Barrel

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Barrel_Racing :: Barrels

A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of wood staves and bound with iron hoops. Someone who makes such barrels is known as a cooper. Contemporary barrels are also made in aluminium (also called kegs) and plastic.

Barrels often have a convex shape, bulging at the middle. This constant bulge makes it relatively easy to roll a well built wooden barrel on its side, changing directions with little friction. It also helps to distribute stress evenly in the material by making the container more spherical.

Casks used for ale or beer are equipped with shives, spiles and keystones in their openings.

The "chime hoop" is the iron hoop nearest the end of a wooden barrel. The "bilge hoops" are the hoops nearest the bulge, or centre.

History

In ancient times, in Europe, liquids like oil and wine were carried in vessels, for instance amphora, sealed with pine resin. The Romans began to use barrels in the 3rd century AD, as a result of their commercial and military contacts with the Gauls, who had been making barrels for several centuries.

For nearly 2,000 years barrels were the most convenient form of shipping or storage container, for those who could afford the superior price. All kinds of bulk goods, from nails to gold coins, were stored in them. Bags and most crates were cheaper, but they were not as sturdy and they were more difficult to manhandle, for the same weight. Barrels slowly lost their importance in the 20th century, with the introduction of pallet-based logistics and containerization.

In the mid 20th century, large 55 gallon steel drums began to be used for the storage and transportation of many fluids, such as water, oils and hazardous waste. Empty drums occasionally became musical instruments.

Aging in barrels

The term "Barrel" typically refers to wooden vessels that are small enough to be moved by hand. This would include up to Puncheon size (see below.) Barrels are used for the storage of liquids, to ferment wine, and to age wine (notably brandy, sherry, and port) and whiskey. Some wine is said to be fermented "in barrel," as opposed to a neutral container such as a steel or concrete tank. Wine can also be fermented in large wooden tanks, often called "open-tops", because they are open to the atmosphere. Other wooden cooperadge for storing wine or spirits is called "casks", and they are large (up to thousands of gallons) with either elliptical or round heads.

Beer "Barrels"

Although it is common to refer to draught beer containers of any size as barrels, this is strictly correct only if the container actually holds 36 gallons. The terms "keg" and "cask" refer to containers of any size, the distinction being that kegs are used for beers intended to be served using external gas cylinders. Cask ales undergo part of their fermentation process in their containers, which are called casks.

Casks are available in several sizes, and it is also usual to refer to "a firkin" or "a kil" (kilderkin) instead of a cask.

Sizes

English traditional, wine

Like other units, the pre-1824 definitions continued to be used in the US, the wine gallon of 231 cubic inches staying (since 1707) the standard gallon for liquids (accompanied by the corn gallon of 268.8 cubic inches for solids), whereas in Britain that gallon was abolished and replaced by the Imperial gallon. The tierce later became the petrol barrel. The tun originally was 256 gallons, which explains where the quarter, being 8 bushels or 64 (wine) gallons, comes from.

English traditional, beer and ale

Oil barrel

The standard barrel of crude oil or other petroleum product (abbreviated bbl) is 42 US gallons (about 34.97 Imperial gallons or 158.99 L). This measurement originated in the early Pennsylvania oil fields, and permitted both British and American merchants to refer to the same unit, which was based on the old English wine measure, the tierce.

Earlier, another size of whiskey barrel was once the most common size; this was the 40 US-gallon (151.40 litres) barrel, which was of the same volume as 5 US bushels. However, by 1866 the oil barrel was standardized at 42 US-gallons.

Oil has not been shipped in barrels for a very long time ^* since the introduction of oil tanker ships, but the 42-US-gallon size is still used as a unit for measurement, pricing, and in tax and regulatory codes, each 42(US)-gallon barrel making about 19½ gallons of gasoline.

Disciplinary use

As the expression over a barrel (i.e. vulnerable at someone's mercy) suggests, a commonly available timber barrel has been used as a cheap and convenient alternative to more elaborate whipping posts and other, often more 'ritual', apparatus for corporal punishment. This may be in the private sphere (where it may be a pervertible) or for official, possibly public, administration of lashes to the posterior of a bend-over culprit, as the following links show still common practice in the British 1899-1902 Boers-repression (South Africa and prisoner exile on the Bermudas, whipping naked boys as artist-illustrated) and even in 1937 Ohio village marshall strapping juveniles. Lashes above the waist are generally administered to a straight back, so then a whipping pole or a bench is preferred.

compare the barrel pillory or Spanish mantle

However in a nautical context, at least, 'over the barrel' refers to a gun barrel, which is referred to by the common term kissing the gunner's daughter for similar punishment, in the Royal Navy rather frequently applied, for the graver offences with a reduced cat or a birch, to thus bend-over ship boys' (till the 19th century publicly bared) buttocks.

Sources and External links

Containers | Wine packaging and storage

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