StillSmart

I tried to make my own toasted oak sticks and ruined my hooch.

I got some English oak and cut lenghts of wood, 1/2 inch by 3 inches.
I put the sticks in an oven for 3 hours at 180c. I then took the sticks out and toasted them with a propane torch'

I put two sticks in a 1 litre jar filled with cornflake whiskey and put two sticks in a 1 litre jar of Rum.

After a month I decided to try them out. The whiskey tasted like burnt leaves and the rum tasted like a tree. Both jars had to be re-distilled.

Apparently wood from fruit trees like Apple or Cherry is good for aging spirits.

Can I ask why you toasted the sticks then charred them?

Gaztops wrote:I put two sticks in a 1 litre jar

I use a 2" stick in 4 litres for 2 years.

Gaztops wrote:After a month I decided to try them out. The whiskey tasted like burnt leaves and the rum tasted like a tree.

This is characteristic of too much oak for too short a time. You will end up will a high tannin content and a "woody" taste.
You could try just toasted oak (your times and temperatures should produce a nice medium to dark toast with a nice vanilla note) or just charring raw oak to an "alligator skin" char.
I always boil my oak for 5 minutes to remove the water soluble nasties first. Makes for a smoother tipple.

scarecrow

I put the sticks in the oven to dry them out and also i read somewhere that there's a certain temperature that will bring out a hint of vanilla from the wood.

The only hint I got out of the wood was a hint of Kipper.

mate, there's oak stick toasting...and then there's oakstick charring.
as a general guide...if you wrap it up in foil and put it in the oven at mod temp, that's toasting whilst if you blast it directly with a hot flame, thats charring.
different levels of toasting OR charring (based on time exposed to said heat) will provide the chance to bring different flavour profiles to your 'hard-earned'.

what is also very important is
what quality of oak you use
how much you use (per volume of spirit)
what ABV% the spirit is at soaking time
how long you leave the oak soak going for *.
to this end....there is a mountain of good advice already on this forum as well as others (eg Kiwistillers guide). perhaps a suitable search or two will be good?

when in doubt.....IMHO, make sure your oaksticks get a quick preboil prior to (first) use and then, be patient, ie use sticks sparingly over a long time in spirit no stronger than 65%ABV at the start...it works for me anyway

(* Or, of course, bung it all in a microwave...cue fullysilenced )

My favourite is American White Oak but then I'm a Bourbon/Sour Mash man. I'd recommend trying French Oak and give a 5 minute boil before toasting or charring, this is a vital stage.

I've also found that unseasoned Oak gives terrible results.

AM

Yes, more research is needed. I got the information from a thread on HomeDistillers about baking and then charring.

The ABV of the likker was 60% and I put 2 sticks, half inch by 3 inches into each of the 2 jars and left them for a month.

I used the heart wood of English Oak. I should of used American White Oak but I couldn't find any relatively cheap.

I'm not giving up and plan to do so more searches.

Thanks for replies and information fellas.

Its a shame we cant get the toasted Oak Dominoes that Kentucky Stephen mentioned in one of his excellent videos over here,perhaps it might be worth some of us getting in touch with Richard at Wineworks to see if he can source a supplier of them.

It could be the taste of English Oak. I know that American and French Oak produce different flavours.

Chuck

Oak must be seasoned. Using green oak will impart flavours you dont want.

Maybe this will help.

Hi,
I have been using 2 different oak i purchased in uk. These are both from some brewshops.
i have a white french oak for wine in a shavings, like dust really (not toasted), and also a burnt oak, looks like 1/2 strips very thin easy to filter. Both i used at a tea spoon per litre added to my gallon or dj, each oak to a different dj, to try for an experiment, 1 month later. I started with a 55 abv people say gives vanilla flavours, which works well, and then i will lower the abv to 45 abv to get sweetness and sugars. So far this rum is amazing, it does change daily at first or maybe its my taste buds. i brewed it with dark muscavado sugar and i got good colour, but i added a few drops of brewers caramel for improved colour to a test bottle ( of 750ml) just to see how the flavour is going. its mazing so far. Wow this is fun! have you looked at the brew shops oak and then compare your own oak to see the difference, the oaks i tried were very cheap and worth trying to get an idea of what the effect will be like with little outlay and you get to see how much its burnt. i also treated on a few friends most prefer the unburnt french oak shavings its nice flavour and hard to get wrong or overdo. which surprises me as i thought the burnt would be better but not so in the taste test so far.

Now,I use only oak from retired whisky barrels,planed down to clean wood,and now un-charred,as charred produced annoying precipitate.
Horses for courses.....
Robert.