Whiskey Barrel Fun

Recently I picked up a Jack Daniels whiskey barrel. Due to working through licensing and other things going on we decided to use homebrew to fill this 53 gallon barrel. We ended up doing 8 Batches of 5.5 gallons and may top it off later. We decided on a stout to give it a good dark malty backbone for the whiskey and oak to compliment. Here is some data we noticed from using my homebrew system.

Est Pre Boil Gravity - 1.058
Est Original Gravity - 1.070
Mash @ 154 for 60min
WLP 001 California Yeast

Stout 1 - Pre Boil - 1.058 / OG 1.070 / Pitch @ 74 degrees
Stout 2 - Pre Boil - 1.061 / OG 1.070 / Pitch @ 74 degrees
Stout 3 - Pre Boil - 1.061 / OG 1.070 / Pitch @ 74 degrees
Stout 4 - Pre Boil - 1.055 / OG 1.068 / Pitch @ 74 degrees
Stout 5 - Pre Boil - 1.055 / OG 1.068 / Pitch @ 74 degrees
Stout 6 - Pre Boil - 1.058 / OG 1.070 / Pitch @ 74 degrees
Stout 7 - Pre Boil - 1.058 / OG 1.070 / Pitch @ 74 degrees
Stout 8 - Pre Boil - 1.058 / OG 1.070 / Pitch @ 74 degrees

Temperature was not our friend during this during these brews. We ended up doing 3 brews a day with only 2 brews the last day due to only having a 10 gallon mash tun limiting us to 5 gallons a batch. Due to high temperatures during the afternoons we had to come up with a better way to cool the wort even after passing it through a 40 plate chiller. Overall was kinda fun using this system to brew but I don't think I will ever do 1bbl + again on a 5 gallon system. Everything is tucked away in a fermentation chamber at 68 degrees.

If your curious and want to see more, there are some pictures and updates at
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That's awesome. But yeah I can imagine doing that many batches on a 5 gallon system would be pretty taxing...still, have fun with it!

Nice. We just did this back in January with a Stranahan's whiskey barrel. Racked ~45 gallons into the 53 gallon barrel and aged it for 3 months. Turned out stellar. Silky smooth, with lots of great vanilla, caramel, and of course whiskey flavors from the barrel. Have 5 gallons on CO2 and 5 gallons on beer gas. Tastes like heaven from the nitro tap.

I was thinking of topping it off in the near future to 45 - 48 gallons. The aim for aging is 3 months so we can distribute to family and friends come the holiday season but the first real check point will be 6 weeks. Afterwards we will keep checking until we feel it ready. I'm looking forward to see what the wood and spirits do to the beer.

Finally transferred the beer to the barrel this last Friday. Looking forward to aging. We had brewed the same stout and served it on the 4th and I think it will create a great beer with the barrel aging.