Fruit Wood Score

Treatment and handling of your distillate.

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OtisT
Master of Distillation
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Location: Pacific Northwest

Fruit Wood Score

Post by OtisT »

I traveled home for the Thanksgiving holiday and an old friend from High School had these gifts waiting for me. Apple, Cherry, and Plum wood. The Plum is fresh cut, Apple has been out for a year, and the Cherry was cut 4 months ago.
Holiday Fruit Wood
Holiday Fruit Wood
I hope to get a few thicker planks out of this to mill into some Badmo barrel ends. I know I will have lots of fruit sticks to play with and I am jazzed.

Question 1: Is aging with Heartwood vs. Sapwood an issue for non-oak Wood? I’ve read the reasons for not using oak sap wood has to do with tannins, and I don’t believe these three are heavy in tannins.

Thanks. Otis
Otis’ Pot and Thumper, Dimroth Condenser: Pot-n-Thumper/Dimroth
Learning to Toast: Toasting Wood
Polishing Spirits with Fruitwood: Fruitwood
Badmotivator’s Barrels: Badmo Barrels
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Appalachia-Shiner
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Re: Fruit Wood Score

Post by Appalachia-Shiner »

See my post about Wild Chery wood that I made a couple weeks ago.
Ain't doin THAT shit anymore.
OtisT
Master of Distillation
Posts: 3184
Joined: Sat Oct 24, 2015 11:59 am
Location: Pacific Northwest

Re: Fruit Wood Score

Post by OtisT »

Appalachia-Shiner wrote:See my post about Wild Chery wood that I made a couple weeks ago.
Ain't doin THAT shit anymore.
Thanks for the heads up. I have a handful of jars that were aged on oak for a time, and now have toasted cherry sticks in them. As these come of age, I’ll be sure to drink a fair amount and see if I get the headache. The cherry I used previously was kiln dried furniture wood, and when I purchased the wood they had no idea as to the species it was ( I asked).

I guess I will do a little more research then, and possibly some of my own testing before I go crazy with cherry. I know some who have had success with Cherry w/o the headache issue, so my inclination would be to figure out what type of cherry to use or how I need to prep it in order to not cause this issue.

Do you happen to know the specific species of cherry you used that caused your headaches? There are several species of wild cherry.

In my neck of the woods we have only two native species of cherry, Common Chokecherry and Bitter Cherry, and one native species of plum, Klamath Plum. I need to ask my friend which species these are. I guess there is a chance these were non-native, so some sleuthing skills may be needed. Our state ag college has a great website on what is native it our state, and how to identify species.

Otis
Otis’ Pot and Thumper, Dimroth Condenser: Pot-n-Thumper/Dimroth
Learning to Toast: Toasting Wood
Polishing Spirits with Fruitwood: Fruitwood
Badmotivator’s Barrels: Badmo Barrels
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