Oak barrels are often used to flavor and color wine, beer, and distilled beverages. However, microorganisms can penetrate into the wood, making cleaning and sterilization difficult. This can lead to undesired microbial growth in the contents of the barrel during subsequent use. Information on heat penetration into barrel staves during steam treatment and associated thermal inactivation rates is scarce. Therefore, we incorporated heat transfer and Arrhenius-type death kinetics to build a mathematical model to predict the killing rate of the microorganisms when steam sterilizing a wooden barrel. First, we used this model to predict temperature profiles in barrel staves as a function of distance from the steamed surface and time of steaming. We then evaluated the thermal inactivation of microorganisms at 0.8 cm into the stave (the maximum wine penetration depth into a stave) to calculate the time needed to achieve a 5-log reduction in live cells. Using this approach, we found that the required sterilization times for Brettanomyces bruxellensis, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and Leuconostoc mesenteroides are 9 min, 12 min, and 200 min, respectively. This result is useful for winemakers to determine how long they desire to steam a barrel to prevent growth and contamination of key microbes in their wine.

中文翻译：

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使用数学建模方法预测酒桶的有效蒸汽灭菌时间

橡木桶通常用于为葡萄酒、啤酒和蒸馏饮料调味和着色。然而，微生物可以渗透到木材中，使清洁和消毒变得困难。这会导致在随后的使用过程中桶的内容物中出现不希望的微生物生长。在蒸汽处理过程中热渗透到桶壁上以及相关的热失活率的信息很少。因此，我们结合传热和阿伦尼乌斯型死亡动力学建立了一个数学模型来预测木桶蒸汽灭菌时微生物的杀灭率。首先，我们使用这个模型来预测桶壁中的温度分布，作为与蒸煮表面的距离和蒸煮时间的函数。然后我们评估了微生物在 0 时的热灭活。进入壁板 8 厘米（进入壁板的最大葡萄酒渗透深度）来计算实现活细胞减少 5 个对数所需的时间。使用这种方法，我们发现布鲁氏酒香酵母、酿酒酵母和肠系膜明串珠菌所需的灭菌时间分别为 9 分钟、12 分钟和 200 分钟。该结果有助于酿酒师确定他们希望将桶蒸多久，以防止葡萄酒中关键微生物的生长和污染。