can I please get your thoughts on this:
I have a T500 making neutral, I have recently acquired a 5L American oak keg I have read putting neutral in oak barrels just tastes ''like a vodka flavoured stick'' i was thinking of buying 5L of port and filling the barrel for a few months and then replacing it with neutral @65% ABV to give a port infused spirit with oak tastes? am i making a fool of myself or think it may taste okay?
I went to a distillery one and they had port infused whiskey and was great! (understand mine wont be to their standards)
Is there anything i can add to the barrel to give it a more real ''bourbon'' taste - other than running a pot still with proper mash? or am i stuck with woody vodka with essence?
It is very easy to pack flavor in with a pot still, which is why I haven't bothered building a column in thirty years. My new reflux column is intended for high proof neutrals for gin, Absinthe and steeps, not for my whiskeys and rums etc..
This is my take on it, Ive owned both a T500 and a 5L oak Barrel that had port stored in it for about 2 years.
When I first started in this hobby I put rum in the port barrel...it turned out very well. I didnt make that rum with the T500..I used a 4 plate bubbler / column.
There is no reason why you couldn't make up a molasses wash , run that through the T500, make good cuts ..put the product in the barrel.
Make up another simple rum wash run it , but add the feints from the first run to the boiler along with the wash.
Add hearts cut from that run to barrel..........repeat , repeat till barrel is full.
The worst that will happen is you might stink up the packing in the T500 column..you might have to wash it or soak it a bit to get the smell out.
A reflux still like a T500 wont get all of the molasses taste / smell out of your product ....so it should be like a light rum infused with port I think.
Course none of this helps if ya don't like Rum
Anyway that's my take on it ....some will disagree.
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Ian smileys book "making pure corn" whiskey may be of interest to you. In it he details how to make a full flavor corn whiskey with a reflux still. Basically: collect late into tails in small containers and blend back in to the hearts.
Can the some or all of the packing be removed on the t500 to run it as a pot still? Or the column detached from the lid so you can make and attach a pot still head? Or if you got the money... they make a alembic dome top potstill head that they sell separately,I believe. At least those are possible options,try making vodka with a pot still !
Jbt
What %abv do you get off of a t500,total blended hearts I mean?
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I would like to way in on the discussion. What members are saying is true about flavor and not to expect to put a neutral in a barrel and come out with a bourbon. Putting it in a new barrel it may come out woody as I have not tried it, however I do know that a (not sure how many generation) distiller that I visited with Odin in Amsterdam puts her Genever in old barrels that she has been using for many years. They have lost the ability to impart vanilla flavor and such but they do allow the Genever to rest and become smoother before bottling,
cheers for the input fellas, one last question: When flavouring the neutral with wood chips from the local brew shop has anyone ever experimented with adding grains to the process? maybe a tea spoon of cracked corn, rye, barley to give it other flavours?
The nearest I've come is putting wheat bran in a gin still. That got the flavor over without contaminating the final product with the protein and carbohydrate etc. that you would get putting it in the neutral. You can get the flavors by putting the grains in the wash (see UJSSM) so except for tiny experiments, I would have no need to do this.
Experiment with pint jars to see how it goes. Put a few barrel chips and your grain in and leave about 1/3rd headspace for some oxygen.
do you think I would be better doing a neutral run and collecting X amount of litres at 90% and leaving to air, when I go to water it down to desired %ABV boil a kettle and soak the grains in the boiling water till it cools then filter and add to the neutral then I could soak it with the chips or just soak grains with the chips?
Gaffatron wrote:do you think I would be better doing a neutral run and collecting X amount of litres at 90% and leaving to air, when I go to water it down to desired %ABV boil a kettle and soak the grains in the boiling water till it cools then filter and add to the neutral then I could soak it with the chips or just soak grains with the chips?
I think one of teh most exciting things about this hobby, is that you can TRY everything ! Alcohol is pretty good at leaching flavours and small amounts of "stuff" gives much bigger flavours than you expect.
