Smoking the oak sticks?

Treatment and handling of your distillate.

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Greggle2000
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Smoking the oak sticks?

Post by Greggle2000 »

I was just reading in whiskey advocate(winter 2018) that West Cork Glengariff has a pleated charred cask series.

Has anyone here ever peated or smoked the oak sticks they use to age their creations???
Instead of peat smoking the grains.

Sounds like a neat experiment.
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kiwi Bruce
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Re: Smoking the oak sticks?

Post by kiwi Bruce »

Yes...I have some thrice used, T-Pee cut, bourbon staves, that had stopped giving me any joy in my single malts. I left them in the oven on low overnight to dry them out completely, soaked them in a 50/50 sherry/ bourbon mix, again overnight and smoked them over Canadian peat to dryness. My advise is...if you do this use the smoked oak VERY sparingly...it can over smoke a good whisky PDQ.
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Greggle2000
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Re: Smoking the oak sticks?

Post by Greggle2000 »

What kind of time in the jar are we looking at?
A few days? Maybe weeks?

Thanks.
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kiwi Bruce
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Re: Smoking the oak sticks?

Post by kiwi Bruce »

Check it often...I let "new" bourbon staves live in my single malt until I like the color, could be three or four weeks, but then I start tasting each day or so. With reused staves..."soaked and smoked"...start checking after 24 hours and use these with "new" or once used staves for the best results.
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jog666
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Re: Smoking the oak sticks?

Post by jog666 »

Since I toasted some pecan Ive wanted to try a smoked pecan. I threw in a wedge this evening when I fired the smoker up & place it by the stack on the rack. With everything going on today I left it in the smoker to pick up a touch more heat/smoke. Ill probably smoke that piece one more time before I send it swimming.
Greggle2000
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Re: Smoking the oak sticks?

Post by Greggle2000 »

ok I finally tried this while smoking some grains...

T-Pee cut, bourbon stave, soaked in woodford reserve bourbon for 2 days then placed in electric smoker on top of grains for 4 hours.
smoked with authentic scottish peat.

tossed the stick in with a liter of scotch for 2 days and did one freezer/thaw cycle.

wow, it was way too much smoke, and not a pleasant smoke, it taste like i chewed on a campfire/ash.
but....
all is not lost... i tried it again after a few months and it has really smoothed out.
smoke has gone away just enough to let the bourbon come through.

I dont know if this is something i would repeat again, but it is getting close.
only got smoke taste into the scotch no peat flavours.
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kiwi Bruce
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Re: Smoking the oak sticks?

Post by kiwi Bruce »

Greggle2000 wrote:wow, it was way too much smoke, and not a pleasant smoke, it taste like i chewed on a campfire/ash.
Did you let the smoked staves sit-out and air before you used them?
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nateboussad
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Re: Smoking the oak sticks?

Post by nateboussad »

I use any type of oak I can get my hands on.
A quick check on Bing says Pin Oak is in the Red Oak family, and Red Oak is good for smoking.
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