Recently I got my hands on a small oak barrel from
1000 oaks barrel and decided to try and make some bourbon. The instructions say to use grain alcohol or neutral flavored vodka, and their "Swish barrel essence".
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The setup: Distilled water, grain alcohol, swish barrel
essence, and an oak barrel. |
Because the grain alcohol was 151 proof, I cut it down to 80 proof using distilled water. I found an online calculator that calculated the correct ratio of grain alcohol to water. This barrel is a 5L barrel.
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| The online calculator |
Once I knew how much alcohol to add, I added that first, then topped it off with water.
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A funnel for pouring the alcohol and water
into the bung hole... hehehe. |
I filled it to the tippy top.
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| Full to the top |
This swill was made on Groundhog's Day. After about a week, I took a sample and gave it a taste... very grain alcohol-y tasting... but, I could still detect the subtle notes of a bourbon in there!
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| Week 1 |
After two weeks it was slightly darker in color with slightly more of a bourbon taste to it.
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| Week 2 |
There are more updates to come. The instructions say about 4 to 6 weeks will make a good tasting batch. I'm thinking worst case scenario if this batch doesn't work, I'll fill it with some Dickle and see if I can turn it into 25 year old scotch.
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