Blending Passion with Flavor

After the “high wine” production process at the Jim Beam distillery in Clermont, Kentucky, it’s tapped into 52-gallon American White Oak barrels and left to rest. As the season’s change, according to the bourbon maker, Kentucky’s climate expands and contracts the barrel, allowing it to seep into the wood and extract the caramelized sugars and oak flavor, for a minimum of four years.  

When the final product is removed from the barrels, they are not reused to age bourbon, but are sourced by breweries and wineries, repurposed by specialty furniture markers, or—if any of the boards are cracked or damaged—they are shipped north to Pennsylvania, to Energex’s wood pellet manufacturing plant. There, the stays, or barrel planks, are protected from the elements until it’s time to turn them into grilling pellets. “Being bourbon drinkers and lover of Jim Beam, we reached out to them to find out what they did with their spent barrels and stream of materials,” says Kenny Lisle, Energex business development manager. “Turns out that they have a large supply of unusable barrel pieces—thousands of tons of barrel stays in their inventory. We secured a licensing agreement then and began taking shipments directly from Kentucky.” Read More

Source: Biomass Magazine