My brew club has decided to use our Wild Turkey bourbon barrel as a tertiary fir the second time. After we emptied it for the first batch we immediately filed it with water and bunged it. It has been about 13 months since we did this. We’d like to use it again. I have two questions
1.) What other kits would be good with a bourbon taste?
2.) We plan on emptying the water out if the barrel and putting in a few bottles of bourbon and rotating it daily. Is this enough to be able to use it again sanitarially?
Was also thinking about adding run to it, however I think the rum + bourbon distillate would taste odd. But it was a thought.
Thx.
did you fill it with hot water? if so, how hot was it? You left the water in there for 13 months? Once you empty it you might want to hit it again w/ hot water above 180F for a few minuets. Then add the bottles.
Higher gravity beers work well in bourbon, tripel, imp stout, barleywine etc… however as it will be the second use of the barrel it will be significantly less barrel character and could take a few extra weeks if not months longer to infuse the desired flavors into the beer. Lot’s of other factors play into that, time, temp, humidity, how much “juice” is left in the wood etc…
IMO i would only add more wild turkey bourbon back to the barrel and zero Rum.
WE opened the barrel up tonight. Looks like there was a lot of water that dissolved. The bung had a little furry mold on it, and there was some vinegar stench.
Yeah I’m sure the top of that barrel also has the mold on it… I don’t want to say it’s toast… but yeah I wouldn’t be putting anything in it.
EDIT: I did this same thing before except I didn’t store mine with just water I used a kmeta/citric acid storage solution… and it still got moldy. It’s a rain barrel at my Dad’s place now…
ahh barrel ownership is like raising a child. there is no long rests. fill it, empty it and fill it again. you can store long term but you have ot use kmeta or similar chemicals and top it up all the time and change it regularly. Or let it dry out and hope it will seal again with soaking.