How To Make A Whiskey, Rum or Bourbon Barrel To Age Spirits

I am at the bad my workshop with Ben and we've just finished making this Barrel as far as we can tell it's completely unique no one else has made anything like it in the world and you can't buy one but if you stick around we'll show you exactly how to make one how's it going Chasers I hope you're having a kick-ass week I'm Jesse this is still it and we are at the badmo workshop in Oregon Ben was wonderfully kind enough to invite me out here to show you how to make some barrels uh but and the process of doing so I kind of threw a spanner in the works and um we ended up making something totally different we've made a unique totally novel monstrosity just to his specifications and you're going to really love seeing this [Music] Ben is an absolute pleasure to be here in your Workshop mate yes thank you uh all right so we have the bad motivator barrels uh but what's what's the general idea man what are we making here we have a lot to talk about what we're looking for is a barrel of about two gallons eight liters uh and a small amount of Oak that approximates the the amount of Oak you would find in a similar volume taken out of a large Oak Barrel and we've just pressed this oak barrel head into this can uh and then uh the goal for the user is to let it sit for as long as they can which is exciting for a home distiller you can now Aid your spirits for a much longer period of time without over oaking you can get all that interesting Barrel Magic oxidization esterification before you over Oak absolutely let's get stuck in what's the what's the first step in the process so uh you're going to want to start with some seasoned American White Oak like this one um this comes from a cooperation Kentucky that was aged out in the yard for four years and uh it should be pretty obvious that we're gonna have to do some cleanup on this board before it becomes a barrel and of course we're going to chop it down to size so that we're not wasting a much of it and uh so let's start talking about uh thinking about the size and the uh and the cleanup of it before the toasting and the shaping of the barrel head I have a barrel head here I'm sorry a barrel I can for you here this one is about age inches in internal diameter or about 203 millimeters so we're going to aim for a board that's slightly wider than that to give us a little leeway as we cut our Circle and so on so our first step is to take this to uh chop saw and chop it to length and you're uh you're really going to need to do something about that beard that's a little bit of a hazard so we're going to tie that up yeah really to bills absolutely all right Let's uh [Music] we've cut a bunch of nice pieces of wood but they're a little dirty we need to toast these but we don't want to toast the dirty Edge so we're just going to run this over the jointer real quick to remove just a thin layer enough to clean up the surface that is actually going to be on the inside of your Barrel if you don't have a jointer you can make a mark with pencil and then sand off everything until all the pencil Mark is done and you know you've removed at least the surface layer of the board [Music] foreign [Applause] that from this point on you've already decided the inside and the outside of the the piece of wood that's great right there are a few considerations for deciding with a piece of wood which is going to be the outside and which is the inside uh one of them frankly is Aesthetics but there are occasionally going to be places uh on the board that are defects on the edge of the board you got to think about whether those are going to end up on the on the outside of the square we're making so if they get cut off or the joining pieces that's right there may be a small small knot or some other defect that isn't significant it isn't going to impact the the effectiveness of the board but you don't want it on the outside you don't want to look at it um so yeah you have to make a decision at the the stage we were just at um on which is going to be the inside the outside we're only going to be toasting the inside of the barrel of course we need the outside to remain untosted yeah so we only need to clean up the side we're about to toast and from here on in we need to keep track of it the whole way through yeah very particular about always we don't fumble it placing them yeah we've done that [Laughter] I'm gonna get some food yeah all right hey I'm thinking we got a lot of good options in Eugene we've got really good Vietnamese Palm Beach sandwiches we've got great pizza some excellent Burgers any preference there um I got you covered man I got a better idea we have meat uh we're in a workshop with a box full of meat and hungry yeah and hungry uh do we have a means to cook this thanks to butcherbox for sponsoring today's video and for feeding us butcherbox gives you access to Quality Meats at affordable prices and the best part is it gets delivered to your door which is perfect if you hate shopping in crowded stores especially heading into the holiday season you can sign up for butcher boxes curated boxes or choose your own Cuts with their custom option the boxes range in size from 24 meals all the way up to 60 meals a month so you actually use a vacuum sealer to send barrels out but you got pissy with the commercial ones so what did you do they're a little slow so I built a turbo vacuum of course you did my family has had most of our meat and groceries delivered for years now and it saves us time and money and the best part is we don't shop hungry at the store anymore with butcherbox you get awesome membership benefits like membership deals and access to special things like their breakfast barbecue or keto bun you can also adjust your box options or frequency to fit your own needs all right Ben so you do have uh four griddles for toasting wood do you really want barrels that taste like steak or steak that tastes like barrels Thanksgiving dinner is one of the most planned dinners of the year it can also be one of the most stressful but not to worry butcher box has got your back delivering High Quality Meats to your doorstep sign up today and get a 10 to 14 pounds turkey for free and ten dollars off your first box so use the code 10 turkey with a special link in the description below foreign you've got a bunch of griddles here I'm assuming this is because we're going to toast the wood I was thinking pancakes yeah pancakes as well that works but all we have around is wood so let's make some of that right so what's your what's your general thoughts on on toasting and how do you go about it so a long time ago it was discovered that um in the heating of the barrel stems in a traditional Barrel in order to bend them into the barrel shape a lot of extra flavor was created by that heating as well okay and so the evolution of barrel making included uh toasting the wood in order to increase the flavors that are available to whatever you put in the in the barrel uh and I agree and I want that in my barrels as well so we toast the barrels we have different toast levels uh light medium and heavy and we've done our best to figure out some kind of compromise among all of the the disparate cooperages Styles and strategies for toasting I think we've landed on something that is light medium and heavy like you uh expect we're only going to toast the bottom face of course uh we need the top face to remain untosted in part because it swells better and seals the barrel better um and it also just looks nicer this is the first point where I've got a sneaky plan to do something a little bit different than what you normally do and I like sneaky pants you know that I am all about uh crowbarring complexity and at every stage whenever I can and I'm a simple person yeah I find it fun so I noticed that your barrels use three staves on average typically I am going to use a light a medium and a heavy toast three different toasts in one barrel I'll allow it okay let's do it all right when I load something up yeah all right uh are you changing the temperature for each of these or is it a Time variable yeah I settled on a 400 degree griddle uh and I settled on a 15 minute time or a 30 minute time or a 45 minute time okay that's going to affect How Deeply into the wood the effect travels and of course there's a complex relationship between uh how long it was at a temperature and what that temperature was so I I believe we get uh we get a kind of a light complexity out of the light toast and also not a lot of deep toasty flavors but on the heavy toast we're getting a lot of complexity because the heat has traveled deeply into the wood yeah all right so we need to wait for what was it 15 30 45 minutes and we can move on to the next step very good awesome [Music] foreign [Music] so we have posted the oak for 15 30 and 45 minutes I have pinched four of each and we're going to attempt to make four of these weird Chaser craft barrels which guys Ben is not going to be making these look because this is going to be an absolute pain in the ass for you to make that's the truth yeah yeah so sorry guys they're not going to be available like I said in the intro you're going to need to make these yourself which is very generous of you dude to show us how to do it we've got wood but the wood is uh problematic at the stage in a couple of ways uh the toasting process has warped the wood the edges are still dirty they're not at right angles to the faces and also we just need to plan out where on the barrel head each piece is going to go I have a gauge that I used it's approximately the same size as these barrels and this helps me to see through at the wood and see problematic spots and figure out an orientation for the wood that can avoid having problematic spots in the round uh barrel head but you're also looking at where the the bun and the tap are going to go right because they don't want those sitting in the middle of a joint that's correct yeah and I just have little marks on my gauge that uh that show me the sort of acceptable range for how high up uh the the speaker can go and how low down the bug can go groovy and then we so I see a little defect on this Edge it's or a stain or something something I don't like I'm going to make sure that that goes on the outside right because we can cut yep that won't that won't uh land in the barrel head let's just check that and make sure we've got of course we have plenty of room but let's just double check super let's put that one aside and do the other I'd probably flip that one around this one I probably would yeah this is oh right thing there I'm not sure about and so I don't need to see that and and why why risk it because I'm here yes that's good there [Applause] The Next Step here is to tidy the face up and the butting edges is that correct uh but it's a little different this is an edge joint right I need to Joint okay yes incorrect carpentry lingo yeah so very simply I'm just going to run the face over the jointer to establish that it is a plane that makes it easier to do the next operation which establishes a right angle or a complementary angle for the joint to come together in okay so you're you're ensuring that the they will come up next to each other yeah even if it isn't a right angle they still make a full 180 degrees right I'm with you so if they go through a little bit off it doesn't matter because they yeah yeah okay understood okay how about it sir foreign [Music] so the next step would be to drill some dowel holes in here that will allow the boards to come together with a planer faces so we need repeated perfectly repeatable dowel holes on every every piece okay so they're interchangeable so I built this tool because the market didn't seem to have one that would do the job I needed to do I built this tool to hold down the board push the board into the fence and then drive two drill bits a precise distance into the edge of the board so this speeds up my process a lot there are a lot of ways you can do it by hand a lot of hand tools that are going to do the same job reasonably well you're just going to take more time doing it [Music] all right so we've got these all pretty much ready to go together yes and it's a fairly tight fit the wood will swell later on but you want a slight insurance policy now right couldn't hurt okay why not why not so what's the plan dude the plan is to apply a thin thin layer of beeswax okay Bridge uh material uh before we jammed owls in there join them together a little bit and put them in a press to really give them a good squeeze awesome all right let's do it shall we you want to show me how to do it then I'll um absolutely right on I have this waxing wheel set into a tub of melted wax so all you have to do is just run it once over you have a little thin stripe of wax on that and we only need to do once per joint [Music] all right and now we need doubt yeah let's have some dowels in there why don't you go ahead and throw that piece into the Press there and go see how it comes out all right so we in like so and I imagine fingers the hell away from this please yeah [Music] so three out of the four of these came together almost perfectly and I I can't see any light through them but one of them is just a little sliver are you worried about that at all or is that gonna I'm terribly worried oh no [Laughter] no uh in my experience most small gaps that a little let a little bit of light three still seal up the wood can expand a fair amount um as it starts liquid absolutely I've estimated something like three percent of it in the across the grain Direction so and not only that it can change shape a little bit in that process so a small Gap that's even in only one small part of the joint still often uh closes up nicely but Perfection is not right necessary at this point exactly the way I think about it is I want to ask the wood to do as little as possible in terms of correcting my mistakes that's a nice way to think about it it will correct some small mistakes right okay all right so uh now uh we want to find dead center that's right we're going to be putting this on a jig that cuts a circle and Sands the circle really nicely but we need to establish the center of that Circle first okay and put a hole there so that they can rest on the pins on the other two so naturally I have a gauge of course either and it makes us to build things dead simple to just lay this right on there you just hold this together put it under the drill press and go in 10 millimeters this is a circle cutting jig the idea is the sled here will drive into the blade it'll be stopped at the right spot by this stop bolt here and the radius of this circle that you cut is established by moving this pin along a threaded Rod I've already worked out a pretty good radius and dial that in today so the next step would be to just lay this square right onto the pin the center pin drive it into the bandsaw and then start rotating it foreign variation on the outside from what it was cut as and small little areas where I messed up on the bandsaw uh statue really it's just a band side that's just the nature of a band saw yeah uh and it's also rough uh and as I understand at your pots are slightly tapered very slightly one percent or less but okay some significant enough to think about like I said earlier uh the swelling of the oak will correct some small mistakes but I'd like to ask it to do as little correction of my mistakes as possible so I go I like that analogy I build in uh the bevel into the sanding operation okay so we're going to sand these um what's the what's the general idea man how are we going to do this similar to the circle cutting jig I have a circle sanding jig this is a sled that uh is set to a particular radius away from the Sandpaper by this stop bolt here and using that we can sneak up to a very very precise radius so that we get just the skunk that we wanted okay foreign [Music] we should establish the bunghole and the spigot hole now the bunghole is going to be reamed to a tapered shape a spigot hole is going to be just used like it is but we have a little gauge that's going to help us to Mark the location of those you get to choose which side is the top side at the bottom at this stage I generally like the fatter Stave to be at the bottom okay and I like them to be sorry the axis of the two holes to be perpendicular to the The Joint lines so here's my gauge and I might use a just a Sharpie this is going to disappear of course under the drill I might just say that's where the spigot hole is going to be and that's where the sorry the bunghole and that's where the spigot hole is going to be want to mark one up there ah let's say I don't know a bunghole yeah that's your butthole okay yeah a little bit disappointed that you marked my bunk hole a little bit a lot of people say that the barrel heads are really starting to come together I'm starting to actually be able to see you know what they look like uh we've got the two holes one for the bunghole one for the spigot I'm assuming the spigot hole we're just going to drive the spigot straight into this now yep we're sorted standard hole but the bone hole needs to be larger and tapered precisely what's our plan the plan is to use a bunghole reamer I've always wanted to ream a bunghole now's your time now's your chance excellent this is a tapered cutter it's going to cut a 12.8 degree taper into the thing and we we want it to be just the same size as our one inch buns that we also have a taper on right so they meet perfectly equal and opposite exactly so let's get to reaming excellent okay and you've got another little uh clamp set up so hold these things you're starting to really know me man you're starting to really understand me man yeah very good all right I'll show you how it goes yeah [Music] time for the fun stuff man let's play with fire I see a blurred torch I actually have a sneaky plan on something I want to do here but I really want to see how you do it first the toast does a lot uh it's useful for a lot of styles of spirits and for a lot of people to have a very thin layer of activated charcoal inside the barrel head to a adsorb large molecules that aren't tasty molecules it acts like a charcoal filter it's highly effective it does add a little bit of flavor which is appropriate to certain Styles but the most important function is as a filter I have one ready to go almost ready to go it is important to have some kind of Shield to prevent the burning of the edge of the barrel head and I also use bolts with washers to protect the holes we've just dug in there so let's get those in just to be clear guys this is this is one that being has prepared earlier uh these are not my traditional barrels uh yeah I'm gonna do 30 seconds on this one I'm going to tell you what I want you're gonna see if you can come up with a way to make it happen right what I want is to have your whole Matrix of char in one barrel so I want to chart basically a gradient from level three on one side all the way across to level one on the other running at right angles to the stage that are like medium High we'll do a little whiskey tic-tac-toe exactly he gets it we can make it happen yeah and I was planning on just doing it with the torch you know spending more time on one side we can do better yeah we can do better absolutely all right what's the plan man a rusty piece of metal oh like a shield what do you think yeah let's give that a shot yep is that gonna get hot yeah I might get a little hot you want to get some like ice clamps or something sir uh all your mitts at the very least met yeah uh we've done the fun stuff now we need to do the necessary stuff I guess which is the plumbing I'm gonna do a very good job of holding whiskey with holes no so what's the plan man one chosen first well uh spigots now um there's our wrench it's designed to hold this just so yeah most of the way try not to take our arms and wrists off that thing is a high torque drill so and then this is used to just correct the position of it you can only go clockwise and there you have it so it's a relatively tight fit on the thread very we've basically uh drilled a pilot hole for it undersized and then The Oak's going to expand that's right because it's weird you got it you want to do yours uh sure all right ready [Music] Ben we are part way through making this barrel and it's coming together excellently I have noticed however that you have some very specific equipment around this Workshop possible to do it with normal household working woodworking tools not just possible I've done it many times my first barrels were made with very simple tools I uh I have a friend here yeah yeah this is Otis uh and he's in the same state I am we met a lot of years ago nice to meet you man he expressed a lot of interest in doing what I'm doing and I was I jumped at the chance of sharing what I had already learned we had a quick talk off camera which is why I said come in and get in the video and there's one thing that you said that you're doing quite differently which is you're not using a spigot yes so what are you using instead I use a stainless steel bolts oh okay I actually have made them with spigots I made a lot of jigs that Ben had showed me how to make through his videos online and I wanted something simpler um that just wouldn't require as much work awesome so straight holes through stainless steel bolts a little bit of beeswax on the thread and I've been using them for probably about three to four years with the bolts haven't had any leakage problems at all we got to get these barrels finished up but I think when I get home I'm gonna have to at some point try making a couple of these with the tools I have available one last step I think an insurance policy before you actually get this thing pressed into the and turn it into a barrel you got it just like we did between the staves as little Insurance we're going to put a thin thin thin stripe of beeswax around the edge and when we press it into the can if there were any tiny gaps they'll be well covered up by the wax [Music] so we have a barrel head and a stainless Barrel this needs to go into there and I imagine that you could do it with a mallet have done it with a mallet yeah but knowing you I know you've got a jig so I have a sharp press that I prepared a little bit to make life easier for me the the essence of it though it's just a jack on pneumatic power so I don't have to crank it um and I've set up a follower to spread out the force and to make sure that it goes only the right depth into the KN and then stops all right nope two more drops two more pumps there it is I think at this stage you have to hold it like a baby we made a thing yeah we did that's a beautiful thing right there and you are basically done at this that stage you could you could just fill it with Spirits uh there's only one more detail before we fill it for a test which is to cauterize the bunghole which is pretty fun but essentially uh most of you at this stage are done you you can plug it up with Spirits in it and put it away for you know however long you need to very cool if you can't tell guys I'm pretty damn pleased with myself at this point in time and I have to say these barrels really are a very cool Innovation for the hobbyist distiller if you're interested in picking one up and buying one from Bad mobiles instead of making your own make sure you check the link in the description down below where you can sign up for Ben's waiting list we now have four barrels put together with the special still it one of a kind I don't know what to call it unique monsters yeah have you guys got a name on what to call this chart because uh I'm struggling to come up with anything creative what we did do is cauterize the bone holes that was fun yeah that's a that was a bunghole cauterizing virgin until today no longer Jesse no not anymore we also filled them with water uh why do we do that what's the what's the plan well I don't like to send a barrel out unless I've tested its tightness so I fill it with water and I watch it dry and uh and if there are any leaks I hold it for another day and if if it seals up real nice then I call it good and I clean it up and I send it on its way is there anything else you'll do to these barrels uh before posting them out to people or are you done there sure there's a little wax squeeze out on the crown where the barrel head went in I'm going to clean all the wax off real nice uh there's a roughness to the grain because of the water that's been on it I'm going to sand that that down really nicely take care of any little blemishes that might have occurred I'm also going to Brand it and I'm going to put a serial number and it's treatment in other words if it's a heavy toast I'll put an H if it's a Char two I'll put a two so that I never forget and no one ever forgets what was done with that Barrel awesome uh and they're all individually numbered too absolutely it's pretty pretty sufficient yeah I don't know what to do with yours though yes it could be that we call this number one oh okay uh I don't know that's up to you but what I do know is you've got something a little special to Brand This barrel with because we've got a little something else that we've been working on that no one really knows about don't tell Jesse it's coming soon guys I promise [Music] so Ben this has been an absolute pleasure I've had a blast on every aspect it's been great to meet you in person finally it's been great to hang out here and go through the whole process thank you dude you're very welcome I feel the same way it's been a joy it's been a highlight of my year I think awesome so we legitimately hope and this is kind of crazy coming from the guy that makes these barrels but he legitimately hopes and gets pleasure from you guys doing this yourself absolutely at least as much as I get pleasure out of making nice barrels and delivering the people who want them I love it when people share their progress share their Innovations Advance the art and just show off I love it yeah Ben's got a bunch of documentation on the home decilla Forum so feel free to jump over there and you know find some more information post pictures of the barrels you make if home distiller's not your Vibe we get that we understand and if you still want to show the the barrels off that you've made or even the ones you've bought filled I guess Instagram is probably the best way to do it so throw a photo up on Instagram uh tag me Chase The Craft on Instagram and then hashtag admo okay yeah awesome this has legitimately been some of the most fun I've had making a video so I hope you guys have enjoyed it as well if you have please please give us a thumbs up drop comments questions in the in the comment section down below and that helps me know that I should come back to Oregon I guess we can do something else crazy do it people

Channel: Still It

Views: 134,333

Keywords: Ben, Badmo, badmotivator, batmotivater, badmo barrel, home distilling, how to make a barrel, Jesse, Still it, chase the craft

Id: AGx5JrB-mZE

Length: 29min 8sec (1748 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 04 2022