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I'm filling a toasted barrel (no char) with rum. I hope to get a nice blonde rum from this attempt. This is the first alcohol going into this barrel. Do you have any advice in regard to time the rum ages? I figure I'll let time do its thing and sample occasionally to be sure not to over oak. I have two used, charred five gallon barrels in reserve but would rather not use them for rum.

Any advice on this?

Sounds like a good plan, how big is the barrel? Usually the larger the barrel the less contact surface with alcohol and the longer it takes.

10 gallons

Rtalbigr is one of the kinda barrel/aging experts here. If you don't get a response, you might try pm him...

Just out of curiosity, where are you acquiring your kegs from?

I picked them up at Gibbs Bros. in Hot Springs AR

Not sure if anyone has seen this site bought a couple small ones charred inside new barrels swelled tight in 20 minutes with warm water gonna try and leave my full 1 liter of nuetral till Mamasitas birthday in May any concerns or input on these or the Co. selling'em? oakbarrelsltd.com

There is a website: http://1000oaksbarrel.com/index.php?pag ... &Itemid=39" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Has a TON of different barrells and they don't seem to be much of a price difference than anywhere else, except there's a huge difference in variety. And they have sets that come with essences if that's your cup of tea. I will definitely be getting mine from them when the time comes. Hopefully I will have enough disposable income to get a 5 or 10gal one too. And maybe a few smaller 2 or 3L ones for experimenting...

I haven't personally done any oaking in barrells, but I think 5 months is a bit long... Might end up with a very oaky not tasty linker :/ my plan was to put it on oak for 2 weeks and take a sip. Small barrells, especially new ones give off tons of flavors as opposed to thief bigger brothers because of the alcohol:wood surface area ratio. But maybe a month on oak and 4 months in a big glass jar might work well. A good 5 mo.the of aging and a solid month(wicho equals out to about a year in a bigger barrell worth of woody goodness) might turn out really nice.