) and maybe even some brandies. Bottom line is it IS difficult and there are several factors that make this task Amazing to me. Granted, I have spent 40 years now trying to figure out how to use these things to try and make delicious beverages (mostly wine) and although I've developed a lot of opinions, I realize that I don't really know much and I'm constantly surprised and or humbled when I open up and taste something that has been aged in one of these amazing containers!
Old feller in Yorkshire still makes all by hand, no machines at all, theres a vid of him on here somewhere under handmade barrels, and yes the dimensions,angles and curves are a well kept secret, the piece of paper in the vid with the sizes etc is pixelled out lol
Millenia old technic in a new fashion craft, impressing as it's allways been, all in pure oak. It impresses me that nothing has changed in the skill itself.
I once spent in the company of 4 other soldiers 6 hours in a wine cellar in the Moselle region. We were tasting wine straight from the 1000 litre barrels. Needless to say we weren’t sober when we left at 4 in the morning to go back too our tents. I do not recommend finding your way around tents in the dark having consumed so much wine. The hangover was impressive. As we five were all Senior NCOs the junior ranks made the most of our suffering. Great night though.
Interesting insight into the start of the massive unseen triangular trade in barrels between Scotland, Spain & Portugal and Kentucky. Living in Scotland I've realised that apart from the Islay malts all whiskies are just water and ethanol coming off the still and don't get their colour and flavour until they're stored in the barrels.
Very interesting video love this technology... To think before all of this automation this was all done by hand.. There is still a lot of hand human interaction but very interesting..
very interesting! i can think of worse ways to make a living. do skilled manual labour, seeing an actual, tangible, beautiful barrel. sounds like a job worth going to. coopers before the industrial revolution would be astonished, to say the least. well presented. thx
Excelente para los que no vivieron la época de los que no vivieron los buenos momentos de su buena parte del trabajo de un buen lugar donde siempre nace una buena jornada. Excelente amigos
Its hard to imagine anyone putting a 10 hour day in making barrels asking themselves: "Does my life have any value? What's my purpose?" It's the gift of using our bodies to do hard, useful things that last.
This was official job of my father long time ago and he used to do that almost alone, every part of it without high tech machinery. Most of demand was for bigger sizes about 5' diameter and 6~7' tall but once a while he had order for even larger or smaller sizes. Most of them was for use alcoholic beverages (mostly wine) and sometimes used for different purpose or even decoration and outdoor advertisement which does not need to be sealed and was much easier to make and cheaper. The sealed one was made of oak and others from different type of woods. I helped him couple of summer break when I was in high school and know theorycally how it was made but not enough knowledge how to actually make them. .
I'm sure that with such mechanization, the skill to make them by hand is now a lost art. In 1986, I toured two of France's top vineyards, Chateau Pétrus and Chateau Cheval Blanc. At one of them (forget which), I saw two men HAND CRAFTING barrels. They had none of the machinery shown here. They used hand held 'draw shave' knives to taper the individual planks. They mostly used a fire with (presumably moist) wood planks to bend the planks. If I remember right, the planks were at least partially bent INDIVIDUALLY before assembly It was amazing that by hand, they could make them water tight. They produced two barrels per day.
A bit of age-of-sail barrel lore. Ordinary water became undrinkable after long storage. The most-prized water came from the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The area had been populated with cedar trees during the last Ice Age. As they died out, the trunks became part of the soil. Streams running from the area were stained brown by the buried cedar, known as "Cedar Water". The tannic acid and other chemicals kept the water drinkable for years. The only downside is that it stained sailors' teeth brown.
I wish we could get some quality like this in the United States without it costing you your first born these are some very nicely built barrels and show their quality
Plus aucune magie de la fabrication, nouveau boulot : serviteur de robot ! le Monde tourne très mal, quel est le sens de tout ça ? vivement le Grand Boycot, qu'on retrouve la Belle Verte...
Looks like to only one concerned for going deaf was the young lady at 11:42. Couldn't see anyone else with some type of earplug/muff. OSHA Intensifies !!
Sehr interessantes Video, allerdings fehlen etliche Erklärungen bei bestimmten Arbeitsschritten. Von mir gibt es einen Daumen nach oben. Very interesting video, but a number of explanations for certain work steps are missing. It's a thumbs up from me.
@robertlangley258 If you take care of them well and keep them full all the time, they will last long, long time. What may kill them are half empty barrel.
Belle vidéo d'un savoir faire, car même avec des machines cela ne retire en rien la valeur d'un travail ancestral. Ces pièces vont sublimer nos vins sans compter la beauté de ces fûts rangés empilés dans les caves.
