Result of using bourbon barrel

[wood1954]

I racked out of the barrel yesterday and after sulfiting and sitting overnight the wine is very mildly bourbonized (is that a word) the char taste is gone, maybe vacuum racking took care of that. I'm still glad i racked it tho as im not a fan of bourbon unless its really a good well aged brand. I took the barrel apart and will post a seperate entry on refurbishing the barrel. Mostly i bought this barrel to micro-oxygenate the wine and concentrate the body, not to end up with bourbon flavored wine.

 

[Cynewulf]

Thought I might add a little of my own experience to @wood1954 ‘s here. I picked up a 5 gallon freshly dumped Brother Justus whiskey barrel from Midwest Barrel Co on Black Friday for $166 shipped.




I thought I’d follow the suggestions from a link I found to try to extract any remaining whiskey: Extracting Alcohol from Old Whisky Barrels? - RedFlagDeals.com Forums. I poured one gallon of boiling distilled water into the barrel, replaced the bung, and let it sit for 3.5 weeks, rotating it a little every few days. Last week I opened it up and poured the liquid out. There was still quite a bit of char floating around.


I ran it through coffee filters twice and ended up with about 3/4 of a gallon of lightly colored ‘second run whiskey.’


The taste is mild but not unpleasant and definitely has an alcohol burn going down. This is an ‘American single malt’ so the flavor profile is closer to Scotch than bourbon.

I then continued to rinse the barrel until I no longer was getting large chunks of char like this.


I then filled it with water and Oxiclean for a few hours, dumped it and refilled with k meta and citric acid overnight, dumped again and repeated. After the last rinse there was barely any char coming out with the rinse water.

I’ve now filled it with my second run wine and will leave it around two months before considering whether to put one of my other wines in it.

If I were to do it over again, I might have bought their new 5 gallon barrel instead as it states it has a milder char/toast and was on sale for only $120 at the time, but I wanted a neutral barrel and thought buying a used one would save me some trouble neutralizing it. I’m not really concerned about the flavor at this point, but really don’t like worrying about cleaning all of the char out.

 

[winemaker81]

If I were to do it over again, I might have bought their new 5 gallon barrel instead as it states it has a milder char/toast and was on sale for only $120 at the time, but I wanted a neutral barrel and thought buying a used one would save me some trouble neutralizing it. I’m not really concerned about the flavor at this point, but really don’t like worrying about cleaning all of the char out.

Thanks for the detailed description.

While not currently in the market for another barrel of any type, I've been following this thread since a used whiskey barrel is a potential future buy for me. @VinesnBines and I have discussed her purchases, and now @Cynewulf's description has me thinking about what I'd do.

I got very lucky with my first 2 barrels, which I purchased from acquaintances who had taken good care of them (barrels were 10 yo). My last one was also a fortunate acquisition, although it's not fully neutral (had wine in it for ~13 months) so I have to pay attention to the wine, whereas the other barrels I bulk age for a year without worrying beyond topup.

My take is that a used whiskey barrel needs some prep, and may need more than initially anticipated. One thought after soaking it is to pour in a few pounds of large steel ball bearings and roll the barrel around to knock off any excess or loose char. Then rinse 2 or 3 times to get the chunks out. The first wine in would certainly be one I was less invested in.

In contrast, with a new barrel I'd need to either cycle wine in-and-out during the first year to avoid over-oaking, and/or use a holding solution to absorb the initial heavy oak. So the barrel is either labor intensive OR it's not actually available for aging for a while.

This is a trade-off, and I can see reasons to go with either a used whiskey barrel or a new one.

 

[Brant]

I like the bourbon barrel wine made by Beringer Bros. It's quite nice and has a unique finish and taste.

I finally got wine into my reclaimed (re-cooped) 20+ yo French oak barrel. I had holding solution in it for a full year hoping to nuetralize it as much as possible. I was amazed at how much oak smell and color was pulled out from the holding solution. It was pretty dark- like whisky. I'm hoping I can keep wine in it for at least 3 to 6 months before it's over-oaked.

Point is, if your concerned with too much oak/char being transferred, I would power wash it, use a barrel clean product and soak for 24 hrs and then use a holding solution and change it out every 3 to 6 months. If it was a heavy char, it might ruin the wine in a very short period of time. Especially considering that it is a 5 gal barrel. That is a small volume so transfer will be rapid.

On a side note, I was proud of myself for rigging a vacuum bung that fit in the barrel and worked with my AIO pump. I was dreading the thought of manually racking into a 15 gal barrel.

 

[wood1954]

I like the bourbon barrel wine made by Beringer Bros. It's quite nice and has a unique finish and taste.

I finally got wine into my reclaimed (re-cooped) 20+ yo French oak barrel. I had holding solution in it for a full year hoping to nuetralize it as much as possible. I was amazed at how much oak smell and color was pulled out from the holding solution. It was pretty dark- like whisky. I'm hoping I can keep wine in it for at least 3 to 6 months before it's over-oaked.

Point is, if your concerned with too much oak/char being transferred, I would power wash it, use a barrel clean product and soak for 24 hrs and then use a holding solution and change it out every 3 to 6 months. If it was a heavy char, it might ruin the wine in a very short period of time. Especially considering that it is a 5 gal barrel. That is a small volume so transfer will be rapid.

On a side note, I was proud of myself for rigging a vacuum bung that fit in the barrel and worked with my AIO pump. I was dreading the thought of manually racking into a 15 gal barrel.

Steve , from AIO pumps can make bungs for vacuum racking. I think he freezes them and then drills them. He made one for me to use with the AIO pump system.

 

[Brant]

Steve , from AIO pumps can make bungs for vacuum racking. I think he freezes them and then drills them. He made one for me to use with the AIO pump system.

So that's the trade secret! Thanks!

Silicone does not like being drilled. It conforms too much. I just ran oversized bits back and forth until the holes opened up enough.

 

[JBP]

Checked level after 2 weeks in barrel and tasted. No oak (none expected), no ashy flavor, but pretty significant bourbon taste. While I hate to pull it out so quickly, I do think at this stage the wine would round out and be a nicely drinkable 'bourbon barrel wine' with more time in a carboy. I would really like to leave it in the barrel a bit longer to get some micro-oxygenation effect, although don't want to end up with an overly 'bourbon-y' wine and assume it will just keep getting stronger and stronger.

Not as expected or planned - adaptability is the name of the game.

**5 gal fresh dumped Bourbon Barrel from Midwest holding a FWK Baby Super Tuscan (with a year of carboy aging on it)**

 

[winemaker81]

I would really like to leave it in the barrel a bit longer to get some micro-oxygenation effect, although don't want to end up with an overly 'bourbon-y' wine and assume it will just keep getting stronger and stronger.

If you do over-do a batch, you can blend another in to reduce the level, although I agree it's easier to simply not over-do it.

 

[Poirier's Cellar]

Today I tasted the Marquette wine in the used 15 gallon bourbon barrel. It’s been about a month in barrel. It has a mild ashtray taste . No ashtray taste is ever good. Very disappointed. I’ll rack it all tomorrow to carboys and hope the taste goes away over the next nine months. Anyone want a used bourbon barrel?

I racked out of the barrel yesterday and after sulfiting and sitting overnight the wine is very mildly bourbonized (is that a word) the char taste is gone, maybe vacuum racking took care of that. I'm still glad i racked it tho as im not a fan of bourbon unless its really a good well aged brand. I took the barrel apart and will post a seperate entry on refurbishing the barrel. Mostly i bought this barrel to micro-oxygenate the wine and concentrate the body, not to end up with bourbon flavored wine.

 

[VinesnBines]

I have four bourbon barrels holding wine.
Barrel #1 is a 10 gallon bourbon barrel that was last used for maple syrup. I cleaned it with Barrel Oxyfresh and fermented a cider in the barrel and didn’t get any ash flavor and got less maple than I hoped for. It now has 2023 Chambourcin -filled on November 20. I’ll check the small and taste next week..

Barrel #2 is another 10 gallon that had a STRONG bourbon smell and the rinse water was very dark. I cleaned it with Barrel Oxyfresh and filled with 2022 Chambourcin on October 26. I tasted it yesterday and it didn’t have any ashy smell or flavor.

Barrels #3 and #4 are 15 gallon bourbon and rye barrels. I didn’t use Barrel Oxyfresh on either but rinsed well. Neither had much whiskey smell and the rinse water was clear. I filled both on December 13. I’ll check them both next week. I’m a little concerned as well but we’ll see what is going on after 3 1/2 weeks.

If you are really worried, I suggest cleaning with Barrel Oxyfreas and soaking for a while with Kmeta and citric acid. You can do like I did and age a cider or a couple cheap kits (white or red) to pull out any char flavors.

I’m surprised that wood1954 had this problem; I expected after a couple years of bourbon the char flavor would be gone. If I find my 15 gallon barrels are giving off an ashy flavor, I plan to rack off the wine and hit them hard with Barrel Oxyfresh and soak good with the Kmeta/citric acid solution for a few weeks then try again with another unbarreled batch.

I’ll update next Monday after I check the other three barrels.

As promised, I checked barrels #3 (Midwest Barrel King's County Rye) and #4 (Midwest Barrel King's County Peated Whisky). I rinsed the barrels with water for 12 hours and then filled with my 2023 Chelois - filled on December 13. I pulled a sample from each, added my kmeta, added back oak cubes (the wine was on Hungarian oak cubes before the barrel and I saved the cubes, rinsed with vodka and added back to the wine to finish the oak) and topped up the barrels. I also poured a sample of the top up wine - oaked on Hungarian cubes for 6 weeks in a stainless keg. I let all three samples warm (cellar is 48 degrees F.) for about one hour. My husband and I tasted the three samples. I did tell him which sample was in which barrel but never indicated any concern of ash or char taste.

He did get a little whiskey in the Rye sample on the first taste but the whisky dissipated after the first taste. I didn't get any whiskey. The peated sample was the best of the three. It was smooth and mellow. No whisky, no oak and no ash. I'll leave everything alone for at least another month and then see where we are I wish I had two of the peated barrel. I expect both will be neutral after this batch so there won't be much if any difference.

I did not test Barrel #1 (Maple Syrup). It was not time to top up so I'll check it in about a month.

 

[David Violante]

Thank you for checking on those and writing a great follow up ~

 

[David Violante]

Newest member of the family…

 

[wood1954]

Nice looking barrel, hope it works for you.

 

[David Violante]

Thank you! Bourbon Barrel, American Oak. Very friendly and nice staff at Hudson Distillery. They loved what I have planned and are really interested in the results. I’m very much looking forward to this next part of the journey.

 

[VinesnBines]

Keep us posted. What is your plan?

 

[David Violante]

I’m going to try and follow the 2nd run idea of @Cynewulf for what’s in the barrel, then clean it and sterilize it while I have a Cab/Zin going from LP’s 40% off sale. I want to see how much char is in there first, which will give me the next direction. If it’s a lot, I’ll try to knock it down a bit first, then fill it with the Cab/Zin. Working on a dolly with casters for easier moving, that has casters the barrel rests on as well.

 

[David Violante]

A couple of updates… I made a rolling barrel stand that also allows me to roll the barrel on its axis. I also took a picture of the char level on the inside. I added a gallon of water with some SO2 to start swishing. After that I’ll power wash the inside and use barrel fresh. If I need to, chains to get some of that char out… LOL

 

[QuiQuog]

What's the goop around the rim of the lid? is it some kind of sealant? I was under the impression that barrels were made leak proof by pressure and swelling.

 

[wood1954]

What's the goop around the rim of the lid? is it some kind of sealant? I was under the impression that barrels were made leak proof by pressure and swelling.

Quite possibly beeswax. My barrel had beeswax all around the rim, the way the barrel is made should seal up without wax but it’s a good just in case kinda thing.

 

[David Violante]

That’s what it is on mine as well.