Aging it in a barrel

[William Kuipers]

So I am a beginner in brewing so sorry if some of these are basic questions. And I’ve been looking into aging my cider in an old whiskey or bourbon barrel and I have a few questions. First is if I put 30 gallons of fermented cider into 50 gallon barrel, would that extra space do anything to ruin the cider? Because I only want to do about a 30 gallon batch or so and I can only find 50 gallon barrels. The second question I have is, does anyone have a preference on if they use bourbon or whiskey barrels? And then the third is does anyone know where to find cheap used barrels?

 

[MarkKF]

I was told the headspace is not as big a problem in a whiskey barrel. The first time it will probably only be in the barrel a couple of weeks. But after a while you’ll want to leave it in the barrel for much longer and I think 40% headspace, roughly the largest surface area possible, will be problematic.

 

[William Kuipers]

So you're saying the first time would be okay but the second time I may run into trouble?

 

[MarkKF]

Correct