hi let's start with curing the barrel when you first receive your barrel from red head of barrels you're going to you'll notice that the spicket and the bone are not in the barrel so the first thing let's do is let's just go ahead and run it under some water it's okay to get the whole thing wet outside inside pour water in the top bunghole and just let it run through the spicket hole and shake it up maybe get any loose debris that may be in there go ahead and get that out once we've done that for a few minutes let's go ahead and put the spicket into the barrel now it just needs to be hand tight it will swell up and it will seal itself so don't think that you need to tap it or hammer it just go ahead and put it in kind of wiggle it side to side make sure that it's straight up and down and closed is in the backwards position open would be turning the knob forward then let's go ahead and let's fill it up and let's fill it up with hot water back the hotter the better and what we want to do is we want to go ahead and pour that hot water in here it'll help to to seal the barrel because the wood will soak up the the water and then seal itself against the band's it may take a few hours it could be a it could be a couple of days even for the dripping just to stop so what you'll want to do is you'll want to keep your barrel in a place that can can get wet perhaps a sink or a bathtub or something of that effect a pail or something then once you've noticed that there's no more leaking going on then you can go ahead and pour your water out let it air dry for about three or four hours just to kind of get the surface water out of it draining upside down just kind of airing out and after that you're ready to put your liquor in and get started aging your own liquor so that's curing your barrel for red head oak barrels calm