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Boiled linseed oil for oak barrels


Boozewalla

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I have some brandy in neutral french oak 225L barrels and after two years of age the evaporative losses are a little higher than I would like. Boiled linseed oil is recommended for use on barrels in wine cellars but my barrels have not had that treatment. Is it possible that a linseed oil application to the outside of these barrels would seal the wood and reduce the losses?

Does the anyone have some specific experience or insight on this?

 

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FYI - The one recommendation I have seen for linseed oil on a wine barrel was specifically for "raw (not boiled) lineseed  oil"  I have no experience or knowledge of what the difference is or how it works but figured it might be worth a mention.

Also of interest I believe forum member Blackheart might have some experience with wrapping barrels in plastic to reduce the evaporation loss. 

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i may be totally wrong but is the angel share not made up of higher more volatile ,sharper tasting alcohols thus giving the aged spirit a smoother more palatable spirit .

 personally if i was seeing a very high rate of angel share i would first look closely at my cuts . as far as linseed oil is concerned i would look at barrel wax to seal a barrel before a oil product that may soak thru into me spirit  . in my mind removing the angel share is the only real scientific reason for ageing in a barrel compared to ageing in a stainless vessel with oak chips , but this is only my opinion please dont send the coopers union to break my legs for mentioning oak chips lol ...

 and speaking of coopers you may be suffering from   jus poorly made barrels made out of poor choice of wood grain . we had purchased some used wine barrels half of them had the usual stains and scaring the others were totally red from the wine inside soaking thru . i figured one was used for different wines but at a closer look both had identical info on them from the winery, however they were made by different cooperage's  so my conclusion is they were made out of different quality of oak . allowing for different amounts of the red wine to soak thru ... that my guess , but there some very talented coopers on this forum that hopefully chime in and set me thinking straight ...

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I wont use boiled linseed oil, it contains metallic drying agents which I would worry about leaching into the barrel? What is your evaporative loss? Likely easier to move the barrel to a less dry/hot locations than to seal a full barrel. French oak typically has coarser grain than American oak which means higher evaporation, part of the reason most French oak spirit barrels are 350-400L. 

 

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  • 3 months later...
On 4/27/2017 at 9:06 AM, Boozewalla said:

I have some brandy in neutral french oak 225L barrels and after two years of age the evaporative losses are a little higher than I would like. Boiled linseed oil is recommended for use on barrels in wine cellars but my barrels have not had that treatment. Is it possible that a linseed oil application to the outside of these barrels would seal the wood and reduce the losses?

Does the anyone have some specific experience or insight on this?

 

What is too high? 5%? 10? 15%? We are in a hit humid environment and routinely hit 12-17% loss. 

Idk about linseed but parafin works pretty good. Without further data I'd have to venture it's better and easier to change your barreling environment than the barrels themselves. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

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