Re coopered barrel

[captnKB]

Just found a cooper who is willing to take our freshly emptied bourbon barrels and open up the barrels scrape the staves and heads clean, then reassemble and rechar the barrel.

Is anyone out there doing something like this?

Does it create any labelling issues as the barrel is not technically new anymore?

The price is WAY better to reuse our barrels this way then to buy new

[OnBatch]

Hmm, interesting concept but I believe it would not be considered new anymore. Plus, even though you have scraped it clean and re-charred them. The flavoring may be different the second time around. I'm sure you could easily find ways to use your renewed barrels for other products and processes.

[SpiritedConsultant]

Barrels would not be considered new from a legal standpoint. The industry term be rejuvenated. This is typically only down for casks that have seen quite a bit of use and the aging is not the same as new. I don't know the specifics of your product, but if you're making bourbon, there's probably still plenty of character left in the wood. Assuming you are starting with good wood and good spirit, you should be able to sell them for a good price.

[PeteB]

I re-cooper many of my barrels. The previous contents can be seen soaked well into the wood, The taste and odour is still obvious at about 1/4 inch. Traces of previous contents go right through staves especially at joints.

In my opinion scraping and re-charring actually increases the influence of the previous contents. It does bring out extra wood notes as well but they are not quite the same as new wood.

[captnKB]

Hey pete thanks for your input.

We do reuse some of our bourbon barrels but the spirit seems to age much slower in a reused barrels, the idea of having them recharred seems like a great opportunity to get whiskey with a good color quicker than with the used barrels