The barrel needed to be soaked for a few days prior to use to get it to expand and tighten up, and from the amount that seeped out at first I was glad it hadn't just rushed in and filled it with distillate - but I get ahead of myself...
A few months ago ago I got started and made 5 x 23L batches of mash (roughly one batch every 2 weeks and as the next was fermenting out I split each 23L in two and ran them through the pot still to push them up to about 35% alc.
This weekend I ran the roughly 25L of low wine through the 10L alembic still in 4 batches to get around 8.8L of distillate that produced 10L of 65% casking strength whisky.
The 10L bucket of distillate is seen above. It has a whiskey profile already and the colour will come from the oak, as well as the more complex flavours developing.
10L of 65% whisky all tucked away in it's new barrel, which will be ready by the end of Feb 2019. At that stage I'll decant it and drop it down to drinking strength, probably in the 38-45% region. Depending on how much the angels have taken it could yield between 12-15L or so. I hope it will be drinkable, because there'll be a lot of it!
