Barrell Aging Question

[Bmac]

As I was driving to the store I was thinking about how the whiskey sits in the barrel for it's tenure in the distillery. I also compared this to the recent interview with Jim Rutledge. Jim stated that he tries to pick whiskies at the age when they have used up all the barrel sugars. However, it seems to me that not all barrel sugars are used. I can only presume that the barrel is filled to capacity (53 gallons) at the beginning. The barrel when it sits in the rick, doesn't move. Liquid pressure should be building at the base of the barrel. That liquid would most likely penetrate faster than the liquid at the top. As years go by, the level drops leaving the top of the barrel largely unused.

Am I wrong in this line of thinking? Would it not be advantageous to rotate a barrel 180 degrees so that the used bottom portion becomes the now useless top? I know Maker's Mark rotates location of barrels and such you will likely have some barrels that flipped.

Thoughts on this? Just curious....

[Trey Manthey]

In the distilleries that I've visited, they've mentioned that they rotate the barrel in the ricks as part of the aging process.

[callmeox]

Barrels are placed "bung up" in the rickhouse to minimize leakage.

Makers is the only place that I am aware that moves them about to that they spend part of their aging in different levels in the rickhouse, but they don't store them bung down to utilize extra surface area.

[Bourbon Boiler]

I have heard that periodic agitation is helpful, presumably for this reason, but it obviously isn't practical.

[Bourbon Boiler]

As I think about this, this should be a bigger problem. When 8% of the volume has evaporated of been absorbed, which is essentially right after loading the barrel, only 75% of the surface area of the staves are in contact with the juice.

[White Dog]

The Scots need whatever flavor they can get their hands on.

Edited October 20, 2012 by White Dog

[Young Blacksmith]

haha! Love that answer!

Most distilleries don't move barrels around anymore, they pick and choose as they age depending on location and flavor profile they are searching for/matching.

But, you are correct, as the distillate level falls, the barrel sugars the distillate is exposed to would also fall. Those poplar bungs leak crazy if they're not up, meaning the staves on top are not desugared. Not sure how they'd use those staves either, unless you took the barrel apart and put it back together with more unused staves opposite the bung. The bung stave would be always at the top though. Or do a barrel completely of the more unused staves. Course, then it would be used cooperage, and only useable on something besides bourbon.

probably not worth the time and effort involved to worry about if you're BT or HH.

[Bmac]

Thanks everyone for the answers. It makes sense unless they can create a leakless bung or a way to slow rotate a cask so that it's never bung down all the time.

That just sounds bad. "Never have your bung down ,man...you might leak"

[MauiSon]

I disagree. I think all the staves are penetrated. The vapor is absorbed in the upper staves as easily as the liquid in the lower staves. That isn't dry air in the barrel. Just think about the legs in your glass - that's the vapor condensing. Don't you think the vapor is constantly condensing in the barrel as well? Then there's the capillary action, too. As far as we know, the upper staves may well be more extracted than the lower staves, due to constant cycling of the condensate. Can we get an expert (or anyone) who's examined used barrels to jump in here?

Edited October 20, 2012 by MauiSon

[p_elliott]

One thing you might think about and they are not very common are pallet warehouses. In a pallet warehouse barrels are aged standing up on their end on pallets. I think JB may have a few of these. These are more common in the scotch trade I think.

[HighInTheMtns]

One thing you might think about and they are not very common are pallet warehouses. In a pallet warehouse barrels are aged standing up on their end on pallets. I think JB may have a few of these. These are more common in the scotch trade I think.

[Bmac]

One thing you might think about and they are not very common are pallet warehouses. In a pallet warehouse barrels are aged standing up on their end on pallets. I think JB may have a few of these. These are more common in the scotch trade I think.

[p_elliott]

Another thing with the palletized warhouses is they are a lot smaller. So not as hot.

[portwood]

One thing you might think about and they are not very common are pallet warehouses. In a pallet warehouse barrels are aged standing up on their end on pallets. I think JB may have a few of these. These are more common in the scotch trade I think.

In that scenario you get more contact from more of the staves but lose out on the wood from one of the heads and gradually from the tips of all staves. Bottom line. total wood surface area should be the same in both racking systems.

I doubt if the barrels are flipped during maturation (same type of cost concern as in rick warehouse)

[HighInTheMtns]

In the case of a palletized warehouse, the surface area in contact with liquid would be the same; but flavor could be extracted from the entire length of the stave - the liquid would spread through the stave by capillary action.

[Bmac]

In the case of a palletized warehouse, the surface area in contact with liquid would be the same; but flavor could be extracted from the entire length of the stave - the liquid would spread through the stave by capillary action.

Damn fine point! Capillary action would not work if the barrel in on it's side, unless it learned osmosis .

[HighInTheMtns]

This is what I think about the heart of this discussion: whiskey-making is a natural process. It depends on containers of ancient design that are rather prone to leaking. It involves large-scale loss to evaporation. It's inexact. It will never be 100% efficient and attempts to make it so are probably not relevant to making whiskey that is more delicious. If they cared about utilizing 100% of the useful life of the barrel they wouldn't be selling them to all those other spirit-makers.

[MauiSon]

A natural process? It's most purely an artificial process and completely dependent on enhancing efficiency, in maximizing quality of product while minimizing expense. To even imagine whiskey-making is 'natural' or that barrels are of 'ancient design' is incredible. Selling used barrels furthers the goal of maximizing useful life, so obviously 'they' care about it.

100% efficient? Who decided that was the goal? Improving cost efficiency is the goal. Sticking a percentage on that is meaningless since the endpoint is unknown. I'll tell you one thing, if someone comes up with a method to make top quality product at much lower expense than anyone else, they'll make a bundle.

Edited October 21, 2012 by MauiSon

[HighInTheMtns]

Barrels were made in ancient Egypt, Gaul, Rome, etc. Anceint design. Yes, charring etc is a new innovation. But this is a natural process; wood flavors being extracted by alcohol and water. The tree used to make the barrels has an impact on the flavor (see: Single Oak Project.) Shrink-wrapping, designing ways to expose every last bit of wood to the maximum amount of alcohol, etc... all this avoids the point that bourbon is what it is because it is not a totally controlled process.

Edited October 21, 2012 by HighInTheMtns

[tmckenzie]

I am no expert, but I do watch a lot of aging whiskey. I think it is capillary action, even if they are stored on their sides. Think about this, it has to be or the portion of the barrel that has just air space would dry out and leak. When moved. it does not happen.

[Bourbon Boiler]

That's an excellent point ^^. I've done a few aging experiements where the barrels weren't full from the start. They aged bung up, and due to spigot issues I had to empty from the bunghole. I did this and the only liquid exit point was the hole, meaning the top staves had to be at least a little moist. If they were completely dry, there would have been leakage between the staves.

[ThirstyinOhio]

I am no expert, but I do watch a lot of aging whiskey. I think it is capillary action, even if they are stored on their sides. Think about this, it has to be or the portion of the barrel that has just air space would dry out and leak. When moved. it does not happen.

I would disagree with this but I too am not expert. The capillary action in the tree only works in an up and down manner, not side to side, and since the staves are cut length wise, the capillary action would only allow that stave to "spread" the whiskey within itself. As to the drying out part, the wood in these barrels are air dried for a long time before they are assembled into the barrel, greatly reducing the risk of the wood shrinking from drying out any further.

Then again, the only thing I am positive about bourbon is that I enjoy drinking it!

Edited October 21, 2012 by ThirstyinOhio

[Bmac]

Maybe it's the next question that gets asked on a distillery trip?

[tmckenzie]

I would disagree with this but I too am not expert. The capillary action in the tree only works in an up and down manner, not side to side, and since the staves are cut length wise, the capillary action would only allow that stave to "spread" the whiskey within itself. As to the drying out part, the wood in these barrels are air dried for a long time before they are assembled into the barrel, greatly reducing the risk of the wood shrinking from drying out any further.

Then again, the only thing I am positive about bourbon is that I enjoy drinking it!

Well, it must be the whiskey in the barrel keeping the air moist and therefore keeping the stave from drying out. They will dry out. They have to have a cerrtain amount of moisture in the wood to be able to make a barrrel. I have seen barrels in 6 months time shrink so from drying out the hoops will fall off of them.

[Trey Manthey]

I don't think that current whiskey producers are hung up on some homage to ancient designs by using oak barrels. It just happens to be the best tool for the job. If they could build a "better" barrel, they would. Even if they came up with a new way of ageing whiskey that couldn't be called bourbon, rye, etc because it wasn't stored in a new charred oak barrel, but yielded an equivalent product in less time, they would.

Ageing whiskey not a natural process. I think you mean that it uses natural materials over time, as opposed to a chemical catalyst. But white dog and charred oak are things that you would stumble upon in nature.

I agree that it isn't a controlled process, but that's not what makes great bourbon. Every once in a while, a barrel ages perfectly, and we get a private bottling or special edition. But there are just as many duds as there are honeyed barrels. Then we complain that a single barrel bottling is inconsistent, over-oaked, too young, too old, etc. If they could remove that variability from ageing, to produce a consistent product, I think most distilleries would not hesitate to change their "ancient process." My belief is that the Single Oak Project was not an attempt to showcase the wonderful variability of nature. Rather, I think it was a way for BT to experiment with better controlling their production to produce a consistent product.

Barrels were made in ancient Egypt, Gaul, Rome, etc. Anceint design. Yes, charring etc is a new innovation. But this is a natural process; wood flavors being extracted by alcohol and water. The tree used to make the barrels has an impact on the flavor (see: Single Oak Project.) Shrink-wrapping, designing ways to expose every last bit of wood to the maximum amount of alcohol, etc... all this avoids the point that bourbon is what it is because it is not a totally controlled process.