The wet cooper is a craftsman who with a high degree of accuracy is charged to make barrels out of wooden. All the know-how of the wet cooper is joined together in this practical and necessary object. Its knack and its glance will make the good barrel which will allow the ageing of the Vin or of the alcohol.

Dimensions of the barrels

Various dimensions of the barrels:

• urchin 0,23 liter
• bottle of wine 0,46 liter
• pint 0,93 liter
• pot 1,83 liter
• the setier 7,43 liters
• the pitcher 8 liters
• the small barrel 50 liters
• the quarteau 57 liters
• the half-part 110 liters
• divides into sheets It 114 liters
• the young girl 134 liters
• the harrier 200 liters
• the Bordelaise barrel 225 liters
• the Burgundy part 228 liters
• the muid 268 liters
• the pipe 400 liters
• the half-muid 600 liters
• the ton 1000 liters
• the lightning more than 11500 liters

History

The barrel was invented by the Celtes and adopted by the Romains as low-reliefs of scenes of hâlage with the quite visible barrels have attested it on the boats dating from And for more than 2.000 years, the barrels were used as container with various food products. Currently, the barrel is mainly used for the wines and alcohols “aged out of barrels of oak”.

Matter

The principal material used is the wood of Chêne, split on district in Merrain S by the Merrandier in the forest of the the Limousin, Allier (Tronçais), of Nievre (Bertranges), of the Vosges (Darney), of Normandy. The rise of the trade at the 19th century made it possible to the wet coopers to use with advantage the very beautiful oaks coming from Russia and Ukraine. The white oak of America is used traditionally for the whiskey. The gasolines at porous initial zone (ZIP) like the oak, the chestnut, the acacia, the ash make it possible all to manufacture barrels. Barrels in wild cherry tree and fir tree (storage of the sap of pine) can be used. When the barrel was used to store all the liquids, even solid oils (powder) conceivable, the wet coopers naturally used the wood turpentines at their disposal locally, with like only constraints the sealing and the neutrality of the barrel compared to the stored product. On the other hand, nowadays, the barrel of oak is used with the wines for its very appreciated aromatic characteristics. The wet cooper also uses circles of wood related to the wicker, or more recently of the iron circles.

Tools and manufacture

After air drying free during several years, the stave woods are sawn with the length of the barrel. Then, by the operation of paring, the stave wood becomes douelle or ditch. This operation consists in giving to the plank of wood the form external of the barrel. This operation was practiced using an adze and of plane. Then assembling comes: the wet cooper lays down the songs of douelle on the dove (ancestor of the surfacing machine) and gives to douelle the arrow corresponding to the barrel. This operation must be meticulous, because the sealing and the shape of the barrel depend on it.

After having determined the good quantity of douelles, the wet cooper carries out the setting pink, by joining together in a fragile balance the douelles ones in truncated cone. Using a hammer and of a hunting, it positions the first provisional circles on the barrel (circle of slope at the higher end, then in lower part rings collet and rings of bulge). The carcasses thus formed are put to heat on a foot-warmer (brazier) fed highly with the wood of oak. At the end of half an hour, and after several waterings with warm water, the barrel is curved using bâtissoir it (also called botissoire or recueilleux), screw apparatus allowing the tightening of a cable. Once the curved barrel and the circles installed on the second side, the barrel is put to heat on a brazier, the goal being as much to cook fiber of the bent timber so that it keeps its form from its thermoelastic properties, to develop the flavors and tastes of hazel nut, buttered, vanilla, even smoked, which agree so well with the wines. This cooking can last up to one hour, the important one being to cook in-depth wood.

Various planes and pickaxes make it possible to equalize, chamfer, dig the groove (croze) where will come to place the bottom; they have as names compass plane, plane croze or croze or lane, chanfrinière or Stockholm, adze…

The funds are traced with the compasses and are assembled by acacia or iron dowels. The profile fitting in the groove is cut with the plane one. Once prepared, the funds are installed in the groove prepared on the barrel using a sleeper screw and of a dog being used to draw aside the douelles ones. The sealing is ensured by a mixture of flour, ash and water on the basis of paste with bread. A hole of plug is then bored on the barrel thanks to a gimlet, then increased with the bondonnière (conical plane with handle).

The sealing is then tested at the time of the éprouvage to warm water by strongly balancing the barrel of a bottom on the other. Any escape gives place to a repair.

The provisional circles are then removed, the douelles ones are scraped or sandpapered, and of the final circles are set up. Circles out of wooden of chestnut are installed at the head (handles, being used to seize the barrel firmly) and moves about it (circles of rolls, protecting and stabilizing the barrel during rollings).

To finish, a hole of broquereau being used with rackings and the installation of a tap can be bored on the funds.

With the wire of time

The barrel has been known in Europe for 2.000 years; it was used to store liquid products (wine, beer, cider, water), but also solid like the grains, the saltings and even the nails. Initially called carpenter of barrel, the Masters wet coopers “tonloiers” or “barilliers” were already joined together in corporation at the 9th century. To the 13th century, they gave their statutes for approval at the same time as 121 other trade associations. In 1444, Charles VII of France confirmed the statutes of the wet coopers or barilliers (the wet coopers carpenters or tun makers for their part were attached to the corporation of the carpenters as of the 10th century). It consequently gives opportunity to the wet coopers barilliers the privilege of unloaders of Vin: they are the only ones to have the right to unload the Vin which arrives by Bateau.

With the Middle Ages, the kings had their own wet coopers, charged with maintaining the barrels and the muids. They made also function of wine waiter (historically proven function of the reign of Charlemagne to that of Louis saint).

Manufacture of the wet coopers was numerous: buckets, buckets, bath-tubs, churns, barrels, barrels, small tanks, buckets, wooden tubs, hoods and of course barrels. The wet cooper of village was practically the only one to manufacture barrels or to repair the old men Fût S of the Vigneron S. It was paid at piece-rates.

Writings

Quotations

The barrel Pierre Boujut, wet cooper

Extract of Of the trades and the men at the village Bernard HENRY - 1975. “How could one imagine to make hold a liquid in an assembly of pieces of wood extremely difficult to assemble? Most of the human inventions appeared already in nature: the house, it is the cave, the boat, it is the tree trunk which floats, even the wheel, it is the sun which rolls in space. The natural container, it is the amphora, the vase manufactured with the image of a hollow stone, by grinding wet clay, or it is in addition to one finds done everything by digging the skin of a goat. But the barrel is well an invention of poets, the imagination of people of dreamers, heedless of time and practical life, our ancestors the Celts. ”

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