Small casks ?

[bigvalen]

I was down in Dingle Distillery the weekend before, for their "Whiskey School", where you drive their distiller nuts by spending the day shadowing them, and asking questions for 9 hours. Really amazing fun.

They had a bunch of 25l casks, that they are using for aging small batches for people. I was thinking "Huh, perfect for your personal cask-aged sour".

I was wondering - anyone got a line on small casks ? I know a guy in Poland who made me up some nice 12l ones for me previously, with wooden/cork taps and everything, but postage might be a killer. It'd be nice to have an Irish source.

Would people be interested in a group-buy ?

[irish_goat]

Do they give the casks to the customer or do they bottle the 25L do you know? Only issue with smaller casks is the surface area to beer is massively increased so you get a lot more wood character from them.

[bigvalen]

I assume they bottle - most customers are export, and you can't export wooden kegs with whiskey in them. But then the kegs would be reused...so it'll be a few years until you get your hands on any

That said, if you have a problem with wood character, you can first-age them for a few months, then age them longer, over time, as the oak is leached out. (it's what they do with fresh oak, for bourbon, before they send them to Ireland.