toasted oak chips

by **baldyman** » Sun Mar 15, 2009 8:17 pm

Where is the best place to buy toasted oak chips

Dave

by **Jimmy** » Mon Mar 16, 2009 10:29 pm

I\'ve never used the homebrew ones, but you can get the Jack Daniels ones from BBQ shops online for about a tenner - obviously, these make things taste like JD so not for everyone!
Anyone else got a good supplier?

by **HangOver** » Tue Mar 17, 2009 7:04 pm

i used the jack d chips and it tasted good, not really like Jack but nice.

put in a drop or two of bourbon essence, (not as much as it says on the bottle) and it\'ll be not far off. I like it without the essense however.
get your barrel chips from any decent home brew shop.

by **Mikey** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 4:55 pm

I have just bought some JD chips.. Can anyone tell me roughly how much to add to what quantity of \'vodka\' ? And what sort of time period I should allow the two to Tango?

by **Jimmy** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 7:31 pm

I put a handful into a glass jar with a litre of vodka - perhaps 7 or 8 of the bigger pieces. I\'m not saying that\'s the perfect amount, but it works for me! The more you put in, theoretically the more \'woody\' the taste will get but that\'s also affected by how long you leave them. If you\'re leaving for long periods, then less might work better (the wood flavour might become overpowering) but I\'ve found 1 - 2 months with that much is OK for my mixers.
There are a few methods you can try to speed it up - one involves freezing the jar each night, then leaving it to defrost slowly in the daytime, apparently you can do this for about a week and it is equivalent to a couple of months of aging - not tried it though. Also, you can cover the jar with a dark cloth and leave it on a sunny windowsill, this is similar in that it heats up in the day and cools in the night. You will lose a little more through evaporation this way though if your jar isn\'t 100% airtight.
In other words, like most things in this hobby - experiment, find your sweet spot, and then tell us all so we can try it!

by **Mikey** » Sat Mar 21, 2009 7:43 pm

Cheers for that Jimmy.. Was just looking for a starting point. Will let you know what I do and how it turns out

by **HangOver** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 4:31 pm

i bought the home brew JD chips not the BBQ type, i\'ve heard of people using both.

I used 15g per 1L and left for about 4-6 weeks, shake it every day or two.
Keep your chips afer use and throw them in with your next bottle.

by **Jimmy** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:34 am

And when you\'re done, you can still put them on the BBQ!

by **umpa** » Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:56 pm

I bought some oak from the home brew shop .co.Uk they were in little white packets and were like sawdust. I tosted them with the blowlamp and it turned out to be ok.
Not like a real jd to was ok to me.

by **Phantom** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:16 am

Well that\'s basically what \"oak chips\" are i.e. white oak sawdust. My local HBS keeps straight \"chips\" as well as \"toasted\" chips, but he also has the small bits of chopped up/split JD barrels.
I just tend to get the toasted oak chips.
I\'ve been thinking about buying a barrel from the timber yard I found who sells them not far from me. Burgundy/Bordeaux barrels that have only been used the once.
I figured that it\'d be straight forward to dismantle a barrel, run an electric plane over the staves to remove any dirt from the outside (not much - they\'re \"very clean\" barrels) and the wine staining on the inside, then just cut and split them down and toaste them in the oven.
The small packets of JD chips/pieces are about Â£3 a packet - I don\'t remember what weight the packs are but they\'re not very big - I\'m guessing like 100 or 200 grammes! Just think how much I could get out of a barrel at Â£65 - a hell of a lot!

by **Jimmy** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:33 pm

The wine staining can add interesting flavours - I have some chipped wine barrels and they can work well for things that have citrus flavour like the orange thingybob I made once. I wouldn\'t use them like that for whiskey, but it\'d be worth keeping some with the wine on for experiments if you chipped a whole barrel.

by **Phantom** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 5:32 pm

The wine staining can add interesting flavours - I have some chipped wine barrels and they can work well for things that have citrus flavour like the orange thingybob I made once. I wouldn\'t use them like that for whiskey, but it\'d be worth keeping some with the wine on for experiments if you chipped a whole barrel.

So if I decide to make the trip out to the timber yard and throw the Â£60 at the bloke for a barrel Jimmy, what would you think would be the best size to chop/chip it down to?
I mean, I could easily keep slicing for the "dust" consistency of "oak chips" a la HBS, or like the "stillspirits" sizes "genuine JD" chips, with are more like tiny pieces of kindling that have been split/cut to about 1cm in length, or even just use an electric plane on some of the staves to make shavings (though I\'d have to be vvv careful when toasting those).
It\'s just so I\'ve got some idea about what might be best......
Before I go and splurge some cash to the "barrel man".......(plus it\'s about a 30 mile drive and I don\'t know if I\'d get a barrel in my car or whether I\'d have to borrow the works van)

by **Jimmy** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 7:43 pm

I guess it all comes down to surface area and depth of penetration - the \'sawdust\' stuff will work quickest and give the most surface area per handful but you wouldn\'t be able to get the same effects as a larger piece with charring on the outside, \'cooked\' wood beneath and undamaged wood below that.
If I was planning long term aging, I\'d probably go with some sticks about 4 inches long, just to make it easier to chop and to toast. For a quick blast, the shavings would probably work best. As ever, not an exact science though! Plus you should have enough to spend a day working on that barrel and make all the different kinds you need. A mix of the types might even be the best bet.

by **Phantom** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:08 pm

I guess it all comes down to surface area and depth of penetration - the \'sawdust\' stuff will work quickest and give the most surface area per handful but you wouldn\'t be able to get the same effects as a larger piece with charring on the outside, \'cooked\' wood beneath and undamaged wood below that.
If I was planning long term aging, I\'d probably go with some sticks about 4 inches long, just to make it easier to chop and to toast. For a quick blast, the shavings would probably work best. As ever, not an exact science though! Plus you should have enough to spend a day working on that barrel and make all the different kinds you need. A mix of the types might even be the best bet.

Yes, that\'d make sense. Currently, I\'ve only used the sawdust type of "toasted oak chips" in my "mixed fruit brandy", but I\'d suspect that if I can get my finger out my arse and get a barrel, then I could easily make "mini-staves" and try it that way.
Irrespective, I\'d have enough "proper" barrel oak to be able to mess around with it......
I suspect it\'d be the toasting experiments that would take the longest....what with having to juggle the oven temperatures etc....

by **Opus 27** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 11:15 pm

Following on from the idea of chipping a barrel I\'ve had a route round in my workshop for some oak. Didn\'t find any American White but loads of European. so I\'ve cut some sticks up 2mm x 4mm x 50mm. I gave them 15 mins in the oven at 250c. They came out blackened but not burnt although there was plenty of smoke. I\'ve put 25grms in 750ML

of Still Spirits Reserve Scotch and ditto in a bottle of Top Shelf Irish. I\'ve kept a bottle of each untreated as a bench mark. My thoughts are that if it works it has to be more economic to buy a couple of feet of 2\" x 2\" oak than Â£60 for a barrel and 2 feet wil produce a hell of a lot of jumbo match sticks.