Upstream from the cooperage #4 - From forest to stave wood

Time is something you can’t control. You have to deal with it. For cooperage, it’s the same thing. There are crucial steps to follow. A virtuous cycle to select the best stave oaks to supply cooperages.

The oaks harvested from forests are at least 150 to 180 years old. The oaks purchased by wood buyers, either standing or by the roadside, are received in the log yard, then sorted by origin and marked every 1m, 1m20. On average, seven bolts are marked on a log. The logs finally go to the stave mill, where they are split into quarters.

Crucial splitting

In oak barrel production, splitting is an essential step. The logs are split into several quarters in the grain direction of wood, to ensure the watertightness of future staves. The quarters obtained are sawn to the thickness required for future staves (22, 27, 32 or 42mm). The planks are then stripped of bark, sapwood, and heartwood, to retain only the highest-quality part of stavewood: this is called edging. Straight planks are between 4 and 12.5 cm wide for barrel planks, and over 5 cm wide for bottom.

Inspection, cropping and stacking

Each piece of stavewood is checked one by one. Those with pimples, knots, cut grain, etc. are marked with red chalk and then “cropped “. This specific operation removes defects by cutting stavewood pieces, which are then sorted by length (barrel body: 110, 105, 95 or 90 cm – bottom: 40 to 80 cm – oak shingles/tiles: 33 cm) before being stacked in 0.5m3 pallets with a slatted grid to promote air movement. Once formed, stavewood pallets are laid out on stave yards for a minimum of 20 to 24 months of maturation in open air.

Photographs © Christophe Deschanel