Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey guys,

Need a bit of advice here, seen a few casks available but not sure what to pick for aging rum/whisky/bourbon.

Anyone had any experience with some of the ones available in Australia?

Cheers n beers! :obscene-drinkingdrunk:

What area you in?

I use a corny keg and oak dominoes

Im in western vic

I think oak chips are the way to go, especially for small batches.

If you're really interested in barrel aging though, there's a lot of information available online on the type of barrel to select and how it's made, depending on what type of finished spirit you're making.

I found some Kookaburra oak dominos online that seemed pretty good, Im doing that for a while and see how I go after that in a barrel.

Just remember that exposed end grain means more tannins.
Barrels have minimal end grain for that reason.
Chips have the most.

Not saying its a bad thing but ypu need to watch it closer.

Thanks for that idea, so nice long skinny oak staves would be best?

McCraggen wrote:Thanks for that idea, so nice long skinny oak staves would be best?

Thats mainly all i use with a few dominoes here and there. I did get a 20lt oak barrel that had been previously filled with port a couple years back. My best whiskies have come from it so far. The hint of port with the oak really adds something special. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Just need to sniff out a small sherry or port barrel, delsih :obscene-drinkingchug:

McCraggen wrote:Just need to sniff out a small sherry or port barrel, delsih :obscene-drinkingchug:

Thats it... keep an eye out on buy, swap and sell or gumtree :handgestures-thumbupleft:

My wife bought me a 1 litre keg to test out.
She bought it from Amazon, but it's sourced from this site: https://redheadoakbarrels.com/

The cask was $50 US, and they charged $12 for package/shipping to Australia.
All up, cost $62 US, which was $92 Aus at the time.

The cask was very well wrapped and turned up in excellent condition.
I have a Cornflake Wash in it - 4 weeks and it had a colour matching that of Buffalo Trace.
Leaving it for another month to pick up the flavours.

I'm definitely buying more of these in 2L and 5L sizes.

There are a few places in vic that will help you, google is you friend there

Found this interesting article thats aimed at euro oak and wine, but is a good read with some low level science attached
https://www.nicks.com.au/vintage-school-2-13-76.1499

How long ago was that $12 shipping from texas BK?
I worked out their barrels via some cheap shipping and its much cheaper to buy the 10-20l sizes here

Hi Guys
I have a 5l oak barrel and I aged port in it for a few months and then put in rum.
It gets to around 4 weeks and then it goes into a demijohn to mix properly before separating into bottles.
I do the same thing with American Oak pieces that I have charred with a blow torch just like the barrels are charred.
I place some of these chunks into glass jars with port and others just sit waiting to be added to neutral.
Using the oak chunks do the same thing as the barrel and depending on overall volume a lot quicker too.
Sometimes it quicker just to drop in 2.2l neutral into a jar with 6 chunks of oak. The colour change happens in a few days and the oak is quite noticeable after 5 days.
Hope this is something you can experiment with whilst waiting for your barrels to arrive.
Have fun.
Fishfingers

Hey have a look at roll out the barrel. Thats the one I'm looking at.

I have a small oak barrel that someone gave me, smelt like it had port in it before anyway. I think they got it form Dan Murphys. I ended up butting Rum in it first and you got a really nice subtle port flavor from it but now i'd like to put whisky in it and I'm worried that it will just taste of rum.

Throw some port back in for a while, i doubt you will kill the rumminess completely but i reckon thats your best shot short of charring it

i aged 10l boubon in my rum barrel for 12mnths. was very nice didnt notice rum flavour :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I couldn’t recommend roll out the barrel highly enough. I have 2 50L barrels from them and they are excellent quality

Hi Benpilot as this is your first post how about dropping into the Welcome Centre for an introduction mate

Cheers Bryan