Lid for keg with oaking ss wire insert

[bradsgonetrekkin]

Heres what I did yesterday to make a lid for a standard keg with an oaking ss wire insert.

I removed the central part of the spear which left the outside screw in housing. Then cut off a chunk off oak with a hole saw, sanded back to just fit inside and bashed it in with a hammer.

The ss wire I used is actually marketed as a kebab skewer. Its got a premade loop at one end and a blunt needle the other end for passing through the meat and veg. I was going to get a bit of ss cable from bunnings but found this at the back of my bbq and thought it'll do nicely!

The ss wire I passed through the centre hole of the oak bung and threaded on a mix of toasted and charred american and french oak sticks. I quick knot in the end, feed in the "chain" and the lid just screws back on the keg.

[stubbydrainer]

cool idea BGT
make sure to cover the top to keep out the insects/dust etc :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[bradsgonetrekkin]

loaded oaking wire ready to go.

For me I've found 2/3 sticks per 5litres of 65% UJSSM seems to work well. Theres about 18.4 litres in the keg now so I used 11 mixed sticks.

[bradsgonetrekkin]

Yeah SD I've got the top stuffed with rag at the moment. If I was a bit more patient I would have shaved the tiniest bit more from the oak bung and I would have been able to tap it in to finish almost flush with the top but I was sick of sanding and that was as far as I could tap it in yesterday...

[maheel]

does the oak come back out the hole easy ?

[R-sole]

Neat idea, i'll tell my neighbour he oaks in kegs.

Stainless fishing trace, either 7 strand or 49 strand would do nicely and the crimps are cheap too 8-)

[stubbydrainer]

does the oak come back out the hole easy ?

good point Maheel, maybe a "String" of oak ( tied end to end ) would be easier to get out

how are they to get out BGT ?

[bradsgonetrekkin]

I was originally planning on threading the wire through the top and bottom of each oak stick but the keg is less than half full at present and there wasn't enough wire length to fit them all end to end.

To put them in I slide all the sticks up the wire, then bend the lowest one down to fit in the neck of the keg and give it a wiggle to get it to drop down the wire once its in there. Keep doing this till they are all in. Reverse this for removal. Takes a few mins to do, but works fine as long as the holes drilled in the oak sticks are larger than the wire so they can slide easy.

If you were cutting a length of ss wire or trace and had plenty to spare, would be quicker to make the length much longer to allow for the end to end chain which would make it quicker to insert and remove.

[Goldie]

Thanks for this post. I just acquired a few kegs for oaking and will be copying this idea. :cool:

[Multipleg]

Isn't part of aging and oaking about letting some air get to it? I age in 5l bottles with a coffee filter as a lid to allow it to breathe a bit.

[dogbreath vodka]

Multipleg
I used 2 litre glass jars with screw top lids.
would leave the lids loose and occasionally open them up to taste them maturing.
After 12 months I bottled my now ready spirit.
The alc % had dropped from 55% to anything from 28-32% :handgestures-thumbdown:
Also tested some that were six months into a maturing process and they had dropped to around 40%

The lesson here is be careful on leaving the tops loose or just using a filter paper as a lid. You will lose significant amounts of alcohol.

DBV

[SBB]

My understanding is that you are better off leaving a decent amount of head space in Glass containers when ageing and from time to time take the cap of and let a bit of fresh air in.......then retighten lid.

[dogbreath vodka]

Did the same with a half full ss keg.
Except I had a cloth cover that had been folded... at least ten times.

So plenty of head space.
It went from 55% to 40% in 6 months as well.

You need to tighten your lids or you will lose too much %

I do live in the tropics so that may have an influence as well
Average temperature ..... 27 degrees

DBV

[bradsgonetrekkin]

Ive only just started aging in kegs, but I've aged in 5 litre demijohns and 2 litre flagons a fair bit. I generally air out the spirit with no lid (just paper to stop bugs etc) for a few days to a week, then fully seal lids. With oaking, same deal, but give the bottle a shake every week or 2 and crack the lid for a sniff...