Barrels Are Great

Treatment and handling of your distillate.

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tombombadil
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Barrels Are Great

Post by tombombadil »

I know that most people probably already agree, but I just bottled my first barrel aged likker and I'm excited about it so I feel the need to share.

I made a chocolate bourbon.
Filled a 5 gallon barrel and kept some for topping up.
I also put some in a jar with a charred oak stick and some in a jar without any treatment.
My goal was to be able to compare the differences.
Wow, the barrel version is way better.
It was in there for 19.5 months.
The barrel was medium toast, heavy char, from Gibbs.

I filled it and topped it up a few times, 5 gallons plus 2950ml top up. 5.78 gallons?
Filled 18.5 750ml bottles. 3.67 gallons?
3.67/5.78 = 63%.
However,it went in at 60% abv and came out at 68% abv.
I'm not going to try to work that out.
But I lost around 1/3 of the volume over 19.5 months.
And I'm totally OK with it. 100% worth it.

The white dog is a little headsy and pretty tailsy, stanky even, it's not pleasant. Would not drink this or even use it in a cocktail.

The barrel aged stuff is neither solventy or stanky.
It's quite good actually.
Pretty much what you would expect from a bourbon: vanilla, carmel, a little spice, and a little on the dry/tannic side.
The chocolate flavor is definitely there. More like a dry dark chocolate though.
It also has some strong grainy flavors, pleasant though, like some of the European pilsner beers. Maybe a little crackery?
Reading that back, it seems like a lot for a homedistilled chocolate Bourbon but I think it's accurate, on my untrained pallette anyways.

The jar/oak stick version was ok. The underlying chocolate/grain flavors are there. And it's not hot or stanky. It's definitely lacking the dryness/tannin. It's got carmel and vanilla but not as much. It's comparatively flabby. Hmm.. never thought that about a likker before. But I think that's a good word for the difference.


What will I do differently?
I won't use the oats or the toasted malts again. Doesn't seem like it made any difference.
I will use whole cornmeal instead of the degerminated stuff. I really can't perceive anything that seems like corn or corny sweetness that other people talk about. Maybe it's because I used the degerminated cornmeal... one way to know for sure right?
I might try making it with rye or rye malt. I think this might be better if it had some more spice to it.
It will be a couple years before I buy another barrel, but when I do, I will leave the first full in there for longer just to see what happens.

What would I do the same?
Wide tails heavy cuts and topping it up.
5% chocolate malt seems to have given the right amount of chocolate flavor.
I assume the grainy flavor came from the 6 row barley malt, I like it, I'll do that again.

I filled the barrel with a mostly blackstrap molasses rum (20g molasses, 25# sugar). I don't really have plans for how long it will stay in there or what I'll do for the third fill.

I have another barrel with HBB like likker in it. I'm really looking forward to cracking that one open.

Anyways, thanks for reading.
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bcook608
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by bcook608 »

This is exactly what I needed to hear. I think I'll be getting myself a few barrels for Christmas this year. Probably a 10 and 2 5's.
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by The Baker »

Is degerminated corn (or whatever grain) the same as "malted"?

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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by tjsc5f »

The Baker wrote: Sat Sep 17, 2022 10:37 pm Is degerminated corn (or whatever grain) the same as "malted"?

Geoff
No. Degerminated means they remove the germ from the kernal. Most of the corn meal you can buy in grocery stores in the US is degerminated. It is my understanding that they do this to increase shelf life.
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by tombombadil »

tjsc5f wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 10:29 am
The Baker wrote: Sat Sep 17, 2022 10:37 pm Is degerminated corn (or whatever grain) the same as "malted"?

Geoff
No. Degerminated means they remove the germ from the kernal. Most of the corn meal you can buy in grocery stores in the US is degerminated. It is my understanding that they do this to increase shelf life.
Ya, that's my understanding as well.

So a lot of the protein and most of the fat is gone, and I've heard several pro distillers talking about how that's where the flavor is. Which lines up with my not picking up anything "corny".
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by tombombadil »

bcook608 wrote: Sat Sep 17, 2022 8:06 pm This is exactly what I needed to hear. I think I'll be getting myself a few barrels for Christmas this year. Probably a 10 and 2 5's.
I think you'll be glad you did.
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by Windy City »

Barrels are getting harder to come by (at least new)
I just ordered two once used barrels from these guys
https://midwestbarrelco.com/collections/small-barrels
I needed some used barrels for rum.
I had to fill out a questionnaire with Barrel Mill (my favorite) to get on next years list.
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by jonnys_spirit »

For bourbons it's barrel + AG for me going forward.. Took the bourbon to a new level of quality with some patience!

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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by Mcg000 »

tombombadil wrote: Sat Sep 17, 2022 3:13 pm

The jar/oak stick version was ok. The underlying chocolate/grain flavors are there. And it's not hot or stanky. It's definitely lacking the dryness/tannin. It's got carmel and vanilla but not as much. It's comparatively flabby. Hmm.. never thought that about a likker before. But I think that's a good word for the difference.




Hey thank you for the post! I'm working on aging a long experiment myself now and the way you described tails changing with time backs up what I have experienced aging in glass over a year! I've experienced tails heavy white spirit that is in my opinipn "undrinkably tailsy" turn into a lovely wiskey with time and it's cool to see you are seeing the same things.

I have a question about the aging on glass you described above. What kind of oak and where was it sourced from? I when I first started aging I used white oak from a lumbar store that was not weathered/seasoned just killed dried from the manufacturer and I toasted it and charred it and my spirits tasted terrible! They definitely had the sweetness and vanilla but it was not nearly pronounced as it should be and the tannins were off the chart and took over the flavor profile.

I started using a 5 gallon barel and oh my goodness how much better it was! I've come to the conclusion that the main reason why it was better (other than the interaction with micro oxidation) was the wood was a significantly higher quality of oak and it was seasoned just for wiskey vs who knows what the quality of lumbar store oak was.

Since then I bought an old Buffalo trace 50 gallon empty barel and broke it down and stacked the staves with a # pattern to allow airflow outside in the weather. Obviously they were already "pre seasoned" prior to them being made into staves for burbon and further seasoned through being aged with burbon in them, but with this oak I'm using now it made a HUGE difference in quality. My oak in glass experiments actually taste like wiskey funnily enough and not an overly tannic vinilla sawdust. The high quality oak in glass also are on par with the same I would expect from a barrel I think that the glass just takes a little more coaxing by introducing oxygen every once and a while.

At first I thought that the barel was better due to it being the "barrier" between the liquid and the outside and micro oxidation, but after actually using quality oak in glass and it coming out tasting just like a barel I had to rethink my hypotheses.

*I am by no means assuming you are using poor quality oak I am just sharing my experience. Thanks!
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by tombombadil »

The oak I'm using in glass is from a planter barrel from home depot.
It had a stamp on the head from some distillery but I couldn't read it.
I think it's probably the right kind of wood, but I'm not sure if it's ideal after it's already had so much use.
I sand it down, cup it in to 5 inch sticks and char the long sides with a propane torch.
It's a pretty inconsistent process.
The results are good, just not as good as the barrel turned out to be.
I have a bunch of other stuff in glass with those sticks, but I probably will not use them in the future.
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by Mcg000 »

OK awesome! I'm not sure the quality of that wood, but it sounds more legit start than I had lol. How to treat your wood prior to aging is crucial too down to toasting and char levels. Too much char can remove those lovely flavors and top much charring can also destroy the toasting process too. Here are 2 amazing videos about processing wood:

Watch this one first:


Amazing video about the process of treating your wood:
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by Windy City »

I just filled a used 15 gallon Barrel Mill barrel I got from these guys
https://midwestbarrelco.com/collections/small-barrels
It was used once for bourbon and I filled it with my all fancy molasses rum
I normally age in the barrel for a minimum of three years
The barrel looked in good condition and so far no leaks,
Barrel Mill is my favorite cooper but a little side note, their 10 gal barrels are a little over 12 gallons and the 15 was closer to 17

Note; No animals were harmed or rules broken in making of this post. The white tube coming from my proofing tank to the barrel is pure PTFE. :D
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by The Baker »

Hi, Windy City,
I thought of using PTFE tubing onto stainless tube stubs to connect my badmo (sortof)
barrels, if ever I get further with that project.
The only only PTFE tube I could find (some time ago) in Australia, was VERY
expensive.
What was your experience?
Delivery costs are high but on the other hand this stuff is light,
so could be worth buying in USA.

Thanks,

Geoff
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by Windy City »

I bought the 3/8” id
Stuff is not cheap but I did get my education on distilling from this forum so ptfe is what it had to be :D
https://www.fluorostore.com/collections ... mer-tubing
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Re: Barrels Are Great

Post by 6 Row Joe »

Mcg000 wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 1:17 pm OK awesome! I'm not sure the quality of that wood, but it sounds more legit start than I had lol. How to treat your wood prior to aging is crucial too down to toasting and char levels. Too much char can remove those lovely flavors and top much charring can also destroy the toasting process too. Here are 2 amazing videos about processing wood:

Watch this one first:


Amazing video about the process of treating your wood:
The fellow in the first video that makes those barrels is a member here. "Badmotivator"
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