Just curious how others who got chunks of a retired soured bourbon barrel from the Wicked Weed AHA rally were going to sanitize before pitching into their beer. I figured I would just throw them in, but then my buddy pointed out that the exterior of the barrel had a bunch of bad things that you don’t want.
So, the question is how do I sanitize the outside of the oak chunks while preserving the good bugs that have penetrated deeper into the wood?
what bad things are on the outside do you suppose? wood is porous. the bacteria on the outside are also on the inside and vice versa. pitch it in.
if you are really worried scrub it with steel wool and boiling dechlorinated water. But if it was me, I wouldn’t worry.
A quick dip (or swab) in high proof ethanol should do the trick if you’re really worried.
Working in a hospital maybe has me slightly over cautious, because I have seen the super funky bacteria and yeast (yuck). I assume their is a plethora of organisms floating around or tracked in on the bottoms of shoes. The point is who knows, so I want to kill the unknowns. My other assumption is that the exterior layer of cultures are more superficial due to the lack of sufficient osmotic pressure to penetrate the wood, but the internal pressure is strong enough to push deep into the grains.
Fortunately, I have three weeks before I have to pull the trigger. I have thought of the Star San soak and the short 2min boil. Hitting the exterior with a course grit sand paper makes sense too.