bluc wrote:Psykamaholik wrote:I leave a tiny bit of headroom in mine because I found if I didn't, putting in the bung would create new leaks in the barrel
Interesting thanks. People with 10l barrel how long do you leave it in and what do you reakon your losses volume/abv are?
I plan to use mine for my best, tightest cuts and never empty it but pull two litres out and put 2l white dog back. Initially thinking about leaving about 3months :think:
I have 3 10L barrels of Franks Scotch recipe with the first put down end of Sept 2016 . We chose to get the varnished ones , , which we sand down both ends to raw wood, and the reason for that was 1. They hit a price point that kept us around $35 per barrelled litre. And 2. We wanted longer term storage from them with less evap than 100% raw wood. I've gotta say that they are doing the job well . The colour from the first brew is a beautiful med gold, its sweetened up well and it's on its way to being something pretty special. The peat has really come to the front too. Evaporation is minimal which is pleasing as we never have enough left over to be kept as a topper.
There's probably a lot of purists who would say ' get outta here, those barells are shit" but all I'd say to that is don't be afraid to try something different. We met our objectives even tho we bucked traditional systems a little.
As for over oaking, I would be a little concerned if it was French Oak, but being American it's very subtle at this point, so two yrs is what we have in mind. Time will tell tho.
We have a fourth ready to spirit run , just waiting for the temps to ease off as my water source is the pool and it's pretty well on the edge of being too warm.
With this one we are setting up an old fridge so we can try an force it through the process . The plan is to keep it in warm storage for 2 weeks then drop it to 5 degrees for two weeks. Repeat blah blah .Give it the warm n cold treatment. Till we get jack of moving it in n out. Also have soaked 3 x mini med French dominoes in cream sherry to add to the barrel. Fingers xd we are not pissing in the wind.
Sorry about the waffle Bluc...lol.. Hope the rum turns out special mate. I have 5 litres put away in a Demi with dominoes , and I just gave a bloke at wk 5l of second gen to refill his barrel with so will be interesting to see how it oaks up. Not impressed with mine to be honest, but thinking the barrel one will be good one day. :handgestures-thumbupleft: