The Badmotivator Bain-Marie and Oak Barrel

[OtisT]

Thanks.

[AlChemE]

I started on my barrel head today and ran into a problem! As I was sanding the sides down to make it fit in the pot, I got a little overzealous and sanded too much off. It was just slightly larger than the opening. So I sanded about a 1/32" off but now it sits about 1-2" inside the pot. Does anyone know of a brand that may have a slightly smaller opening? I really don't think any amount of swelling will make this fit so that the head it flush. I don't want to go to a 4 qt if I don't have to. Here's the pot that I purchased:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001E ... UTF8&psc=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

[Badmotivator]

I started on my barrel head today and ran into a problem! As I was sanding the sides down to make it fit in the pot, I got a little overzealous and sanded too much off. It was just slightly larger than the opening. So I sanded about a 1/32" off but now it sits about 1-2" inside the pot. Does anyone know of a brand that may have a slightly smaller opening? I really don't think any amount of swelling will make this fit so that the head it flush. I don't want to go to a 4 qt if I don't have to. Here's the pot that I purchased:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001E ... UTF8&psc=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Damn. Sorry for your trouble. Take heart, though. Things aren’t so bad.

Put a generous layer of beeswax all around the rim (completely cover the edge, not just one little stripe), and see how deep it falls into the barrel. Maybe you’ll be happier with its position. You don’t really need to force it in very hard if the wood is dry; it probably will swell enough to seal up pretty well. If you do this and fill it and let it swell up you might be perfectly happy with it. Careful hammering in the bung though. Not too hard!

If you aren’t happy, empty it, put it upside down over a vent or something, and it should dry and shrink enough to be pulled out. Or turn it upside down, heat all around it with a hair dryer to melt the wax, and pull the head out. Then you can pursue the smaller can strategy.

[OtisT]

Was a fun day yesterday making these 8 Liter beauties. Two are toasted, and four are toasted/charred.

Six BOBs

Toasted

Toasted & Charred

Now it's time to get off my ass and fill em. I have fixins for the first two, an all Molly rum and a batch of Honey Bear Bourbon. After that..... Should keep my busy fermenting and stilling into summer before I need to make more.

[Badmotivator]

Was a fun day yesterday making these 8 Liter beauties.

Those look strangely familiar.

I’m curious to see how well they seal up.

[OtisT]

Was a fun day yesterday making these 8 Liter beauties.

Those look strangely familiar.

I’m curious to see how well they seal up.

Well, it's good to know that drinking has not impacted your short term memory. I'm leak testing one now. So far, so good.

[faste]

I got some six Qt cans, have some some aged white oak to make he lids. My question is does it have to be cut and pieced back together to make the lid? Boards I have are prob wide enough to make three.

[Badmotivator]

I got some six Qt cans, have some some aged white oak to make he lids. My question is does it have to be cut and pieced back together to make the lid? Boards I have are prob wide enough to make three.

Cool! Aged outside in the weather, right? Not indoors?

No “need” to cut and rejoin the boards. Some have made them with a single board. Earlier in the thread I detail the reasons why I do use staves instead of a single piece.

[faste]

They was outside couple of years and I moved them inside last year. I’ll have to go back and recap earlier post. Been couple of years since I read. But thanks for the thread

[FJ_BAMF]

Received 3 barrels in from Badmotivator! They are awesome and I already filled one for the long haul. I had a few drips come out of the bung last week and you could smell the tobacco flavor! Super excited to see how this is going to work out! Now if I can have the patience and fortitude not to sample!!!! Thanks again BadMotivator! I have cut and started the seasoning process for my oak to make three more barrels.

[Badmotivator]

Received 3 barrels in from Badmotivator! They are awesome and I already filled one for the long haul. I had a few drips come out of the bung last week and you could smell the tobacco flavor! Super excited to see how this is going to work out! Now if I can have the patience and fortitude not to sample!!!! Thanks again BadMotivator! I have cut and started the seasoning process for my oak to make three more barrels.

So cool! I’m glad you like them. I hope you will go the distance and make your own, too. Keep in touch.

[Texas Jim]

I'm on page 3 of this 17 page thread - can someone give me spoilers - does it work?

[Oldvine Zin]

I'm on page 3 of this 17 page thread - can someone give me spoilers - does it work?

HaHa read until your eyes bleed and yes they do work - read the whole thread

OVZ

[OtisT]

I'm on page 3 of this 17 page thread - can someone give me spoilers - does it work?

I am loving mine. Bourbon after 6 months is wonderful (for me) already. I recently made 6 barrels of my own and just filled two. One I filled with some jarred sugar head with chips that was going no where. Just yesterday I filled a medium toasted barrel with a fresh batch of rum.

It’s the best aging solution I have found for batches of this size.

Otis

[Texas Jim]

Can you reuse these barrels? I imagine that it would take longer the second time to extract flavors from the wood. I wonder if the losses would decrease as the wood would already be saturated?

[WIski]

TJ Wrote'
I imagine that it would take longer the second time to extract flavors from the wood.

And this may be a good thing! Time is your friend here. After all it's called "Ageing" for a reason.

[Badmotivator]

Can you reuse these barrels? I imagine that it would take longer the second time to extract flavors from the wood. I wonder if the losses would decrease as the wood would already be saturated?

Yep. Sure you can. But it’s important to think carefully about why you’d want to.

Barrels are reused in industry all the time. Many (or most?) of these have been reconditioned before reuse. They may have been scraped, re-charred, and often even broken apart and rebuilt. My hunch is that initially, at least, this was done for economic reasons and not because those used barrels were somehow superior or even desirable. Lately much has been made of how a spirit picks up hints of the previous use, i.e. scotch aged or finished in ex-sherry casks. If that stuff interests you, more power to you, but it’s not my thing.

But a badmotivator barrel cannot be reconditioned easily. I have never done it and probably won’t. To do so would require removing the head from the can without irreparably damaging it. Furthermore, for me the cost of replacing a barrel head is in the vicinity of $5 and a little work. I’d need a pretty compelling reason to reuse an old one.

What would a second-fill spirit be like? I imagine it would be lighter in color, less sweet, thinner mouthfeel, retain subtle flavors from the first fill spirit, and it would mature at the same rate as the first fill did. By “mature” I just mean that the rough “raw spirit” character of heads and tails would disappear and be replaced by nicer flavors. And I don’t think it’s a matter of “taking longer” to extract wood flavors; there just isn’t as much wood flavor available.

[Badmotivator]

I have decided to change the brass labels with brass tacks to stainless steel labels with stainless steel tacks. I don't think brass was a real problem, but I'd prefer to reduce my worry to zero. I bought 1" x 12" x 0.012" stainless steel strips from Kit Kraft (https://kitkraft.com/products/012-x-1-s ... teel-strip" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow) and stainless steel tacks from Amazon. The strips are easy to cut with snips and have a mirror finish. Going forward, the barrels will look more like these two, which are on their way to member "themason".

[OtisT]

Nice! The stainless looks much better next to the stainless spigot and the pan itself. Otis

[AlChemE]

Excited to fill both of these barrels this week! On the left is a 4 qt. bain marie that has used staves from a local craft distillery. It was a 2 year old barrel so it likely has a little more flavor left in the wood than a 4 year old barrel. I popped the head off of the barrel, scrapped the loose char off and hit it with the propane torch to re-toast it somewhat. It is filled with a heavy peated malt whisky. I used 50/50 distillers malt and bairds 38 ppm peated malt with White Labs Scottish Whisky yeast (that yeast is incredible!) and distilled using a traditional triple distillation using my alembic still. I cut it down to 60% abv and filled the barrel. I also added 10 mL of the single malt whiskey that was in the barrel that this wood is from. I figured it would be like an actual distillery that has some remaining juice in the barrel before it gets filled with Scotch. Due to the surface area/volume ratio and the fact that its used wood, I expect this to take 4-6 years to age properly.

On the right is an 8 qt bain marie that has brand new white oak that I source from Independant Stave Company. It was seasoned for 18 months and came with a nice tongue and groove profile. I charred it myself to a #3. It is holding a 80/10/10 corn/rye/distillers malt mash bill and Red Star distillers yeast. It has been double distilled using an alembic still for the first distillation, and a 5 plate column still for the second distillation. The second distillation was decently high in proof throughout the run, so I expect this to be a 'less heavy' bourbon. I would like this whiskey to sit for 2-4 years. I decided to experiment with the 3/4" TC ferrule vs. the wooden bung on either barrel. We'll see which performs better.

In the works is a third barrel that will hold a smoked 100% rye whiskey. But for now I need to figure out which type of wood to smoke and whos BBQ smoker I'm going to use.

[Oldvine Zin]

Nice !! I like the tri-clamp on top

OVZ

[OtisT]

Hey Badmo. I filled my fourth Badmo Barrel this week with my best batch of HBB to date. A few weeks back #3 was filled with some insanely fruity and intense rum I made. I only have two barrels left before I need to make more.

Stocking up

I had a few leak issues with the pre-soak but after 24 hours they worked themselves out and are holding liquor just fine. I do need something other than blue tape to label these so I will be getting out the stamp set and some metal to label these things proper.

Otis

[Badmotivator]

Excited to fill both of these barrels this week!

Nicely done! I'll be glad to hear how they work out for you way down the road.

[Badmotivator]

Hey Badmo. I filled my fourth Badmo Barrel this week with my best batch of HBB to date. A few weeks back #3 was filled with some insanely fruity and intense rum I made.

That is going to rock in a couple of years!

I only have two barrels left before I need to make more.

"Only," he says. Sheesh.

Let me know if you want to do another barrel-making day down here. I'd be glad to see you again. Or are you getting tooled up so that you can get it done at home?

[OtisT]

Yes, the rum rocks even now. I did make a white cut for a few small jars and it’s yummy. Come on up and you can check it out.

I’m not tooled up yet, but I hope to. I have a few stills to make for folks before I do that though. Maybe in a month or two.

Are you coming up for ADA? The conference cost major bucks so I’m not attending it all, but I can afford the vendor expo pass for one day. $150. I’m gonna try another HD get together post for one of the evenings during ADA and see who shows.

Otis

[Oldvine Zin]

Yea real spendy - could buy a couple of barrels for the price of admission - still hope to make it down for burgers with Odin

OVZ

[Badmotivator]

LOSS RATE UPDATE

A couple of months have gone by since I tested the four barrels I am using to examine the loss rate of the "modern" Badmotivator Barrels. None of these barrels show any signs of leaking.The first test was only a couple of weeks after filling, and the apparent loss rate at that time were strangely low. These numbers look much better to me. The fourth barrel in this test, #52, has been kept at 90degF since the last test. The others are at about 70degF.

[PuddinJack]

Badmo........ what a fantastic idea !!!! Thank you so much for sharing ! Your craftsmanship looks excellent.... well done !! I cant wait to make a few. I do quite a lot of woodworking and I will be trying a nifty little trick that will help them seal up when they get swelled..... if you check out a youtube video .... look up Frank Klausz watertight joint.... you will immediately see the application with the Badmo barrel head.... both between the staves and around the edge.... and its simple and fast to do..... I will let you know how it goes..... or if you try it first... let me know .... and again Thanks !!!

[Badmotivator]

Badmo........ what a fantastic idea !!!! Thank you so much for sharing ! Your craftsmanship looks excellent.... well done !! I cant wait to make a few. I do quite a lot of woodworking and I will be trying a nifty little trick that will help them seal up when they get swelled..... if you check out a youtube video .... look up Frank Klausz watertight joint.... you will immediately see the application with the Badmo barrel head.... both between the staves and around the edge.... and its simple and fast to do..... I will let you know how it goes..... or if you try it first... let me know .... and again Thanks !!!

Thanks, PJ. That's nice of you to say.

I looked up Frank Klausz's trick. That's way cool. I've also seen that trick used to make things like dovetail joints swell up after fitting them together so that there are no gaps. Neat stuff. I'm not sure it's the right answer for barrel joinery though. It would add quite a lot of work for every joint, and especially for the joint between the head and the can. You would have to cut the circle slightly too big (almost but barely not fitting into the can), crush the edge all the way around, and then sand down the whole edge to the "fitting" size. In the current plan, you cut nice dry wood to fit, add a little beeswax, and then trust that the swelling and the beeswax will ensure a seal, which it usually does. When I have a failure it's because I cut or shaped the circle badly. I am re-tooling my processes a little to include a simple homemade variable-radius circle sanding jig which looks promising. More on that later.

I hope that you will give barrel-making a try. It sounds like you have the inclination and probably the tools. I hope you will innovate and refine methods etc. as well and share what you learn. Cheers, and good luck.

[TDick]

Okay, I am intrigued. And a couple of questions.
First thing I have a 1 (3/4") x 4 that's been out in the weather a while. Is that thick enough?
I'm also thinking about calling some of the firewood suppliers here, they are plentiful. It's off season and I'm thinking they could just cut disks out of oak they probably have stacked right now. How thick a piece should I tell them I need?

Second, the price of new stainless pots online seems to be pretty steep, especially with shipping charges.
On my list is to call a couple of restaurant supply houses and check pricing.
On ebay, there is a vendor selling used pots cheap and with reasonable S&H.
Here is a picture of some 4 quarts that would be $16.00 for 2, freight included.

Question is would the rough finish of a used pot affect the alcohol?