Know About Stainless Steel Wine Barrels

Wine making is an artistic process which involves many steps. Each and every step of the making process is very crucial. It requires great expertise. Among the different steps involved, one of the most important steps is the Aging of wine. Aging is done in barrels which impart some special flavors to the wine. In olden days, Oak barrels were used to impart that oaky flavor, and color in to the wine. Oak has a typical combination of flavors like vanilla, tea flavor, butter and spicy flavors. And it also gives a nice pinkish color to the wine. The flavor of wine varies depending on the type of seasoning given to the wood. The traditional use of Oak wine Barrels has been decreased by the invention of Stainless steel wine barrels. There are so many reasons for using these steel barrels and they are found to be the perfect storage containers for wine. Because of some drawbacks in oak barrels like short life, high cost, uncontrolled air exposure, lead to the invention of steel barrels.

Let us see the comparison of oak barrels to that of steel barrels

• Use of oak barrels only gave the wine its own oaky flavor. But with the use of steel barrels wine makers are able to add some other different flavors to the wine. Even if they want that oaky flavor they are adding some oak chips or oak powder to give that special oakiness to the wine.
• Oak barrels have short period of life after which they cannot impart any flavor to the wine, making them neutral. The maximum usage is limited to twice or thrice. But in case of steel barrels this problem never arises since the flavors are due to the materials added to the wine but not due to steel barrels.
• Another thing about oak barrels is that, they are porous in nature and allow uncontrolled air exposure to the wine. So, the amount of wine getting evaporated is high. Contrary to that, steel barrels don't allow much exposure of air. So that wine will not evaporate in the air, which results in perfect wine making.
• Oak barrels are made from oak trees which need a lot of seasoning and preparation before making the wood in to barrels. The oak wood is also so expensive when compared to steel. This made the usage of steel barrels more economical.
• Apart from these, steel barrels are easy to manufacture and are easy to handle when compared to that of oak barrels. One is machine made, while the other is a man made thing which makes a lot of difference.

Aren't these reasons enough to use steel barrels instead of those traditional oak barrels.