Best Oak Barrels for Aging Homemade Wine

Editor's Choice

Thousand Oaks 5 Gallon (20 Liter) American Oak Barrel with Stand and Spigot

The size that matches a standard 5 or 6 gallon wine batch, sold complete with a wooden stand, oak bung, spigot, funnels, storing tablets and curing instructions.

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• 

  Made for wine and mead

  Thousand Oaks 10 Liter Oak Barrel

  Lightly charred, sold for wine and mead, with storing tablets; can be engraved.

• 

  For 1-gallon batches

  Thousand Oaks 1 Gallon (5 Liter) Oak Barrel

  The small size for 1-gallon fruit wines and meads; with stand, bung and spigot.

An oak barrel does two things to wine. It adds the flavors of the wood, vanilla, spice and toast, and it lets a tiny amount of air in through the staves, which softens a young red over months. Small barrels do both much faster than the full-size 58 gallon (220 liter) barrels wineries use, because a small barrel has far more wood surface for each gallon of wine. That speed is the whole story with home barrels: it is why they work, and why they can over-oak a batch in weeks if you do not taste it.

Below we compare the small oak barrels you can buy on Amazon, from 2 liters to 5 gallons, explain how to cure and look after one, and say when oak spirals are the better buy. The picks come from the manufacturers' listings and how widely each is bought. Our equipment checklist shows where a barrel fits in the rest of the cellar.

Oak Barrels for Wine Compared

All five are new American oak from Thousand Oaks Barrel Co., the brand most widely bought on Amazon for small barrels. The rows show what each listing states.

Barrel	5 Gallon with Stand Editor's ChoiceTop pick	10 Liter (Wine and Mead)	1 Gallon (5 Liter)	5 Gallon, Barrel Only	2 Liter Personalized
Product
Volume	20 L (5 gal)	10 L (2.6 gal)	5 L (1.3 gal)	20 L (5 gal)	2 L
Interior	Charred	Lightly charred	Medium-high char	Charred	Charred
Stand and spigot	✅ Both	✅ Both	✅ Both	❌ Bung only	✅ Both
Sold for	Wine or spirits	Wine and mead	Spirits or wine	Spirits, wine, beer	Spirits
Engraving	❌ No	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	✅ Yes
Buy	Check price	Check price	Check price	Check price	Check price

Editor's Choice

5 Gallon with Stand

Volume

20 L (5 gal)

Interior

Charred

Stand and spigot

✅ Both

Sold for

Wine or spirits

Engraving

❌ No

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10 Liter (Wine and Mead)

Volume

10 L (2.6 gal)

Interior

Lightly charred

Stand and spigot

✅ Both

Sold for

Wine and mead

Engraving

✅ Yes

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1 Gallon (5 Liter)

Volume

5 L (1.3 gal)

Interior

Medium-high char

Stand and spigot

✅ Both

Sold for

Spirits or wine

Engraving

❌ No

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5 Gallon, Barrel Only

Volume

20 L (5 gal)

Interior

Charred

Stand and spigot

❌ Bung only

Sold for

Spirits, wine, beer

Engraving

❌ No

Check price

2 Liter Personalized

Volume

2 L

Interior

Charred

Stand and spigot

✅ Both

Sold for

Spirits

Engraving

✅ Yes

Check price

Oak Barrel Reviews

Thousand Oaks 5 Gallon Oak Barrel with Stand and Spigot (Editor's Choice)

A new 20 liter (5 gallon) American oak barrel with a charred interior, sold with a wooden stand, an oak bung, a spigot, funnels, storing tablets and full instructions. Five gallons is the size of a standard fruit wine batch, and a 6 gallon wine kit fills it with a gallon left over for topping up, which you will need, because a barrel loses a little wine through the wood.

The listing is written mostly for spirits and cocktails, and the char is part of that. Wine barrels are traditionally toasted rather than charred, so expect a stronger, sweeter oak character than a winery barrel would give, and taste after the first week or two. Once the barrel has given most of its oak, which takes several fills, it becomes a gentler aging vessel for reds.

Best for: 5 to 6 gallon red wine batches. Missing: nothing; plan for topping-up wine.

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Thousand Oaks 10 Liter Oak Barrel (Best for Wine and Mead)

Of the small barrels on Amazon, this is the one Thousand Oaks sells specifically for wine and mead. The interior is lightly charred American oak, which suits wine better than the heavier char of the spirits barrels, and the listing says you can start sampling oak-aged wine or mead after about 2 weeks. It comes with a wooden stand, bung, spigot, funnel, storing tablets and an instruction booklet, and can be laser engraved, which makes it a popular gift.

Ten liters is about 2.6 gallons, a good size for a 3 gallon batch of mead or a portion of a larger red wine batch, with the rest kept in glass for blending.

Best for: mead and smaller wine batches. Missing: nothing.

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Thousand Oaks 1 Gallon (5 Liter) Oak Barrel

The small barrel for 1-gallon batches: 5 liters of new American oak charred to a medium-high level, with a wooden stand, bung, spigot, funnel and instructions. Thousand Oaks writes that the high proportion of liquid in contact with the wood makes small barrels age spirits much faster than a full-size barrel; the same physics applies to wine, so a gallon of wine can pick up a lot of oak in days, not months.

Use it for a gallon of red fruit wine or mead, taste every few days at first, and move the wine back to its jug as soon as it has enough. Later fills extract more slowly.

Best for: 1-gallon batches. Missing: storing tablets are not listed.

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Thousand Oaks 5 Gallon Oak Barrel, Barrel Only

The same 20 liter charred American oak barrel with a 3/4 inch bung, but the listing is clear that the stand and spigot are not included. Choose it only if you will rack out with a siphon rather than drain through a spigot, or already own a cradle; otherwise the version with stand and spigot is the simpler buy.

Best for: winemakers who siphon from the bung. Missing: stand and spigot.

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Thousand Oaks 2 Liter Personalized Oak Barrel

A 2 liter charred American oak barrel with stand, bung, spigot and funnel, sold with custom engraving and aimed mainly at whiskey. For wine it is very small: 2 liters is under three bottles, and at that size oak extraction is fast. It makes sense as a gift for a home winemaker, or for oaking a few bottles of a batch to compare against the rest.

Best for: gifts and small experiments. Missing: nothing.

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Why Barrel Size Matters

The smaller the barrel, the more wood each liter of wine touches. Writing in WineMaker Magazine's Your First Wine Barrel, a home winemaker explains choosing 30 gallon barrels over 15 gallon ones because the larger barrel extracts oak more slowly, owing to the ratio of wine volume to barrel surface, and notes that a full-size 58 gallon barrel is slower still. He also notes that American oak gives more oak flavor, faster, than French or Hungarian oak.

For a 1 to 5 gallon barrel this means time is measured in weeks, not the months or years you read about for commercial wine. A practical routine:

• New barrel, first fill: taste every 5 to 7 days.
• Second and third fills: every 2 weeks; extraction slows each time.
• When it tastes right: rack the wine back into glass. You can always blend in some unoaked wine if you overshoot.

How to Cure and Care for a Small Oak Barrel

Swell It Before the First Fill

A new barrel arrives dry, and the staves need water to seal. Fill it with clean water and leave it. In the WineMaker Magazine article, one small leak swelled shut within about 12 hours, and the author emptied the water at that point rather than leave it longer and leach out the oak and toast flavors. Follow the instructions that come with your barrel for the exact time.

Keep It Full

A barrel loses wine slowly through the wood, and the space left behind fills with air. The same author tops his barrels up to the brim every six weeks and checks free SO₂ at the same time. With a small home barrel, check the level every couple of weeks and top up with the same wine. Our sulfite calculator helps keep SO₂ where it should be.

Never Store It Empty and Dry

An empty barrel dries out and leaks, or grows mold. Between batches, store it full of a holding solution, which is what the storing tablets included with several of these barrels are for, and rinse it before the next wine goes in.

When the Barrel Goes Neutral

WineMaker Magazine notes that the oak flavor a barrel gives decreases with each use until it becomes a neutral barrel, and that many commercial wineries use barrels three times. A neutral barrel still gives slow micro-oxidation; for oak flavor you then add staves, spirals or cubes.

Oak Barrel vs Oak Spirals

If what you want is oak flavor, spirals give it with no upkeep: FastRack says its heavy toast spirals use the end grain of the wood and that all the oak flavor is extracted after about six weeks. If you also want the softening that comes from a barrel breathing, only a barrel does that.

Wine is for adults of legal drinking age. Enjoy it responsibly.