Spirals not oak

Treatment and handling of your distillate.

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PoppaW
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Spirals not oak

Post by PoppaW »

So I found som bigger charred spirals and like what I have and saw sugar maple and spanish cedar spirals. I can see sugar maple giving a good flavor but what about the cedar. I figure it’s for wine but I like to experiment.
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Saltbush Bill
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by Saltbush Bill »

Everything I ever read about spirals said they were not the best for Spirts, to much end grain in them, same as chips.
Never personally experimented with spirals , just passing on what Ive read a lot of times.
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acfixer69
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by acfixer69 »

I've chatted with two different coopers over the years and both gave me the same answer to using spirals. Coopers when building barrels go to a lot of effort to not let the end grain of the wood come in contact with the product in the barrel. Seems the spirals do just the opposite. So I've been tole. Some think to thing about.

Posted same time as Salted
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Bushman
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by Bushman »

Seems like spirals were a fad for several years, probably long enough for people to test them and analyze the results. Never hear about them anymore but I also haven’t been to the National ADI Conference in several years.
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Re: Spirals not oak

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I figured the spirals would work ok. I guess I need to get a barrel and not be so cheap. Ihave experimented enough to know what I made good so should focus on making enough to fill a barrel.
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by PoppaW »

What flavour does end grain give. Now im curious?
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by n_plains_drifter »

A local cooper here actually has barrels with honeycomb staves or groves milled into the staves. Their claim is that exposing more end grain is actually beneficial (From their website):

End grain is exposed by cross-cutting grooves into stave surfaces or the matrix of CNC routed holes in stave. These cuts allow aqueous alcohol to flow into the wood and extract multiple layers of caramelized sugars.

Each Honey Comb stave has a huge cross section exposed for the extraction of oak sourced sugars. We have been accused of having the sweetest whiskey barrels on the planet. Accelerated Aging!! Patented Honey Comb Staves

For those who are interested and want to experiment, they sell staves for aging in glass in a half dozen or more wood species (oak, maple, ash, cherry)

Not sure if posting links to commercial providers is aok, so ping me if you want details.

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Saltbush Bill
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by Saltbush Bill »

PoppaW wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:06 pm I guess I need to get a barrel and not be so cheap. Ihave experimented enough to know what I made good so should focus on making enough to fill a barrel.
No need to spend a heap of money on a barrel if you don't want, just find alternatives to spirals, home toasted sticks ,or something like these https://www.stilldragon.com.au/american ... ium-toast/, there are many different oak adjuncts out there to use without using spirals or chips.
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by HDNB »

PoppaW wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:08 pm What flavour does end grain give. Now im curious?
imho, it is a case of too much wood is too much wood. The formula is time and wood.

the end grain is going to give over faster, if you don't over do it, you are still missing time. if you include all the time with lots of end grain you'll have too much wood.

quality hootch will give a superior finished product if you lack the time, so if you make good base booze a short time on lots of end grain is going to give decent results.

spent wood or not enough of it will need lots of time, good base booze or not. there's a reason scotch needs 10 years and bourbon can be overdone in two.

if you are using new wood or lots of end grain you just have to be careful it's not overdone.

there's nothing in end grain that is not in the rest of the wood, but it will give over fast and easy.
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by River Rat »

HDNB wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 6:50 pm the end grain is going to give over faster, if you don't over do it, you are still missing time. if you include all the time with lots of end grain you'll have too much wood.
Very well said.
I use 1"x1"x6" sticks. Substituted three 2" sticks for the 6 incher one time, will not be doing that again. I had to pull the wood out when the whiskey was only a couple months old. I've never used spirals but the difference must be huge with all the end grain they have.
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TwoSheds
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Re: Spirals not oak

Post by TwoSheds »

I wouldn't expect end grain to have a specific flavor. There's no different material exposed, just a different structure of the same stuff.

Fluids and nutrients move through the pores of wood which run vertically in the tree when it's standing. These straws are even visible in the end grain of ring-porous woods like oak. When you look at end grain you'll see thousands of them and that is going to allow liquid in and out faster and therefore a faster exchange of flavors, but not different flavor.

White oak is unique in that the pores are filled with a substance called tyloses which aids in its water-tightness even if some end grain is exposed. (https://www.wood-database.com/wood-arti ... white-oak/) That's why it's favored by coopers.

If the wood flavors are getting in faster through end grain they may be outpacing the other things we want to happen with a spirit over time including the breakdown of fusel oils, the slight filtering effect of wood char, and the marrying of flavors, leading to a less desirable product, at least initially.

Now, a cooper's main concerns are different. Their first concern is that a barrel be water tight! If they were to use any considerable amount of end-grain, depending on the species, they could build a perfect barrel that would drain in hours!
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