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Cleaning Wine Barrels with Dry Ice
"Thought I would let you know how my wine
was going. I made 4 batches of wine with Cryocleaned barrels during the
2005 vintage and have recently bottled and released 3 of them. People
are loving the wines and I've got at least one distributor wanting to
buy everything I made. The 2 year old A & K barrels have imparted a
good deal of oak flavor into my Zin and Carignane - but without
overshadowing the fruit. You blasted 3 year old Romanian barrels
for my Merlot, and it played a big part in making my wine into some
awesome stuff. The Syrah hasn't been bottled yet but I think it will
be even better than the others.
As for the 06 vintage, you blasted French
barrels of various ages for me, and I am blown away by how much oak
I'm getting from the 2000s and 2001s. Barrels are supposed to be
neutral after 5 years! And I like the security of knowing that
the barrels are cryoCLEAN!" Bill Wertzberger,
F. Teldeschi Winery |
Most winemakers that we've talked with have stated that approximately 60-70% of a barrel's flavor is extracted during the first season leaving
about 30% of a barrel's flavor intact. With our process, we blast away a slight layer of old, wine saturated wood revealing fresh, toasted oak
and flavors. By opening the grain, we double the surface area of the wood allowing the wine to come in contact with more oak. In essence, what
would have been only 30% of the original flavor remaining has now been increased (2X) to approximately 60% of the barrel's original flavor.
The Results
In order to provide empirical evidence of our claim that we can bring back oak flavors in wine barrels using our dry ice blasting method, we engaged a winery to perform an independent test. The winery is in no way affiliated with Barrel Blasting by Cryo Clean, Inc. They are a customer who uses our service, and as such offered to allow us to sample the wines aged in barrels which we've cleaned. The tests were completed in March, 2008. The results are shown below. Here is the explanation of what is shown.
One of our customers, an ultra-premium wine producer in Napa, performed the experiment. They selected 100 identical French oak barrels (same manufacturer, same provenance, same toast level, same history of 2 prior cycles of aging), and randomly separated the 100 into two sets of 50. One set was used as the control for the experiment and was prepared in their standard way with a hot water, high pressure barrel washer, then ozone rinse. The other 50 were cleaned by Barrel Blasting's dry ice method. All were filled on the same date with the winery's 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon.
Throughout the 8 month aging process, at each barrel tasting the Winemaker, Assistant Winemaker, and Chief Oenologist reported that the wine from the dry ice-blasted barrels showed "fresher, cleaner tastes and better oak aroma and flavor" than the non-blasted barrels.
When the aging was complete, each group of 50 barrels was blended (12,000 liters each group) to avoid any reading which might be caused by individual variation in barrels. Samples were then drawn from the blended wines, and the samples were brought to ETS Laboratories in St. Helena, California for gas-chromatograph testing.
The tests show that, as expected, dry ice blasting allowed the barrels to impart significantly more oak volatiles into the wine. The only volatiles which showed lower readings were guaiacol and 4-methylguaiacol. These are responsible for "smoke" and "char" flavors, and their decrease is explained by the fact that we remove about .050" of the toast layer, exposing a new layer of toasted oak. We feel that the aggregate effect of improved fresh-oak, vanilla, butterscotch and coconut flavors, and decreased smoke/char flavors accounts for the sensory report of "fresher, cleaner tastes".
Because of the controlled nature of this testing, and the use of blended, 12,000 liter batches to perform the testing, we feel that without question the difference in the oak volatiles is attributable only to Barrel Blasting's dry ice blasting process.
| Oak Volatiles Panel |
2004 Nadalie
Control |
|
2004 Nadalie
Blasted |
|
Percentage
Change |
| Furfural (GC/MS) |
282 |
ug/L |
311 |
ug/L |
+10.28% |
| 5-methylfurfural (GC/MS) |
50 |
ug/L |
62 |
ug/L |
+24.00% |
| Trans-Oak lactone (GC/MS) |
104 |
ug/L |
119 |
ug/L |
+14.42% |
| Cis-Oak lactone (GC/MS) |
136 |
ug/L |
141 |
ug/L |
+3.68% |
| Guaiacol (GC/MS) |
7 |
ug/L |
6 |
ug/L |
-14.29% |
| 4-methylguaiacol (GC/MS) |
4 |
ug/L |
3 |
ug/L |
-25.00% |
| Eugenol (GC/MS) |
16 |
ug/L |
18 |
ug/L |
+12.50% |
| Isoeugenol (GC/MS) |
<1 |
ug/L |
<1 |
ug/L |
0.00% |
| Vanillin (GC/MS) |
142 |
ug/L |
168 |
ug/L |
+18.31% |
| *Barrels used - 2004 Nadalie French Oak Esquive ; Testing performed 03/2008 |
Similar tests demonstrated Brettanomyces levels which were orders of magnitude lower in the dry ice-blasted barrels than those cleaned by traditional methods. The winery took general analysis on all of the wines before they went into barrel in June, 2007, and then sampled the different test groups in November, 2007 and January, 2008 when topping took place.
| *Barrels used - 2004 Nadalie French Oak Esquive |
| |
6/5/07 |
11/19/07 |
1/27/08 |
| |
Control |
Control |
Blasted |
Control |
Blasted |
| Free SO2 |
31 |
38 |
37 |
26 |
28 |
| Total SO2 |
47 |
52 |
45 |
52 |
58 |
| pH |
3.43 |
3.4 |
3.4 |
3.41 |
3.4 |
| VA |
0.038 |
0.044 |
0.041 |
0.048 |
0.052 |
| Brettanomyces |
70 |
310 |
<10 |
460 |
<10 |
| 4EP |
10 |
17 |
13 |
15 |
13 |
| 4EG |
<4 |
<4 |
<4 |
5 |
4 |
| Nonflavonoid Phenols |
265 |
125 |
120 |
90 |
95 |
| Total Phenols |
1110 |
1200 |
1160 |
1260 |
1240 |
"It doesn't give a new barrel flavor, but seems to give
older barrels the flavors of a 2-year-old barrel, it's
re-exposing the surfaces. What I like is that it cleans the
tartrates and stains you find in older barrels. It's like
going to the dentist (to have teeth cleaned). You clean out
the barrels, and it's more hygienic."
- Mark Lyon,
winemaker at Sebastiani Vineyards
These 3 year old red and white wine barrels have been blasted
giving winemakers a favorable second year flavor.
Click to see more detail.
Before and after blasting.
"This is a Red Wine Barrel after Dry Ice Blasting. Data was collected before and after dry ice blasting of the wall, and after blasting the barrel.
The results show that prior to blasting, the level of ATP and microbial counts (yeast, mold, and bacteria) were unacceptable. However, after blasting the ATP and
microbial counts were much lower, and in some cases, the microbes were undetectable. This demonstrates that dry ice blasting can effectively clean and
sanitize a surface."
Robert Tracy, Ph.D., BevTrac Mobile Quality
Systems, LLC
Click on the
image for more detail.
Mold on Concrete Before and After Dry
Ice Cleaning
|
Sanitation Inspection Report for Dry Ice Blasting |
| ID |
Equipment |
ATP (RLU)¹ |
Yeast (CFU)² |
Mold (CFU)² |
Bacteria (CFU)² |
Date |
| 1 |
Wall before dry ice blasting |
651 |
143 |
>300 |
>300 |
04/30/04 |
| 2 |
Wall before dry ice blasting |
820 |
286 |
>300 |
237 |
04/30/04 |
| 3 |
Wall after dry ice blasting |
36 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
04/30/04 |
| 4 |
Wall after dry ice blasting |
38 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
04/30/04 |
| 5 |
Barrel after dry ice blasting |
25 |
5 |
3 |
0 |
04/30/04 |
|
¹<500 RLU = Clean |
|
²<100 CFU = Acceptable |
|
Results from an independent winery source |
Read more about dry ice cleaning here.
BevTrac Mobile Quality Systems, LLC 'We bring the wine lab to you.'
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