Non-Barrel Aging: Should Oak/Wood Be Soaked?

[Avalir]

Hey y'all,

So this question (see subject/title) has been creeping up on me the past couple months and I've been having a difficult time finding an answer via internet searches, so I wanted to see if any of our community members may have some thoughts or input.

Obviously, with traditional barrel aging we would allow the oak to swell with water to make it leak resistant. My question is more along the line of how the water saturation of the oak/wood effect the flavors imparted into the spirit and also it's impact/influence on the aging/maturing process as a whole.

Some background on how I came up with the question:
As many of us here do, I don't age/mature my spirits in a barrel, but rather in a glass jug with wood tossed in. When I first began this hobby, I was using store-bought oak cubes and I would let them soak in water several days prior to tossing in my likker (to remove some of the likely present water-soluble undesirable compounds), followed by allowing them to dry for at least overnight and up to two days before they were charred and tossed in the likker. Always had decently consistency in flavor results doing this. Since then, I've begun using hand-harvested wood - heartwood from mature American white oak, cut on the in-law's personal home saw mill, dried in a solar kiln, cut to size on a table saw, and toasted in the oven. Prior to toasting this harvested wood, I gave it a nice 30 minute boil, followed by soaking for several days, and drying overnight (again, to help remove some water-soluble undesirables). I toasted wrapped in foil and stored them in sealed mason jars. My first couple batches with this wood were phenomenal tasting and consistent. A few months down the road I decided to unseal the jars so the wood could release more moisture (if it was retaining much; they weren't wet to the touch and there wasn't any visible condensation inside the jars to suggest high moisture); I constantly run a dehumidifier in my house and humidity in home won't exceed the 35-40% range. When I use this wood, I'll just grab from the jar, char, and toss in the likker (with a brief drop in water to clean off ash of course). The past few batches since uncovering the jars definitely have seen a noticeable decline in flavor. I'm curious if this may be due to having minimal water content when it goes into the likker. Another theory is just due to air exposure ridding it of some aromatics and/or flavor (when jars were sealed they'd always give off wonderful odors when opened, since unsealing there's very minimal smell to it). As a side note, my charring has always seemed to give decently consistent results from eyeballing the char, so I don't believe this to be related to over or under charring the oak.

I don't currently have and spare white, drinking quality likker to run an experiment with, so I figured I'd ask y'all if you may have experienced/noticed similar things or may have had any thoughts on why this may be happening.

[Demy]

Generally I do not do any immersion in water, I thought about it (short boil) but never performed. Boiling removes the tannins from the new wood but also reduces the flavor (sometimes it's good other times bad, it depends on the wood), I think immersion in water is similar ...

[NZChris]

What are these undesirables that you think you need to get rid of?

[Avalir]

What are these undesirables that you think you need to get rid of?

Not quite sure, to be honest. Based off a reading I had done before ever attempting to age. Wouldn't know where to go back and find the post, but I don't recall it specifying what the undesirables were there either; it was more of touching the logic of the aging proof range and stating the reason most won't typically age under 110 prof is that it'll pull more undesirable water-solubles from the wood. Then whether it was the same poster, or different I can't recall, but there was the proposal of soaking the wood in water to pull those "nasties" from the wood prior to putting it in the likker - believe they had also went on about flavor of naturally air dried and weathered wood being superior to kilned due to rain water washing those away and furthermore other influences to break down cellulose in the wood or something to that degree.

But long story short, more so a reading I did that when I was new and the information stuck. Granted, it took me a while to undo some of the practices I learned from readings when I was new that I later came to find were detrimental to my final product.

But regardless, I still find it eerie that the flavor influence of my oak stash seems to have dimished over time.

[Avalir]

Don't have time to read this in its entirety as I'm on my lunch break (I work 3rd shift), but this article does somewhat give specification to what's more alcohol soluble and water soluble in oak/wood, or at least to how it relates to what's extracted by whiskey at the higher and lower ends of the barrel-proof range. I'll give it a more in depth read when I get off in a few hours.

http://whiskyscience.blogspot.com/2011/ ... s.html?m=1

[The Baker]

Have you (anyone) thought of using spirit, or say port, to 'swell the barrel' before use?
You don't need to fill the barrel, just swirl it around.
Maybe leave it a while then toss it into your feints and do it again...
Rather than wash the oakiness away in water..???

Just thinking...

Geoff

[Avalir]

I'm liking how the conversation is moving. Interesting to think about all the little variables such as wood swelling/moisture and what it was swollen with and for how long and it's impact on flavor and the aging process.

[VLAGAVULVIN]

Depends on the wood and also on your beverage desired.

I make lotsa treatments. But my oak is overpowered with tannins (and poor for lignin). Another one is also available here. It's a bit better but still it has nothing to do with white oaks. We can talk for a long time about my difficult experience, but it's interesting only as a general knowledge extension for most of the folks here.

[TwoSheds]

Limited experience here, my first jars are just over 4 months into aging with reused Bourbon staves, but here's what I do. From what I've read starting with raw oak, even already dried, is a different story.

I prepare the staves by cutting or sanding off the old char and the heavily oxidized (and possibly dirty) outside. Then I char on all 6 sides with a plumbing torch and extinguish in water. They then go straight in the spirit.

I did leave one batch in the water overnight to emulate the soaking of the barrel to swell the gaps closed, but it didn't seem to make a noticeable difference to the water they were soaking in so I concluded there was little to no benefit.

My next step will be to play with toasting after cleaning the staves up, but there are so many different instructions (times, temps, methods) I haven't been able to pick one yet.

Good luck!

TwoSheds

[Avalir]

I did leave one batch in the water overnight to emulate the soaking of the barrel to swell the gaps closed, but it didn't seem to make a noticeable difference to the water they were soaking in so I concluded there was little to no benefit.

Thanks! That at least gives me a little to go on until I have some more spirits laying around I can play with for an experiment. So for now I'm thinking I'm starting to lean towards the extended air exposure to the toasted wood reducing aromatics and whatever else being the likely culprit in the flavor and aroma reduction.

[Skipper1953]

I leave my raw oak sticks out in the weather for a few months. If we don't get much rain, I'll give them a good soaking with the garden hose every now and then. The 1" X 1" sticks are then stored in a cloth sack in my garage until needed. When I have spirit ready to age/condition, the sticks are lightly toasted and charred, chucked in a bucket of water for a quick rinse and then tossed into the container with the spirit. Works for me.

[Avalir]

I have a whole lot of aging experiments I really want to run just for informational purposes. I'm sure in the long run with patience and doing it the right way, differences will be negligible. But once I have a stockpile of neutrals (and yes, I'm keeping in mind results will likely vary greatly using whiskey or any spirit with flavor due to the much higher variety and concentrations of alcohols and esters present, but experiments will at least give a baseline and should make for a good post). But I want to test both abv and temperature/temperature fluctuation range and its impact on a variety of toast levels. Once again, I speculate giving it ample time (several months - couple years, along with keeping outside for that nice 20-30F fluctuation on most any given day, will make most differences negligible), but I feel it'll offer good info to those aiming for a 2-4 week time and give insight on abv and toast to use for their target flavor profile.
Since moving, I'm just keeping my aging jug in a sealed lowes bucket just to protect it from direct sunlight/uv light, but it just stays in a non-enclosed outbuilding. So far I'm very satisfied with the results compared to steady ambient temperature whilst attempting aging indoors. The lowes bucket also keeps it out of plain sight. I'm sure if anyone does try to steal from me (I'm in a good safe area, so it's highly unlikely), they'd be far more interested in my tools and yard equipment than trying to see what I have in over a dozen buckets.