Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Any hardware used for mashing, fermenting or aging.

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Newtothis
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Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Post by Newtothis »

I know these are personal questions but, how many barrels and size of barrels or stock do you generally keep on hand to age out and rotate. And what would be your ideal stock to barrel rotation, I’m thinking of trying to build a base stock to start with for aging of 3 5 gallon barrels, 3 2 gallon barrels and 3 1 gallon barrels, then add a to the stock as it goes until something ages out and have a refill ready to go. Too ambitious?
Sporacle
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Re: Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Post by Sporacle »

I have a 20L 10L and 2L, but if any more come up for sale second hand or at swap meets I'll grab them. I'm a bit of a brew what I think of at the time so vary really have a plan except for the recipe.
At the moment it seems that my 20L is my rum barrel and bourbons get run through the 10L and a small portion gets another age in the smallest Barrel. Another 10L would be the most beneficial at the moment I think :D
" you can pick your nose and you can pick your friends; but you can't always wipe your friends off on your saddle" sage advice from Kinky Friedman
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NZChris
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Re: Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Post by NZChris »

I've seen posts by newbies complaining that their new small barrel over-oaked their liquor. If you do use them, have a plan to prevent that happening, or to deal with it if you get caught out. The Google Search should find discussions on it.

Glass and corks, or SS containers, with oak staves are cheap compared to barrels. My own aged liquors have been on oak, in glass, for a lot longer that I could have left them in new barrels, are still aging and it doesn't matter if I forget where I put one for a couple of years. The Solera system can also work in glass if you want that.

If you are only going to be making one product, working out how to utilize barrels should be relatively easy, but I would suspect that it would involve some bulk storage, especially in the early days before the barrels are 'broken in'. Not a lot of useful aging happens when liquor is off the wood, so if you do use bulk storage to prevent over-oaking, it should still have aged wood in contact with it to keep the aging process 'alive'.
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jonnys_spirit
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Re: Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Post by jonnys_spirit »

Probably as many different and valid approaches as there are members. I currently have two five gallon barrels, four BadMo's, and a bunch of gallon and half gallon jugs plus a few wide mouth gallon jars which I really like because I can use a larger chunk of oak without cutting it up if I like... My newest five gallon gibbs barrel has bourbon in it which i may harvest about half or so and top up with new make... Maybe I'll end up with another bourbon barrel down the road to solera them and keep a generally older product for drinking... The other 5g barrel has port wine solera in it and is definitely neutral. I've got the BadMo's seasoning now with some Rumski and Bourbon and plan to use one each for a glass/BadMo solera of Grappa, Rumski, Mezcal'ish Agave, and something else - Maybe another bourbon or Honey Shine... Goal is to have all those in place by the end of this year..

Cheers!
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subbrew
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Re: Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Post by subbrew »

I would start by determining the amount you need to drink and how long you want to age it. From there you can determine barrel sizes and production schedules. Of course keep in mind over oaking with small barrels as NZ noted.

For me I looked at what I drink, about 1 oz per day average of hard liquor and then figured I would give away 1.5 times that much. And, being the first real production year I wanted to make enough for next years (1 year aging) the next year (2 year aging) and the next, (3 year aging). So for me it was 365X2.5/128 = 21.4 gallons Then converting to aging gallons 21.4x.67 = 14.11 so round to 15 gallons. I planned out my schedule based on 15 gallons split between apple brandy, rum, bourbon and a couple sugar heads. I was not ready to commit to 5 gal of anything yet so no 5 gal barrels so I went with glass and 1.5 gal badmos. The Badmos are minimum of 2 year aging, but when they start to free up I will look at rum production to refill them.

But, if I wanted to use small barrels the logic would be the same, amount, time to age and start thinking of the follow on product.
tombombadil
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Re: Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Post by tombombadil »

When you're only making likker for your own consumption, you basically need to make a whole bunch the first few years, then only enough to replace what you are drinking.

I've got some in glass with oak sticks and it's great, even at only 18 months, I've also got two 5 gallon barrels that I haven't sampled yet.

There's a lot of ways to think of it.

I like to drink Bourbon, rye and rum. But my drinking has gone down a lot, and probably will keep going down over time.

I'm thinking I'll get one more barrel so I have one for each likker, then have one glass carboy for each likker, the process will be something like this:

1. Fill a few bottles from the barrel, whatever is needed to keep the bar stocked, maybe every few months? Whenever I notice the bar needs stocking?
2. Fill the barrel from the carboy to keep the barrel full
3. Whet the carboy has space for 3 gallons of likker, make a batch to fill it. Annually? Every other year? Replace most of the old oak sticks with new oak sticks. Maybe keep a couple at an odd size so I'll know to never replace them.

For me, one big mash, several strips, one spirit run produces about 3 gallons of likker.

I'll have between 8 and 11 gallons of each on hand at any time. That's a ton of likker, for me anyways. I'm thinking it will eventually be pretty old.

Then I'll make a batch of neutral here and there for flavored stuff.

It'll be a little while before I need to pre-oak the likker in glass because my barrels are pretty new, but that's my long term plan anyways.
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Saltbush Bill
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Re: Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Post by Saltbush Bill »

One small bit of advice..the more barrels you own , the happier you will be......after a while of owning barrels you do start to think that glass dont cut the mustard.
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Tummydoc
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Re: Question about building up aging stock and barrels

Post by Tummydoc »

I wouldnt bother with small volume barrels. Cheaper to once buy a used wine barrel, break it down, and char your own dominoes. I can get used 55g wine barrels for $75 and a lifetime supply of dominoes for aging in stainless. I have four 5g barrels (1 rum, 3 whiskey). I live in an arid region and loose more to angels share than most folks here. Barrel quality greatly influences that loss. I have 2 previously unused Balcones barrels that lose 10% yearly. Two Redhead Barrels that lose 25% yearly (ouch). My favorite is dominoes in a 5 gallon sanke, no angel loss.
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