Oak Firewood Logs for Aging

[phanmo]

Can anyone see any problem with using firewood for aging? I'm based in Poitiers, France and the main source for firewood here is Limousin oak. We've got about a face cord of firewood here, all oak, which has been outside for about 4 or 5 years now. I've split some bigger logs and taken out the heartwood which I'd like to use for aging my apple distillate to do a pseudo-Calvados.
The other idea I had is to use oak veneer sheets. My girlfriend does marquetry restoration on furniture and she's got lots of sheets of veneer. No oak at the moment but it's easy to get. It's more or less as seen on this site: http://www.originalmarquetry.co.uk/veneers.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
I was think of aging in 1L glass bottles with a sheet of french oak veneer rolled up and put through the opening as shown in the attachment. Obviously I'd use the veneer without a glue backing, no dead horse in my booze!!!
Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
Cheers

[The Chemist]

Either should work. It'd be interesting to see a comparison.

[phanmo]

I've gone ahead with the firewood and, after a bit more forum browsing, I'm also using some pear that I had lying around after spring pruning. I split both woods into little sticks, tinfoiled them, and toasted at 200°C for about two hours. Damn it smelt nice! The oak package gave a huge whiff of vanilla when I opened it up. It's been about 8 hours now and the oak bottle is a nice pale golden colour and the pear is an amazing pinkish peach colour. The oak is a little cloudy but I'm pretty sure it's because I tossed in a piece that was burnt a little too much, I fished it out, hopefully a coffee filter should get rid of it.
A buddy of mine is an arborist so I'm gonna get him to save me some cuttings if he does any pear or apple trees; oak I've got tons of.
The left is on pear wood, the right is on oak; there's about a liter in each, and a bit more raw spirit, which I'm keeping as is for blending. The oak looks a lot darker in the photo than it actually is. Oh, it's all at about 45%ABV.
If I try the veneer idea, I'll post details.

[Dnderhead]

You will want the hart wood sapwood will be bitter

[gs_moonshine]

if you toasted that veneer if you can would almost be like turning your bottle into a 1L barrel. It seems like it would be a pain to get it out of the bottle to reuse it though.

[Treeking55]

if you toasted that veneer if you can would almost be like turning your bottle into a 1L barrel. It seems like it would be a pain to get it out of the bottle to reuse it though.

use a set of tweezers, reach in and grab it , turn tweezers and twirl it small enough to come out the top

[phanmo]

After a bit more thought, I've decided to try a couple of bottles of the veneer thing. I'm using wide-mouth bottles for ease of removal. I can't toast the oak before putting it in the bottle because it gets too brittle to roll up, so I'm going to put it in and toast the whole thing, bottle and all, in the oven. As long as I'm careful with the cooling down of the bottles it should be okay.

I figure I'll have two mutually exclusive possible problems:

either too much oak because of both surfaces of the wood being in contact
or the exact opposite, too little because the veneer is only about a milimeter thick

Most posts I've read here talk about depth of penetration over time, but the veneer is going to be soaked through in a couple of minutes. We'll see what happens after my run this weekend.

[jdonly1]

I can't toast the oak before putting it in the bottle because it gets too brittle to roll up, so I'm going to put it in and toast the whole thing, bottle and all, in the oven

Be careful mate,it might boil over and catch on fire,also evaporation will be a problem

[punkin]

I can't toast the oak before putting it in the bottle because it gets too brittle to roll up, so I'm going to put it in and toast the whole thing, bottle and all, in the oven

Be careful mate,it might boil over and catch on fire,also evaporation will be a problem

I expect he means the bottles will be empty except for the venneer....

[jdonly1]

I can't toast the oak before putting it in the bottle because it gets too brittle to roll up, so I'm going to put it in and toast the whole thing, bottle and all, in the oven

Be careful mate,it might boil over and catch on fire,also evaporation will be a problem

I expect he means the bottles will be empty except for the venneer....

woops,kinda misses that

[Hawke]

How about rolling the veneer and use the rings from the mason jars to hold them while toasting. It would save you from having to do a cooling cycle on the glass and possibly over-cooking it.

[phanmo]

That's a good idea! I figure i'll roll the veneer to the size of the bottle opening then use some wire to hold it tight while toasting.

And yeah, I meant toasting the veneer in the bottle by itself!

[HookLine]

Be careful with the type of wire you use. I'd be avoiding the standard galvanised stuff.

[rad14701]

Good thinking Hookline... I never would have thought of anyone using anything but copper wire but I'm sure there are people who would contemplate diving into that junk drawer that's half full of old mangled bread bag ties... I'm sure others have that same drawer in their kitchen or workshop - or both...

[phanmo]

Good point!! I was thinking that the roll would hold it's shape after toasting but if not I'll be sure to use copper.