Used Oak Cask Help

I just got my used 5 gallon oak cask from farmhouse brewing today. It was used once for rum. I am going to place my english barleywine in ti for 4 months to age.

The beer will not be ready for aging for another 2-3 weeks.

I poured in a 1.75L bottle of cheap rum into it and put the bung back in it and thoroughly swished it all around. I read to do this to keep it from drying out. But since it is like 40 proof, will it also sanitize it? Do I need to put Star San in it before the beer?

Any advice will help.

Thanks

I always sanitize my barrel before using it, I use citric acid and sodium metabisulfite, following the directions laid out in this eHow page

I was tempted to get one of those barrels too, but I don't have a place to use it just yet... The guy from Farmhouse did tell me that he puts his in a plastic garbage bag when he's not going to use it right away, to keep it primed for the span between...

I do hope to be in on the next batch... How big of a barleywine will you be putting into it? If I miss the next round, I'll probably just age mine in a corny with oak spirals or cubes...

BTW, just bookmarked that eHow page...

So far I have had no issues, no souring, just whiskey barrel goodness imparted into my beer!

Is the rum 40 proof or 40%? My guess is that 40% alcohol left in the barrel for 2-3 weeks will kill just about anything you should be worried about. 20% alcohol left for that long may even do the trick too.

I also got my barrel yesterday and I put in a gallon of Evan Williams black label because my beer won't be ready for another few weeks. Just rotate the barrel a few times a week to keep moisture on all sides of the barrel before you're ready to rack beer into it.

Most likely it's 40% (80 proof) rum... You can make mead that's 40 proof... I actually have some mead that's almost 36 proof now.

The guy at Farmhouse (cant remember his name sorry) said they had rum or a honey liquor in it. If these barrels held rum, will adding whiskey to it change the flavor or will the rum being infused into the wood, stay present?

Ok where do you get citric acid and sodium metabisulfite?

My Barleywine is a 5 gallon batch with an OG of 1.105. I plan to leave it in the oak barrel for 3-4 months, then bottle condition for another 6 months and have a tasting around the holidays

I would imagine that you would have smelled what was in them when you opened it up. Not sure what putting a different spirit into the barrel will do... You might have a blended barrel to age in... I thought he said there were some that had whiskey in them... I'd have to dig up the email to see. Reach out to him and see if he has a record of what was sent to people. If he does, then you can find out what was in yours. He could also have a better idea of what will happen if you put a different spirit into the barrel while it's waiting for the brew.

As for the citric acid and sodium meta... Your local LHBS should stock them. If you don't have one, I'm sure the online vendors do. You might need to look in their wine supplies sections to find them.

How big is the barrel out of curiosity?

Golddiggie said:

As for the citric acid and sodium meta... Your local LHBS should stock them. If you don't have one, I'm sure the online vendors do. You might need to look in their wine supplies sections to find them.

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Exactly, I got mine from my LHBS.

amrmedic said:

The guy at Farmhouse (cant remember his name sorry) said they had rum or a honey liquor in it. If these barrels held rum, will adding whiskey to it change the flavor or will the rum being infused into the wood, stay present?

Ok where do you get citric acid and sodium metabisulfite?

My Barleywine is a 5 gallon batch with an OG of 1.105. I plan to leave it in the oak barrel for 3-4 months, then bottle condition for another 6 months and have a tasting around the holidays

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I imagine if you add whiskey, when you empty the barrel you will get a little bit of both the residual rum and whiskey. I'm not sure how long the original sugar liquor was in there, but since it was probably aged for a few months to a year, the sugar liquor will be the predominate flavor added since it has soaked into the barrel. If you add the whiskey for only a few weeks, it will add a faint flavor to the barrel, I imagine.

If you already have a Barleywine that's ready to go in, I wouldn't bother adding any other spirits to the barrel. The sugar liquor that was in the barrel smelled delicous and had a great color. John from Farmhouse said the distiller made the sugar liquor from brown sugar, not table sugar, so it had a very dark hue and had a hint of molasses flavor to it, which I think would be perfect to contribute to a Barleywine.

The only reason I added whiskey was because I won't have my Barleywine ready for another month or so and I didn't want the barrel to dry out. Plus the whiskey should keep things sanitary. But my ideal would have been to rack a beer that was ready directly into the barrel without adding whiskey.

wedge421 said:

How big is the barrel out of curiosity?

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They were 5 gallon barrels for the ones that held sugar liquor and rum. He had one 10 gallon brandy barrel as well.

My barleywine wont be ready to go into the barrel for about 2-3 weeks. He said it was a honey liquor, so that why I went with the rum (closest thing I could find).

They were a bargain at 95 dollars and they are in exceptionally good shape, almost like new.

Is "honey liquor" really mead, or is it distilled mead? More curious than anything else...

I'll probably be looking to get some in another few months, or come fall. That way I can barrel age some of my mead, or my big barleywine in it. If the stars don't align for me, I can always just put the brew into a corny and toss in oak cubes or spirals... Not too concerned. But having one of those would be pretty sweet. :rockin:

I think Honey Liquor would be something akin to Drambuie, just a thought here, but I think mead would be mead, and not a liquor.

John said that the liquor that was aged in the barrels was not actually honey liquor. It was sugar liquor that was blended with some sort of honey spirit (possibly mead) to make honey liquor. So the spirit that was aged in the barrel was made with brown sugar, not honey. Not that it makes much of a difference, but just don't expect to get any residual honey tones from your barrel.

I also bought a rum barrel and got it in today. I was going to do sours in it but i think i might put my barlywine in it first. Its already been ageing for about 2 months so I think Ill put it in there for a couple more months. Then sour away

Man, I need to get in on the next round that's offered... I won't plan on souring in mine (not into that kind of brew), but I can see using them to age big brews/beers and mead in...

how did you buy these, were they listed on the website or were they thrown up in the Classifieds ?

He listed them in the vendor section, I got one as well. My favorite past time as I am waiting for my Wee Heavy to finish fermenting so I can throw it in there is to take the bung out and inhale the brown sugary goodness that comes out. I might try to find out who the distillery was and try some of their final product.

Hey guys,
I had them in the vendor section under used liquor barrels. I do have one maybe two available if you are interested.
John

Honey Liquor is actually made from a rum base (although it is beet sugar and not cane sugar so he can't legally call it rum), then it is blended with honey, Really nice liquor.

These are the last barrels he has at this price, he moved to a pricier barrel which will be around $115 when I get them. They impart such a great taste, charred vanilla. MMMMM!

Bottenbrew said:

My favorite past time as I am waiting for my Wee Heavy to finish fermenting so I can throw it in there is to take the bung out and inhale

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Dude, you're sniffing the vapors coming out of a bung hole

Anyplace else that would earn you all sorts of negative labels... But here, it's pretty normal...