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BadMo,

Do you use the nut that comes with the stainless spigots or do you just thread them into the wood? Thanks in advance.......

WIski wrote:BadMo,

Do you use the nut that comes with the stainless spigots or do you just thread them into the wood? Thanks in advance.......

I do not. I just push the spigot stem through. It's a medium-tight squeeze. I have found almost no seepage through that spot after swelling, so I'm satisfied. I can't think of any reason NOT to use the nut, though. Cheers.

WIski wrote:Why no spigots Temptation

Yep, my plan is to open one of these next summer, and not until then.
I know myself well enough that if I could just pour some out easily, I'd never make it.

Kickstarter it!

I got my tapered reamer and tapered tenon cutter: The tapered tenon cutter works like a big pencil sharpener on (preferably) a dowel: The tapered reamer cuts a hole with exactly the same angle as the tenon. Here it is on the drill press, but I think I'll use the hand drill for its low speed and high torque. I have a maximum depth marked with sharpie, the black line you see on the reamer: I cut the tapered point off of the dowel with a bit of uncut dowel for a head, and do some light sanding just for feel and aesthetics. I am thinking about cauterizing the wet end of the plug also to reduct the wicking through the wood. The pegs look nicer than those freaky things I was making before: They are removed easily by some sharp lateral mallet taps. Once the friction is released by tapping around the peg, it's totally released and the peg comes right out. By contrast the old dowel-like pegs I was using were either a huge pain to pull or they didn't make a good seal.

I still have some stuff to work out though. I need to figure out a good way to cauterize the bung hole (any smiths want to make me a fat 12.8 deg cast iron taper on a long rod? I'll trade you a barrel. ) I think that may help with getting a good seal. Also I'm trying to figure out a way to get white oak to not act like a bunch of straws. The cherry dowel I used for this seemed to act a bit less like a big wick. Oak is super porous with the grain. This picture is a completely full barrel during a warming period in my test lab... er... kitchen, so the contents are getting pushed out a bit. Later in the evening when the temperature in the lab stabilized the seeping had stopped and the face and peg both dried completely. It's not a huge problem, this temperature-change seeping, but it's unnerving.

I've wondered about the wicking myself with my first barrel.
I haven't seen any signs of it happening, the plug seems completely dry, but still wondering if the angels can weasel their way in and out through the plug.

The last two barrels that I made have plugs that were cut perpendicular to the grain, so the contents are exposed to the same side grain as the rest of the barrel head.
I'll be keeping track of weights, so if the first barrel loses substantially more than the other two I should be able to measure that.

MichiganCornhusker wrote:I've wondered about the wicking myself with my first barrel.
I haven't seen any signs of it happening, the plug seems completely dry, but still wondering if the angels can weasel their way in and out through the plug.

The last two barrels that I made have plugs that were cut perpendicular to the grain, so the contents are exposed to the same side grain as the rest of the barrel head.
I'll be keeping track of weights, so if the first barrel loses substantially more than the other two I should be able to measure that.

Excellent. Even if the pegs wick a bit, that would end as soon as the spirit level dropped below the peg, if you rotated them to have the peg at 12 o'clock. That could easily happen in the first year or two if you start with a completely full barrel. And there's no reason we have to fill them up to the top in the first place.

One could always wax the outside cut of the plug to keep the loss from the open grain structure to a mininum. Around the edges between the plug and the head could be done the same but I'm not sure how well it would stop any seepage.

yakattack wrote:One could always wax the outside cut of the plug to keep the loss from the open grain structure to a mininum. Around the edges between the plug and the head could be done the same but I'm not sure how well it would stop any seepage.

Prophetic and wise, Yak. I tried both, and your prediction was entirely correct.

Waxing the thin, internal portion of the peg: Waxing the crown, or external portion of the peg: Also sanding the tapered bunghole a bit: After some hours of soaking/face-drying, here's the internal-wax one: And here's the crown-wax one: (look closely, it's stained from early charring and seepage, but it's dry) Winner: soaking the crown of the peg with beeswax!

Yakattak 1, Angels 0. Thanks, Yak.

One more comparison. Unwaxed cherry peg vs. crown-waxed cherry peg. ...and... a tiny little victory lap... after that barrel proved to be tight, I got to mark it as Badmotivator Barrel #20!

Wish those Bain-Marie were no so pricy up here. Mind you now that I am doing 35-40g ferments think I could fill 5-10g barrel easy now. Only 3-4 ferments of the sweet feed will give me 10g of aging stock at 62.5% After that everything going all grain. Wish could get 10g barrels hear at a decent price.

B

Badmotivator wrote:

yakattack wrote:One could always wax the outside cut of the plug to keep the loss from the open grain structure to a mininum. Around the edges between the plug and the head could be done the same but I'm not sure how well it would stop any seepage.

Prophetic and wise, Yak. I tried both, and your prediction was entirely correct.

Waxing the thin, internal portion of the peg:

IMG_2058.jpg

Waxing the crown, or external portion of the peg:

IMG_2059.jpg

Also sanding the tapered bunghole a bit:

IMG_2060.jpg

After some hours of soaking/face-drying, here's the internal-wax one:

IMG_2065.jpg

And here's the crown-wax one: (look closely, it's stained from early charring and seepage, but it's dry)

IMG_2064.jpg

Winner: soaking the crown of the peg with beeswax!

Yakattak 1, Angels 0. Thanks, Yak.

You're most welcome badmo. I've throughly enjoyed watching you and your barrels evolve through this process and thread. Keep up the ingenuity and hard work. And most of all enjoy the ride

Ya

Bitter Wrote,

Wish could get 10g barrels hear at a decent price.

Keep an eye on this thread........http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =4&t=62396

Yes I am watching but shipping to canada is more than the barrels

Is there any reason this couldn't be done with a simple stainless steel pot? That way you would have a lot more variety of larger sizes(5, 6, 8 10 gallon, etc)

Is it because of the tapered walls? Or the cost of buying the pots is a bit higher?

Could you make any of these BM?

magnetic_tarantula wrote:Is there any reason this couldn't be done with a simple stainless steel pot? That way you would have a lot more variety of larger sizes(5, 6, 8 10 gallon, etc)

Is it because of the tapered walls? Or the cost of buying the pots is a bit higher?

Could you make any of these BM?

Production-ABT.png

Short answer is that I don't know, but I like the way you think.

The long answer: I don't know how much of my seal is due to the swelling of dry wood and how much is due to the compression of the head into a tapered vessel. I believe that edge treatments (like beeswax or cattail "flagging", both of which are legit barrelmaking techniques) could be used to help insure a good seal, and I will be experimenting with these. My hunch is that you totally could do this with a standard pot with straight sides at any size. But of course the taller the pot the lower the SA/V for the contents. For a straight-sided vessel the head's radius had really better be damned-near perfect.

I have been trying to work out a way to make a battery of barrels for traditional balsamic vinegar in my head. I'm not quite there. By the way, they use those batteries for a lifetime or more, so I suspect that the influence of the wood on the vinegar's flavor is very small. The progression of wood species seems like a really nice tradition but is probably not the defining feature of the product.

Badmotivator wrote:For a straight-sided vessel the head's radius had really better be damned-near perfect.

Yes, that is one of the nice things about the bain maire pots, the slight taper makes the wood head fit tighter as you drive it in.

I used a stationary sander to sneak up on my circular shape for the oak heads until it was close but still required a mallet to drive it into the pot.
I also had a very slight angle on the table of the sander so it made a wee bit of taper on the oak.
After bashing it into the bain maire I can see where it actually swedged out the stainless a little bit.

I would think with a regular stainless pot with no taper you would at least need to taper the wood to help drive it into the pot and hold it in place until it could swell.

Progress always!

I have been experimenting with ways to reduce failed seals, which waste precious wood.

Here's what I came up with: to prevent leaks between the head staves I chose to use flagging. This is a traditional barrel construction/repair technique that uses cattail (Typha latifolia) leaves as a kind of gasket. I harvested a few bunches from the wetlands near my home. I split the dried leaves with a pen knife and removed the pith. I slipped the flagging between the staves before the charring stage.

To prevent leaks around the outer edge I chose beeswax, another traditional tool. Using a blowtorch and a block of wax I melted at least a little wax in a ring all the way around the edge of the head. It soaked into the wood readily and may help to close up any tubes that might bring the spirit to the edge of the head and out the side wall.

The head for barrel #21 was a great tight fit, and had zero seepage right away when filled with water for the first time. This has been true before for other barrels without these new techniques, so I can't conclude anything yet. More barrels with the new techniques in the future will contribute to or possibly destroy my optimism.

Anyone else have any results to share?

Badmo, thanks for this thread and with the wine barrels I'm getting I will give this a go. I like the way you have tried different techniques to help seal the end cap and will take all into consideration when constructing, keep up the good work

Unforeseen problem #426: Swelling and splitting of a waxed cherry peg. This barrel is stored upside down from the normal orientation (reasons) so the cherry peg has constant pressure on it. It is even leaking a bit.

The next one is stored right-side-up, so there's no pressure on the peg, but even so it split all the same. No leaks from that yet, though.
I am going to give waxed oak pegs another try. Here is me melting wax into the grain of the outer end of a white oak peg to try to seal the tubes:

I did the same to my to my peg on Badmo barrel 17... Melted beeswax around the peg and a little spilled onto the barrel. Not one leak.

Badmo... I love this thing! Thanks again and keep up the strong work.

Hi,
Maybe one day.....
Could you tell me more about the stainless taps (at least they look like stainless).
I have a few small barrels, used for fortified wine (port and muscat).
I want stainless taps because originally the taps were brass. And they affected the wine, made it bitter and horrible where it was close to the tap, and (in the case of a very small 'decorative' barrel) the whole lot was completely undrinkable.
Not just unpleasant, undrinkable.
There is a big variation in the price of stainless taps available so I would buy the cheaper ones, IF I knew they were effective and good quality.
Thanks a lot,
Geoff

The Baker wrote:Could you tell me more about the stainless taps (at least they look like stainless).

Sure! I buy ones called "Oak Leaf".They come with silicone gaskets which I do not use, since threading them snugly into a thick chunk of oak is sufficient to avoid significant leaking. I suspect that Oak Leaf is not the manufacturer because you will find offers for identical taps which are not branded or are branded differently.

Here is a listing for the Oak Leaf ones I buy: https://www.amazon.com/Dispenser-Replac ... B013FWX4HA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Here is a search for "stainless spigot"... see how many identical-but-differently-branded spigots you can find. https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss ... ess+spigot" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

That's about all the information I have, but feel free to ask if there's something else you'd like to know about them or the barrels. Cheers.

Just an update on my Badmo barrels.

The first one I did was back in March. When I sealed it up it weighed about 1900 grams with a tare weight of about 550g.
I gave it a December weigh-in and it shows an overall weight of about 1750g, so a loss of about 150g. Just over a 10% loss to angels in 8 months.

I did two more this summer in July. The oak heads on them are thicker and so far I'm showing a loss of only about 50g in each, starting with around 1000g of whiskey, so a loss of around 5% in 5 months.

I deliberately hammered plugs into the heads so that there is no easy way to sample the whiskey. My plan is to get into the one I did in March after 1 year and see how it turns out.
After I get to sample that one I will make a decision about opening the others.

MichiganCornhusker wrote:Just an update on my Badmo barrels.

The first one I did was back in March. When I sealed it up it weighed about 1900 grams with a tare weight of about 550g.
I gave it a December weigh-in and it shows an overall weight of about 1750g, so a loss of about 150g. Just over a 10% loss to angels in 8 months.

I did two more this summer in July. The oak heads on them are thicker and so far I'm showing a loss of only about 50g in each, starting with around 1000g of whiskey, so a loss of around 5% in 5 months.

I deliberately hammered plugs into the heads so that there is no easy way to sample the whiskey. My plan is to get into the one I did in March after 1 year and see how it turns out.
After I get to sample that one I will make a decision about opening the others.

I have noticed similar loss with mine. I put in just under 5L and got back just over 4L... This loss is over a 4 month time frame though. Went in at 60% ABV and came out at 54%... no complaints here.

Badmotivator wrote:

The Baker wrote:Could you tell me more about the stainless taps (at least they look like stainless).

Sure! I buy ones called "Oak Leaf". (..... ) Cheers.

Thanks, Bad.
I looked them up, Amazon have them at $9.99 reduced from $29.99, free postage (I suppose in America) over forty- something dollars order. And that would all be $US.
Same ones, different company in Australia, $41.99, Australian dollars, free delivery!!
The exchange rate sucks (for us anyway) $1 Australian is $0.75 US.
So I will think about it and certainly look for others, similar or the same, in Australia.
Thank you very much for your help.
Geoff

Found heaps of them, some almost certainly the same, for $8 Australian, posted free from China.
Will probably give it a go soon.
Thanks,
Geoff

I was fortunate to receive one of Bad mo's BM's today (thanks again Bad Mo) - and having just run a batch of corn (great timing) had something to fill it. Hope that I can keep my hands and tasting thief away for a year

OVZ

Oldvine Zin wrote:I was fortunate to receive one of Bad mo's BM's today (thanks again Bad Mo) - and having just run a batch of corn (great timing) had something to fill it.

Badmo.JPG

Hope that I can keep my hands and tasting thief away for a year

Can't help you on the patience thing, unless you want me to hold on to the filled barrel for you? You're very welcome, OVZ. Cheers.

Oldvine Zin wrote:Hope that I can keep my hands and tasting thief away for a year

You could go what I did, no tap!
On my latest BadMo I simply cut a round barrel head and put it in with no holes. Only way in will be a drill later.