Charring Barrels the old way

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Charring Barrels the old way

Unread postby bourbonv » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:35 pm

Today at the Woodford Academy we attempted to char a barrel the old way with straw. We set iit up pretty much the way I thought we shound do it. We placed the barrel on some old barrel staves and filled it with straw. The first thing we learned was it did not take as much straw as we thought it would. We had to bales to use but only used about a third of the first bale and it was filled with loose packed straw. We used a little Woodford white dog on the the straw that poked out the bottom of the barrel to make sure it would start. I lit a match and placed it in that staw.

Well at first everybody thought it did not catch, but soon smoke was coming up out of the top of the barrel. Now today was quite windy and cold with a stiff breeze of about 15 mph blowing from downstream of the creek. This wind soon had the barrel blowing heavy smoke with it billowing out of the top of the barrel like my pipe tobacco on a night of heavy drinking. The straw burned and the barrel started to char. The problem was the wind fanned the fire in such a way that on side charred heavily while the other side was mearly being toasted. We let it go for about 15 minutes and took a the heads and toasted them with the flame from the top of the barrel. When we noticed that it looked to be getting a rich aligator char on the area we could see through the smoke, we popped one of the heads over the top and kicked the wood out from under it so that the fire would smother itself out. The problem was it continued to smoke so we decided to pour some water in it to put out any remaining flames. When we took the head off and poured the water, we were suprised to find that there was straw still inside and it was burning. We then kicked the barrel over and raked the straw out. Only about 2/3 of the staw had burned! When we examined the final product, about 33% of the inside was heavily charred. About another 25% was lightly to medium charred and the other roughly 40% was only toasted.

What did we learn? Well the next academy we are going to use less straw. We are also hoping for a less windy day and a more even burn. The main thing we did learn is that barrels can be charred with straw and that there are some tecniques to doing it that we will have to re-learn.

It was very dramatic and an impressive sight. I had fun today.
Mike Veach
"Our people live almost exclusively on whiskey" - E H Taylor, Jr. 25 April 1873
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Unread postby gillmang » Sat Mar 03, 2007 6:58 pm

That's great Mike. Too bad it didn't char evenly but try again.

M'Harry's "handful" of straw may have been a shorthand way of saying you don't need to use too much! Of course, he may have been disinfecting, not charring as such.

Still, there can be little doubt straw was used to char barrels and I know I have read this in period sources.

Gary
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Unread postby bourbonv » Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:16 am

Gary,
wind gusts up to 20mph probably prevented that from happening. I think next time we will only fill the barrel about 1/2 full of straw and see what happens.
Mike Veach
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Unread postby brendaj » Sun Mar 11, 2007 3:03 am

Here's some cool photos of the event. Someone from Woodford Reserve shot them, Kelly maybe?

Sorry I missed this. Looks like a great way to spend a Saturday. Good food, interesting conversation and you got to go out into the woods and burn stuff...duddunt git much better than that... :lol:
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Unread postby brendaj » Sun Mar 11, 2007 3:09 am

Makes my eyes water just looking at the pictures... :P
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As a Kentuckian, I consider it my civic duty to drink Bourbon, smoke and bet the ponies. Its a tuff job, but someone has to do it...
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Unread postby bourbonv » Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:41 pm

I just returned from the second Academy and our second attempt at charring the barrel. It was a better success with about 85% char achieved. We only filled the barrel about 1/2 full of straw and the flame was much more even. Of course that could be because we did not have wind gusts uo to 25 mph, but the straw level definitly changed the things. It did make me think about that barrel, if filled with whiskey might have more vanilla and less caramel because of the toasted, not charred staves. It would be interesting to fill it with whikey and track the taste profile for a few years.

I don't have any photos, but I hope they send me some that they took or maybe some of the people who took some will send me their pahotos. Jd Knaebl and Rick Duff were part of this class. Maybe they can post their impressions of the experience.
Mike Veach
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Unread postby gillmang » Sat Mar 24, 2007 8:00 pm

Mike, I wonder if the staves should be charred separately, i.e., that the barrel should be assembled from the charred slats.

I think staves could be more easily charred fully and uniformly if it was done this way.

Used barrels are broken up and sent to England for re-assembly and in some cases they do a re-char. Pre-charring should not be a problem, in other words.

I would try it this way next time. You could keep a steady hot smoulder from the straw, char them all evenly (maybe place them on a metal grid of some kind), then the barrel is made and whiskey poured in.

I have a feeling whiskey from a straw-fired barrel would be superb. The combustibles from the field waste introduces another variable; natural gas jets do not.

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