RE CHARRING AN OAK BARREL

charring a barrel oh this'll work we have other options [Music] if you want to here [Music] around here well welcome back to barley hops i'm george yes the channel that dares to unlock the mysteries of home distiller we're so glad that you're with us again today now we're going to work on this is really simple believe i've done this several times and i figured this was one of those times i needed to get it done because i've got some barrels that need this so i thought i would share this with you as we do this and that's recharging a barrel and there's a lot of questions that we have to answer and a lot of explanation but it's rather straightforward and relatively simple now some quick updates uh we do have yes we have achieved that 100 000 subscriber level and just like three days ago i had to do a a chat with youtube because they were delinquent in validating and verifying the channel they have done so sent me the code of course that's already been submitted so we are waiting patiently on our silver play button to arrive and that is your reward and award and we will open that here on a video in the near future as it arrives so i'm so excited and so thankful to all of you who have patronized uh this channel now and in addition uh if this was just like last night still it our good friends down in uh new zealand uh this is jesse uh they just achieved 100 000 subscribers as well so please please reach out and send him a congratulations as well because that is our i like to consider that our sister channel that no one else that i'm aware of does more except maybe beard and board there's his logo um to enhance and perpetuate this hobby that we call distilling so jesse good on you and congratulations for those of you who haven't subscribed yet please do so uh and also subscribe to still it and to bearden board for all the latest greatest information you could possibly find and guess what yes it's all free so please help us help you help others now on to uh i've got these three barrels sitting here in in in in order this is a three liter five liter 10 liter all right we need to understand first that you know what barrels are sized by how much they displace not exactly how much they hold yes uh you you'd be confused about that someone will take a three liter barrel they'll purchase one and they'll try to put three liters in it and it won't fit um a barrel is designed and measured based on how much space they displace uh yeah not how much it holds so uh don't don't let your volumes go crazy in your mind uh you'll have less than three liters in here less than five liters and less than 10 liters but that's just a given that's just how their sized okay now this comes back from a long long time ago with ships and and storage and it's just the way it's done all right now i've recharred this barrel several times and uh my advice take it for what it's worth you can do whatever you want i've recharred this three times and this is just about on its last leg i probably will not use this one but i've got it open already and i just wanted to show you that see that one's already open and you'll see how dark the char is on the inside this is the lid and of course the bands are coming the outside we're going to show you exactly how to get to that here now the basic ingredients or the basic items that you're going to probably need if you want to do this the way i do it are the following okay one roll of black electrical tape and the reason i use black electrical tape and of course you could use other things but i use black electrical tape because it does go on secure and it's quite flexible so it has a certain amount of give and stretch in it without tearing or coming off that comes in handy uh i've got an unscented candle this is a tea light these are critical and really really helpful when you start to put this thing back together because you can pre-seal some of those areas that you know are going to probably leak anyway as we know once we get one of these we have to soak it in order for those staves to expand and seal up uh you can help that process along with a little bit of candle wax but make sure you use unscented candle wax you don't want any interaction with any of your spirits that are inside your barrels and the unscented candle wax will not interact with the alcohol okay i've got two wire brushes and of course we know we already have the acetylene torch if we need it but we don't of course um i've got a map gas burner uh and that's really really high heat for those of you who understand the dip between that and just regular propane which works just as well the key is you need a good heat source in order to just char the wood you don't want to burn through it you just want to char the wood so let's get right at it and i'll show you how i actually accomplish this in just a few simple steps the first thing we want to do is we want to make sure now i'm going to set this big 10 liter barrel aside because i'm going to do that one next but i'm going to concentrate on my 5 liter barrel be right back so one of the first things i'm going to do is make sure that this thing actually stays together as long as well as easily as possible because otherwise you need a couple of extra hands to hold things together because once it falls apart completely it's not impossible but it's very difficult to get it back together correctly so what i'll do is i'm going to turn this on its side here and remove one of the rings now you'll notice these rings will start to get loose as your barrel dries and that's because it shrinks and as it shrinks it releases that tension on the bands so normally one or two of the bands and maybe even all of them will be loose so remove one of the bands and then just run a piece of black electrical tape oh about an inch and a half or so from the bottom of the barrel and you'll see as i do this and once we get a little bit further in you'll see exactly why i do this now and as i put this on here you know i had a phone call the other day and this is amazing you know somebody call and they ask a question and you know i i offer a response uh and this was all about believe it or not it was about ph uh and really the gist of it was well you know i measured my ph i adjusted it and then after about four or five days uh it dropped it went really really low and then my fermentation stopped stuck fermentation uh and so i readjusted the ph and of course i responded with please once you adjust the ph at the very beginning leave it alone just leave it alone uh it will do that on its own and it's supposed to your problem is not the ph they actually said yeah but i don't want to do it that way i'm like okay then you know you're not helping yourself he goes no i do it like this and then of course they explained through and i was like well you're really not helping matters much because now you're making it really really acidic and you're making an inhospitable environment which is probably the lack of water because he had a really really high gravity and you're just making matters worse yeah but i don't want to do it like that okay um of course the conversation ended i need a razor ah there so i guess the moral story is if you call and ask for advice or yes a question and i give you an answer if you don't want to do it that way i'm fine with that but um please let's not debate that at that point because all i can do is throw my hands up and go okay okay i wish you the best uh now you'll notice okay there's the fill hole you'll notice that when i when i did that i oriented this so that the spouts at the very top and there's a reason for that uh and that is so that once you remove the remainder bands you can put your finger in here or some sort of device you know maybe a screwdriver or something and you can grab it and you can lift that lid up because that lid doesn't come out very real easy it comes out relatively easy but you you've got to have a way to grab it all right now that i've got that tape around the bottom i can drop off the remainder of that ring and then start to pull off the other rings and if they are if they get stuck then i'll take just a screwdriver and hammer and tap it until it releases there we go and your bands will come off now if you'll you know you can you'll notice on here um this darkness and if i rub my finger across it we do that you'll notice how black my fingers get well that's a natural occurrence and it happens normally all right we did a video a couple years ago on whiskey fungus and this is what's one of those phenomenons that you'll never overcome it's it's just there or it happens uh you'll find it around bonded warehouses you'll find it around distilleries as a matter of fact check this out this is what it looks like it now there are talk full communities that have this black stuff that's called whiskey fungus it's a black fungus that grows on the outside of the buildings or on your car on the trees uh anywhere uh and it's usually downwind of a distillery a bonded warehouse and in some cases even a bakery uh it what that really is is the alcohol that evaporates the evaporated alcohol the atmosphere starts and it starts to settle it it drops because it's heavy and as it drops and the prevailing winds blow it they blow it against and it sticks to the side of structures now if the conditions are right and there's enough humidity uh this it's a sac fungus that starts to grow and it's black it's matter of fact it's it's unsightly but it's absolutely harmless but it's just unsightly so there are some communities that suffer from this because of their location as a matter of fact i had to write it down the proper name for that fungus is bowdoinia company assassins uh for those of you who care now this is on my stand uh where i've got this black stain here where it's dripped a little bit and then that evaporated and that evaporated alcohol is leached into the wood and then of course with the proper humidity and proper environment it starts to grow sometimes you'll even find on the bottom of your barrel right there on the table you'll find a small puddle and it'll be black and you'll run your finger through it like a syrup uh that's whiskey fungus please don't worry about it it's not it's not harmful all right what i the other thing i need see can i put that in there no what i'm going to need is oh i got just a pair of needle nose pliers now you'll start to pull these staves out and you'll notice that as you pull these staves out it's a little there you go it's a little tight because they are fitted to this cap and once you get around here and you know what i'm going to keep working on this and i'll be right back all right here we go um i've got them all now this is where a couple of extra hands would have come in handy but if you're able to so you just work those staves out without pulling them off and you'll see the elasticity in that that tape allows you to bend those back a little bit without them coming unhinged oops it happens that's going to make that lid come out just a whole lot easier there now that's not a problem i'll just glue that right back together and make that one big round thing don't worry about it it'll be perfectly okay now one of the things that you'll notice when you open your barrel is uh i've got these extra shards that now see this barrel has been sitting for empty for oh probably two or three months they don't stay full around here that long so what i'm going to do now is i'm going to take this wire brush and i want to brush out everything from the inside because and you'll see that if you notice down in there you can see that that bottom is not that toasted so this comes as a medium toasted barrel but there's plenty plenty of wood left to continue to toast again and that's why we recharge them and we recharge them because oh yeah see what i'm doing now is i'm taking out the old char and i'm not going to remove all of it but i'm going to remove the char because the char doesn't go bad but what does happen is you'll get some residue that'll sit there oh yeah and what it'll do is it'll seal itself from the wood and not permit that alcohol to work its way towards the wood and thereby extracting all those flavors and that that really warm rich color that you're looking for all right i'm gonna i'm gonna continue this through and once i get it done i'll show it to you now you'll see that you know this of course this came apart they these are made by gluing several planks together um so well now i've got this separated what i want to do is i'm going to clean off the residual glue that's here and here and the first thing i'll do is use a razor blade without cutting down any of the wood i just want to scrape that off and what that will do is give me a clean surface in which to re-glue it now after working my way all the way around the inside of this with and i've got this smaller brush so you can get down into the corners uh you'll notice look at this this is all of the old char and anything else that was growing in there from just sitting around like that that i've been able to remove and what i will do now is i'm just going to rechar this using first back gas and now i can try to get down into the bottom down in there and char that in because you know remember the end is not almost not charred at all as well as the lid that i've got glued back together oh yeah one thing i did forget to mention you might want to have just a spray bottle laying around just in the event yeah that just spray it in there just a little bit just so that you're not burning the wood you want to char it which means that you're going to ignite the wood a little bit just let it char for a while and then because if you leave it alone guess what yeah it'll just burn its way through uh that'll last me for about another all four or five runs through it yeah i keep running out of oxygen in there wheel all right one barrel charred uh let me just make sure that i don't have any yeah it's pretty darn hot in there but i just want to make sure i don't have any embers that are still burning and just allow that this is a messy job just allow that to sit and cool all right i've come to the end of the charring and what i've what i've got here is i want you to see this you can see inside the barrel i've even got a flashlight for you you can see inside the barrel how heavily i've charred that now you'll notice that a little bit of that little ring around the bottom what that was uh and it's a preemptive seal what do i mean by a preemptive seal well what i actually did was you take a little bit of that wax it you warm this wax up and you take it off you scrape it off with your finger you get pieces of it and then you just form it around the inside ring where the lid attaches and any cracks that you can find that you know are a little bit large and then you take your torch turn that on there we go heat that wax up just a little bit and allow it to seep into the into the into into your wood fibers and what that'll do is that'll pre-seal that so that once you do get this finished and then you soak it you know that your ends are really sealed now the staves themselves are something that you're going to just have to work your way through uh you know that they all leak uh you just got to let them soak and spread so it kind of bleeds the question you know well george why don't you just glue all the stains together or or wax all the staves well you don't want to put that much in between the stains because you want them that in order for them to swell and seal together you don't want anything in the middle of that that's going to prevent that from happening and cause gaps if you follow me in in the long run should you have an issue where you've got one leak somewhere you just can't seem to get it to to settle well your your wax is always a solution at the very end um so i offer that to you because i've got some barrels that just unless you put a little bit of wax on one of the staves it'll just continue to leak it just won't seal for some reason uh but the wax always seems to resolve that let's get the top back on and we'll put the bands back together and i'll show you that when i'm finished and i'll also do a pre-emptive seal around the end because you'll notice on here you see that ring that's cut that edge that's cut right in there yeah right right right across there that's where the edge of that cap is going to fit in there so what we'll do is we'll put a little bit of wax around the outside we'll heat that and let that wax soak in yeah small ball peen hammer comes in handy in order to make sure you seat that lid and so i've got the top ring and i've got the other two rings just slid on there right now so what i'll do is and there's probably yeah more than likely there's a tool made for this but a screwdriver comes in handy okay now that i've got my rings on you see the barrel's reassembled i'm going to take that little bit of wax that we talked about now watch this as i run it and all i'm going to do is it's it's sort of warm wax right now and i'm just going to run a little bit of it inside that that crack that goes all the way around the outside that's the joint and this is what i call that precautionary seal because if this thing is going to leak from experience it will almost always leak around there because that's the widest joint in the entire barrel candle wax is added um you'll see that on there you'll see how what that looks like all i did was just pushed it all the way in there just made it nice and level um all you do now is heat it up just a little bit and you'll heat it up and what it'll do is it turns to a liquid of course wax does that but it'll soak into the wood grain and especially in that seal that goes around the outside of that top and then as it dries there we go yeah it will become a preemptory seal like having a seal i can't that that's the best way i can describe it you can all you have to do is pull out a little bit of the excess so it doesn't look like ass and there there's one barrel sealed sealed from the inside and then sealed here on the top on the outside now you have two options when it comes to soaking a barrel okay relative this is really straightforward uh one is to just place it on your stand inside the sink and then fill it with hot water and then put your plug in it because that what that will do is that will cause a partial vacuum and if it does leak it'll leak really really slow and that hot water will start to cause that wood to expand and then every couple hours check on all you do is open the top and look in and see if there's any water has gone down or you know you've got a leak and just keep re-adding water reintroducing water until it stops and that usually takes anywhere from 12 to 24 maybe 36 hours it all depends on the severity of your leak another option that tends to work out relatively well i mean it's the same process just a little bit different is to fill it with hot water and then use a bucket and fill the bucket with hot water and then submerge the barrel in there and then place something on top to hold it up underneath hold it beneath the surface of the water and allow it to swell that way both ways work extremely well i kind of like using the sink method because it kind of gives me a gauge you know i could i can walk by a couple of hours and look and see how much has has leaked out uh plus you can see it in the sink uh but that almost in almost every case has sealed my barrels and like i said last but not least should you have one that has a leak that you just can't seem to overcome a little bit of unscented candle wax really really comes in handy so from our shop to your home we hope you've enjoyed this episode on how to disassemble secure recharge and reassemble a barrel and then do the preemptive seal so that you have more success when it comes to soaking your barrel now again how long does this last look i i can run like five about five runs through a barrel before it starts to deplete uh and that is it just does quits giving up its goodness uh and on a new barrel one good char maybe twice uh is probably your limit but there comes to a there comes a point of no return i'm sorry but for the cost of the barrels you can go to here it is go to barrels online um they've got some really good prices on barrels you may have to wait three or four weeks for it to arrive but they produce these and they'll ship them out to you you can get three five ten 20 liter barrels the larger the barrel of course the thicker the stave uh of course the smaller the barrel the thinner the stave so those don't last quite as long now here's the last but not least here's the other point of interest when it comes to barrel aging the big question is well how long does it last and can i leave it in there i want to make it and i want to give it to one of my children on their 21st birthday and that's going to be 10 10 years from now uh we have what's known as the angels share okay and even in a large barrel um that's stored in a warehouse and aged uh you're going to lose about 20 of the volume inside that barrel over a period of about seven years uh so just like that in these barrels you're going to also lose what they call the angel's share and that angel share is the evaporated alcohol that leeches out through the wood and just mysteriously evaporates into the atmosphere which is where the whiskey fungus comes from oh by the way so now you understand where that is where that comes from what that is it's totally harmless but that is the alcohol that you're going to lose uh and and in these you'll lose an equal amount as you would in a large 55-gallon drum so if your expectation is that you want to age your spirits for 20-some years um then you need to find another method in which to do that in something that doesn't allow alcohol to leach through it like glass which is a good and of course then you can use oak chips instead of an oak barrel now how long does it take for a barrel to mature well you had there's a difference it's called and the whole issue here is the amount of surface area in contact with the alcohol itself and in a smaller barrel you have less alcohol but you've got a lot of surface area and as the barrel gets larger the aging period the maturation period starts to extend longer and longer in a small three liter barrel somewhere around eight weeks nine weeks is as mature as you're going to age in a 5 liter barrel somewhere around 12 weeks and i mean and that's that's a swag and a swag is a sophisticated wild ass guess it all depends on humidity temperature and contents but somewhere in the general area of about 12 weeks when you get to a 10 liter barrel you're looking at about 20 weeks so give yourself the ample opportunity to give yourself ample time in order to extract that delectable deliciousness that oak aging in a barrel not to mention what it looks like when it offers you so if you like the contents of these videos please subscribe below share us with your friends and give us a like and always always comment below there are other methods in which to do this and we appreciate all your comments happy distilling

Channel: Barley and Hops Brewing

Views: 32,376

Keywords: neutral spirit, sugar wash, barlerandhops, hops, home, Sugar (Ingredient), sugar mash, distilling, barley, corn sugar vs cane sugar, corn sugar mash recipe, making a wash for distilling, running a still for the first time, first distillation, using yeast, mooshine, whiskey, making rum, making vodka, bourbon, baby step bourbon, making bourbon at home, charring barrels, re-charring barrels

Id: K-PxASrPRuQ

Length: 27min 45sec (1665 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020