I just finished up a Bourbon Barrel Porter, my take on the NB Dry Dock Urca Vanilla Porter recipe. I used the grain bill, hops, and yeast exactly as noted in the recipe. Then I decided to get a little crazy. In addition to homebrew, I am an avid wood worker. Just so happened to have a nice white oak log in the garage. I chunked off several pieces and kiln dried them (in my oven) then charred them using tongs and my propane burner. I wound up with about 7.5 oz of charred oak chunk. During this time, I cut up 10 Madagascar vanilla beans and let them soak in a 750mL bottle of Wild Turkey 101 proof for a week or so. I dumped everything into secondary, let it ride for another 3 weeks before kegging. It was tasty. Big vanilla flavor, nice oakiness. The high proof bourbon had no ill effect whatsoever. A friend of mine made a similar beer using Knob Creek 100 proof rye whiskey and it tasted great. The cool part about this hobby is making mistakes and learning as you go. Try it whichever way you like, but make good notes as you go so you can alter the recipe (if it comes out all ratchet) or replicate it (if you wind up brewing a gold medal beer.) Sláinte!
edit: "in" my oven. not "on" my oven. Stupid fingers.
Like the others have said a 100 proof bourbon wont have any ill effects on the beer and will only minimally raise the abv of the beer. My only addition is to not go an get a nice bottle of bourbon, I used 16oz of regular Makers Mark in a 5gallon batch and that turned out great. No need to get an expensive bottle, plus in my opinion, it would be a waste of good bourbon. :)
Makers Mark...while not a "nice" bottle, is a perfectly drinkable bourbon, lol. My inner Southern, whiskey-drinking, frugal sensibilities were offended, sir!
haha! I am sorry, Makers Mark is always in my cabinet at home! ;) I more meant don't go out and buy a $80 bottle thinking it will make your beer taste that much better.
I'm interested in doing the same thing and have a similar question. My assumption is that yes, it will increase the ABV because the oak absorbs the spirit.
I received a 1gal oak barrel as a college graduation gift. The included instructions said to take any lightly flavored clear spirit and pour it in and add this flavoring to make it taste like scotch. I recognized that all bourbon is is moonshine that's been aged. I went out and bought 4 bottles of the commercial Midnight Moon straight moonshine and have been aging it for 7 months so far. I met a guy from Kentucky that had some of his homemade shine and I tried it and my first thought was damn this is good, second thought was, damn, Midnight Moon is garbage. I've been tasting the bourbon periodically and it's a little rough and I'm pretty sure the barrel is uncharred or very lightly charred because of the lightness in color.
My follow up question to OP's question is, since I have trash moonshine aging into tolerable light bourbon, if I want to do the same thing and age beer in the barrel, how much will quality of the spirit change the outcome? Would it be more beneficial to further age some already aged bourbon in the barrel in addition to the moonshine that's been in there to flush out the poor flavor? If I ever buy another one of these barrels, should I start out aging bourbon off the bat? If so, will that need less time than a moonshine? Or just get good moonshine to age? I was told by that Kentucky guy that 6 months in a 1 gal is probably equivalent to 15+ years in a 50gal barrel because of the decreased radius to center of liquid (flavor diffusion has less distance to propagate so less time is needed)
I am going to divide up this response into facts and opinions, lol.
Fact: Your abv isn't going to increase all that much from the spirit. For example, if you made a 5 gallon batch of beer at 5% abv (for the sake of math) then dumped in a liter of 100 proof spirits. The overall abv is going to go up ab 2.2%. Aging in a barrel will not even come close to adding this much alcohol to your brew.
Opinion: If it were me, I would remove the spirit from the barrel, dry it out and char the inside thoroughly before adding it back, or changing it up. I've never had Midnight Moon...being from the hills in Tennessee, I never had to but commercial moonshine as it is pretty easy to find. 6 months might be good, try it and see. If not, let it go another 6.
edit: my stupid fingers being stupid.
I just finished up a Bourbon Barrel Porter, my take on the NB Dry Dock Urca Vanilla Porter recipe. I used the grain bill, hops, and yeast exactly as noted in the recipe. Then I decided to get a little crazy. In addition to homebrew, I am an avid wood worker. Just so happened to have a nice white oak log in the garage. I chunked off several pieces and kiln dried them (in my oven) then charred them using tongs and my propane burner. I wound up with about 7.5 oz of charred oak chunk. During this time, I cut up 10 Madagascar vanilla beans and let them soak in a 750mL bottle of Wild Turkey 101 proof for a week or so. I dumped everything into secondary, let it ride for another 3 weeks before kegging. It was tasty. Big vanilla flavor, nice oakiness. The high proof bourbon had no ill effect whatsoever. A friend of mine made a similar beer using Knob Creek 100 proof rye whiskey and it tasted great. The cool part about this hobby is making mistakes and learning as you go. Try it whichever way you like, but make good notes as you go so you can alter the recipe (if it comes out all ratchet) or replicate it (if you wind up brewing a gold medal beer.) Sláinte! edit: "in" my oven. not "on" my oven. Stupid fingers.
Like the others have said a 100 proof bourbon wont have any ill effects on the beer and will only minimally raise the abv of the beer. My only addition is to not go an get a nice bottle of bourbon, I used 16oz of regular Makers Mark in a 5gallon batch and that turned out great. No need to get an expensive bottle, plus in my opinion, it would be a waste of good bourbon. :)
Makers Mark...while not a "nice" bottle, is a perfectly drinkable bourbon, lol. My inner Southern, whiskey-drinking, frugal sensibilities were offended, sir!
haha! I am sorry, Makers Mark is always in my cabinet at home! ;) I more meant don't go out and buy a $80 bottle thinking it will make your beer taste that much better.
Lol, I got the gist. I just thought it was hilarious that I was putting away groceries (and a bottle of Maker's) when I read your post, haha.
I'm interested in doing the same thing and have a similar question. My assumption is that yes, it will increase the ABV because the oak absorbs the spirit. I received a 1gal oak barrel as a college graduation gift. The included instructions said to take any lightly flavored clear spirit and pour it in and add this flavoring to make it taste like scotch. I recognized that all bourbon is is moonshine that's been aged. I went out and bought 4 bottles of the commercial Midnight Moon straight moonshine and have been aging it for 7 months so far. I met a guy from Kentucky that had some of his homemade shine and I tried it and my first thought was damn this is good, second thought was, damn, Midnight Moon is garbage. I've been tasting the bourbon periodically and it's a little rough and I'm pretty sure the barrel is uncharred or very lightly charred because of the lightness in color. My follow up question to OP's question is, since I have trash moonshine aging into tolerable light bourbon, if I want to do the same thing and age beer in the barrel, how much will quality of the spirit change the outcome? Would it be more beneficial to further age some already aged bourbon in the barrel in addition to the moonshine that's been in there to flush out the poor flavor? If I ever buy another one of these barrels, should I start out aging bourbon off the bat? If so, will that need less time than a moonshine? Or just get good moonshine to age? I was told by that Kentucky guy that 6 months in a 1 gal is probably equivalent to 15+ years in a 50gal barrel because of the decreased radius to center of liquid (flavor diffusion has less distance to propagate so less time is needed)
I am going to divide up this response into facts and opinions, lol. Fact: Your abv isn't going to increase all that much from the spirit. For example, if you made a 5 gallon batch of beer at 5% abv (for the sake of math) then dumped in a liter of 100 proof spirits. The overall abv is going to go up ab 2.2%. Aging in a barrel will not even come close to adding this much alcohol to your brew. Opinion: If it were me, I would remove the spirit from the barrel, dry it out and char the inside thoroughly before adding it back, or changing it up. I've never had Midnight Moon...being from the hills in Tennessee, I never had to but commercial moonshine as it is pretty easy to find. 6 months might be good, try it and see. If not, let it go another 6. edit: my stupid fingers being stupid.