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Barrels for Rum?

preferred barrel for Rum??? Clean rum with good cuts... I have 3,4,5,6, in 5 and 15 gal... afraid of # 3 destroying it with oak.

  1. New Uncharred
  2. Used uncharred wine
  3. New Charred # 3
  4. Used whiskey # 3 char
  5. Used Whiskey # 3 char that had beer in it (can rinse with a liter or two of same whiskey that was in it to get rid of any funk from beer)
  6. Used Whiskey # 3 char, used for beer and then used 2nd time for a scotch-style whiskey ..
  7. Used whiskey char that was used 3 times for whiskey and one time for rum.

Comments

  • edited August 2017

    Dunno man...Had a a bottle of rum from a barrel that went like this: Bourbon / Oatmeal Stout / Rum.

    It is wonderful. Not a tropical umbrella styled tiki rum at all. More like cold night by the fireplace with your favorite ski bunny rum.

    I like 2, 4, 5, 6, 7,,,,,,,and a blend of the a fore mentioned for good measure.

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • I wouldn't use the first 3, each time i have done it i have used my 50l house barrels. They are less charred than what i have seen of the bourbon ones, a heavy toast i reckon.
    I have always used them for rum after a couple years of bourbon. They seem to last for a few uses before needing retoasting, maybe 4 or 5?

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited August 2017
    • # 4 - the best
    • # 3 - yes, but only as part of a blend. Lots of guys are doing this now, to eliminate the need to add color.
    • # 7 - will work if you want to lay something down for 4-6 years.

    The problem with beer barrels is yeast. I hope you have some of those .1 micron filters left if you use this. We did an IPA cask finished bourbon, we had to take it down to an absurd .1 micron.

  • I abhor uncharred oak, tastes like a tannin bomb to me.

    • # 3 might make a good "rumsky". Did it once by mistake and turned out really nice
  • If 6 was done with peated malt, I wouldn't touch that one either. Phenols do not mix well with rum.

  • edited August 2017

    Great input! Thanks. We will throw out # 1-3 and probably go with # 4. We ran the rum last night and the hearts cut is sweet and will probably make a great silver. The rest will go into the barrel for a while.

    Dean Palmer - Director of Rum - Cotherman Distilling - Dunedin, FL

  • Thank you for all the input... I ran this survey for @Raoul_Duke, since he is in charge of our rum.

    We ran our first spirit run last night with the low wines from 3 100 gal ferments.... we did around 20 gal of ~180 proof (quite a few plates still gave flavor ) the 2 middle 5-gal containers were hearts and were pretty tasty, It was still in decent hearts into the 4th container. The first one will be silver rum, the 2nd may go in a barrel lowered to 100-120 proof

    I have 3,5,6,7 and he thinks 7 is 'dead', I tend to agree, but like you said, more time may fix it... will do that down the road.. # 6 no peat, just 'whiskey distilled form male mash' (USA designation for 2nd use barrel)

    on # 3, the new char 3, my reservations are overdoing it, and it wastes the newness that 'malt/rye/whatever Whisky' classification needs for federal approval... I have a 5-gal one, and thinking that literally a le days will

    which leads us to # 8 - interrupt a whiskey in process(mostly there, but not finished) to make a # 4, age the rum for a period of time then put the stored whiskey back in, and call the whiskey rum cask finished whiskey..

    so I think it is now between # 8 and # 5 (with the beer thoroughly rinsed and sanitized out with decent whiskey..

    has anyone put really clean rum into a fresh whiskey barrel, how long did you go and what size was it?

  • edited August 2017

    We are planning to do a rum cask finish in the next couple of weeks. I have some 30g coming up on 17 months that I may move over and let run for another few months in a smaller 10g barrels that were first bourbon, second rum.

    There really aren't very many rum-cask finished bourbons, Jeffersons has one. Angels Envy does a rum finished rye.

  • You can send the barrels back to the coopers to be recharred over there yes?

    Pretty cheap over here compared to the cost of a new barrel.

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Sure but you can not use rechar in place of a new barrel. So verboten for Bourbon, Rye, etc.

  • But you have to be in the Bourbon counties to call it bourbon anyway?

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • Old thread but I have 4 barrels of rum 5,10,15 and 30 gallon. The 5,10 and 30 are # 4. The 15 had barrel aged gin from Corsair. I have spiced rum in that one and I'm not a fan at this point. Gonna let it sit, maybe until Hell freezes over. Might be interested in # 5 if I could get one right after the beer was dumped. Troy from Siesta Key makes a beer barrel rum and it is supposed to be very good.

  • @FloridaCracker said: ... Troy from Siesta Key makes a beer barrel rum and it is supposed to be very good.

    come over sometime and try it, I have a bottle ;-)

  • edited October 2017

    We sold out of our IPA cask finished bourbon in like 2 or 3 days - 111 bottles. Was one of our best bourbons yet. It was a big citra ipa - we got great tropical fruit and citrus notes on the finish. It was like putting an orange or grapefruit peel in an old fashioned.

  • edited October 2017

    @grim said: We sold out of our IPA cask finished bourbon in like 2 or 3 days - 111 bottles. Was one of our best bourbons yet. It was a big citra ipa - we got great tropical fruit and citrus notes on the finish. It was like putting an orange or grapefruit peel in an old fashioned.

    That sounds delightful. Going to put that into a regular rotation?

    StillDragon North America - Your StillDragon® Distributor for North America

  • Yeah we have some 30g barrels coming back, probably early next year.

    The time in the IPA barrel is measured in days, not months. A little goes a LONG way.

  • That sounds convenient for production. Ready-to-finish whiskey sitting around until you can source some IPA barrels and then package within the month.

  • edited October 2017

    Yep.

    Only caveat - you need to filter sub-micron with good quality filters - you'll pick up tons of yeast from the cask. Don't care how clean you think you can get it, theres a ton of yeast. Your filter cartridges will be garbage after this exercise.

  • Good point. Did you try filtering in series? We pump rather than dump, so I put a wrapped cotton string cartridge in line with the unbarreling pump when we're emptying spiced barrels. This kills the cartridge, but lets us use a micron-rated filter instead of one and several of its friends on the bottling run.

  • edited October 2017

    Yeah for this we did 20->1->0.22 um.

    We usually do 20um on the barrel dump to gauging tank. Just to eliminate the crunchies, and then take it lower as we go to the bottling tank.

    I usually filter everything sub-micron, but I know a lot of guys only take bourbon down to 1-5um, which wouldn't work here.

    The problem is the organic yeast cells in the filtration membrane, I would imagine even with back flushing, you are going to have a lot of organic matter coming through the next product filtration, as those yeast cells start to degrade in the filter matrix. That's why I say that they are junk, not because they won't filter anymore, they probably would work fine mechanically, but because you risk adding new flavors to the next product you pass through.

  • Grim i'm gathering you are using this as a finishing cask rather than your whole ageing process?

    StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand

  • edited October 2017

    Finishing. IPA is much too bold of a style to risk long-term aging on. That said, I think most hopped whiskey is garbage, so take that into account.

  • edited October 2017

    My understanding is that yeast will never pass through 1 micron filters. Is your concern nominal sizing letting some through or degraded cell pieces being under 1 micron? Filters are cheap, transfers are quick, and better safe than sorry are all good pieces of logic. I'm just wondering what yeast haze would get through a 1 micron.

    EDIT: Hop residues?

  • edited October 2017

    Depends on the quality of the cartridge, my code 7 cartridges are rated at 95%, so they'll pass particles larger than 1 micron. Yeast on the low end are 2. Even a 99% rated absolute will pass some.

    I'd really be careful with a 1 micron >99.5% absolute filter that's prefiltered with a 5 micron. Tons of yeast will make it straight through the 5um and clog the hell out of the 1um almost immediately. They are very unforgiving, and probably need to be significantly larger to have any real capacity.

  • Gotcha. Thank you for the insight, grim.

  • If you are bored and want to fall asleep, read about filter beta ratios.

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