The Art of "Clocking"
- Martin McNicoll
- Jun 3
- 1 min read
Hello everyone,
Today, I’m taking you into the rickhouse to talk about a very specific logistical challenge: stacking our barrels! Our main goal during this process is to ensure that the bung is always facing straight up once the barrel is in its final spot, to prevent any leaks.
Here is how we manage to do this without breaking our backs:
The Weight Challenge: A full barrel contains 200 liters of liquid right at the start. When you add the weight of the wood itself, we are looking at a total weight of about 230 kg! Obviously, we don't want to be adjusting or moving this by hand once it is in place.
The Roller System: To make handling easier, we use a roller system that allows us to simply roll the barrel into its final position.
The "Clocking" Technique: This is where the magic happens! Because we know exactly how far the barrel needs to roll, we calculate its starting position using the face of a clock.
A Concrete Example: If we need to send a barrel to the fourth position from the edge, we might determine that the bung needs to start at the "3:00" position. We set the bung to exactly 3:00 on the rollers, bring the barrel down, and push it all the way to the back. When it finishes rotating, the bung lands perfectly right on top (at 12:00)!
It is a simple, mathematical method that saves us a ton of time (and physical strain!).
See you soon,
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