Home Distiller

Merry Christmas 1st of all.... Santa brought a 5 and 10L BarrelsLTD to my tree. I've read all the oak barrel posts here that I could find. I've washed and rinsed out the barrels and they are currently sitting nearly full with water. My main product that I love is Rum. My thoughts are to use the barrels first with some some wiskey to season the barrels..... then switch them to Rum. Think this is a bad idea? will to much wiskey carry over to the rum since the barrels most likely will not dry out after the first run?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts

That sounds good to me. BTW I think Santa got the address mixed up, they should have come to me.


OD

you will want to rinse them out after or your rum will taste like whisky,if you like heavy/dark rum then you can use as they are.

Just my two cents...

To season small barrels, a nice method is to use twice racked clarified wash for a month or two... this adds flavour to the wash that will carry over as subtle overtones if you are using a pot still, which you should IMHO when making Rum...

Do this two or three times on that little 5l and just one or twice on the 10l... for 20l you would do this just once. Once emptied you can use immediately or optionally [Better method] soak for an hour with sterile water to remove trace residuals from the unfermentable solids in the wash, and any unused yeast nutrients, etc...

Cheers!

I guess it is kind of like using old port or sherry or even used wine barrels to inpart some of the sweetess and or flaours.

Interseting idea Liquid luv....I guess if one was a home wine maker you could age your wine in the barrels first as well.

In the case of these barrels that are really too small to "age" without over oaking... it is more about taking away some of the excess tanins that contribute to bitterness and over oaking, than it is about adding any sweetness or anything else to the oak.

In full size barrels, you have the correct surface to liquid ratio to "Age" the spirits, not just coloring and oak flavoring... aging requires time...ideally 3 years minimum, so to do this with small barrels we need to take away some of the excess. Using them to flavor wines or clear washes first, will result in a perfect barrel to "age, color & flavor" your preferred spirit... after a few years, the little bugger will be perfect for storage or aging whitedog.

Cheers!

What about an old oak barrel, hasnt been used for some years, but at some stage had whiskey in it. What would you do?? Try and re-char it some how or put port or wine or something in it for awhile before i start using it to age bourbon/whiskey???