An update is overdue i guess.
The JD chips worked real well in my opinion. Really mellowed it out and gave it a nice flavor and color(i have no experience with any other wood products, so keep that in mind). No new pictures because, well, there isnt any left which i think is a good sign Never take all your 'essence of corn' on extended hunting trips.
I've got a blue corn mash fermenting now and will be adding these chips to that as well. Hoping the same results except i have to remind myself to hide a few jars this time.
The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
How long did you have the white dog soaking on the chips?
I did mine for too long and ruined the batch I was attempting. So any assistance with times would be great.
The longest i could manage was a month, but i dont think there was enough chips in it as it stopped getting getting darker after 2 weeks, and it wasnt very dark.
i figured it would be better to under oak it then to over oak it so i sorted thru the bag and grabbed 6 larger pieces with char on them. I just tried torching some to get a full char but i just did that last night to some rum.
The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
To date I am not impressed. I had about 3.5 litres of a UJSM barley soaking on 40g of chips for 10 weeks. The chips were straight out of the bag. It colored up OK but really didn't do much to mature the flavour (in my mind). What I have now done is to take out all of the chips that were in the jug.
I then went off and toasted some of the JD chips. Some to a light toast, some medium and some heavy. The put 15g of each toast into the jug and we will see what happens. I had such high hopes for these chips. The smelt simply wonderful when the bag was opened - they just don't seem to have imparted that taste to the whiskey. Heres to hoping that they work better when toasted.
I've been testing the long time aging in oak and found that with the barrels the amount of surface to amount of liquid works out really well over a year or so. Only if it is left where the temperature changes. As for chips it is really dependant on the amount of toast to the amount of chips you add. I have been adding enough medium toasted chips to cover the palm of my hand and half as much dry white rice. Turns out excellent in about 2 weeks. The rice seems to help with smoothing out the sharpness. The liquid on chips seems to never last longer than 3 weeks. The tasting uses it up before a longer time has lapsed. I have found all of the research on your parts to have been very helpful. Thanks to all.
I have comment on this before so bear with me. I use the Jack D. smoking chips, But first I soak on oak planer shavings. It takes only 30 min. on planer shavings to get color an taste.
Sometimes this is a far as I go. It will have all the color in 30 min. Then I put it in a 10 gal. cooler on the Jack Daniels Oak Barrel Chips and a little maple syrup. 3 weeks does it for me.
Are these similar to the JD ones? The wood is ground up then made into a little puck. Should I steer clear because they must use something to stick them together like that... or would it be okay since they are meant to use for smoking food anyway?
They work remarkably well for UJSSM and SweetFeed. I have been using them for months. They do not flavor a neutral. They do not make it taste like JD. They are actually oaking the booze. They will smooth and darken a good white dog.
Because they have been exposed to alcohol before there no tannins remaining to cause off flavors. For that reason they can be used in a fairly high ratio for forced aging when desired. Even with them, time is the master.
I have been planning on doing a post on how to use them. I will get around to it one of these days. They are pretty fool proof for a beginner.
Rather than start a new thread since there are SO many for JD smoking chips, I'll ask here. The answer may be buried in one of the other threads, but I can't find it yet.
Typically I buy the oak blocks for smoking, chisel the outer off, toast, then char for aging.
I have a friend who likes the taste of Jack (but not the harshness). All I could find was the JD smoking chips. Now it would seem to me that charring these would just burn them to nothing or get very little of a char on the surface. So what is the best way to use them to age and oak and get some JD flavor?
moosemilk wrote:Rather than start a new thread since there are SO many for JD smoking chips, I'll ask here. The answer may be buried in one of the other threads, but I can't find it yet.
Typically I buy the oak blocks for smoking, chisel the outer off, toast, then char for aging.
I have a friend who likes the taste of Jack (but not the harshness). All I could find was the JD smoking chips. Now it would seem to me that charring these would just burn them to nothing or get very little of a char on the surface. So what is the best way to use them to age and oak and get some JD flavor?
Try nuke aging say a pint with chips directly out of the bag moose, I bet you your friend will pick up enough JD to be happy. I don't have a very educated pallet, but I used to drink JD and I've only ever used the chips to age because it taste familiar without the bite.
But what the heck do I know.....I am still learning.
Thanks SL. I'll give it a shot. I am probably going to toss them in the oven for a bit at 200 just to make sure they are clean (the outer bits of the barrel that are in there m likely). Have over ten gallons of feints at 40% to run, so plenty to mess up and experiment with.
moosemilk wrote:Thanks SL. I'll give it a shot. I am probably going to toss them in the oven for a bit at 200 just to make sure they are clean (the outer bits of the barrel that are in there m likely). Have over ten gallons of feints at 40% to run, so plenty to mess up and experiment with.
I'm running a sac run of all failed oaking experiments hopefully this weekend. I'm never afraid to sacrifice a pint for an experiment! Only problem is one of those jars has sat for a year now and I tasted it not long ago.... and now I'm not so sure I don't want to keep it!
But what the heck do I know.....I am still learning.
Moosemilk, did you read Mash Rookie's post from 2011 just before your first post? He seemed to be of the opinion that the JD flavor doesn't carry over to the new spirits. I've used JD chips for nearly 2 years and would agree with MR - there's little to no flavor carryover. I use them straight from the bag - about 1.5 to 2 weight ounces in 4/5 quart using the nuke method and then strain them out for continued aging. They work well with consistent results.
Every new member should read this before doing anything else:
The chips are split from used staves. They're slivers of many different sizes. They don't have as much of the original stave's char or residual flavors from the barrel.
The chunks are much larger pieces cut from staves. They might retain some of the original cask essence. And some of the original char may be on the chunks as well. I think a little more of the JD character will come out of the chunks as opposed to the chips.
The chunks will age (season) slower than the chips too. So, if you're after a fast age, the chips may be what you're looking for. They do give you more exposed contact area for the equivalent weight of wood.
ss
The topic title indicates chips. I've never used the chunks or staves cut into sticks, so I defer to your experience with them. When I use the chips, I measure the amount by weight. It seems to give a little more consistent and repeatable result. I would suggest that if anyone is concerned about the flavor carryover, give them a rinse/soak in a bucket of water for a day or two and then lay them out to air dry for a day or two before using them. Personally, I don't think I would want my hard earned spirits to taste anything like JD.
Every new member should read this before doing anything else:
SC, I did read MR's post. But i have also read contradictory posts as well as reinforcing ones. If I get a little flavor, that's fine. It was more about char or not, as I've never used anything that hasn't been charred.
Worse case, if I don't like them, they go to the smoker box.
Moose, if you want to put some char on them - maybe just char a few separately and add them to some uncharred. Problem with chips is that they easily flame up and you can end up with a pile of ashes. Keep a bucket of quenching water close by.
Every new member should read this before doing anything else:
While waiting for my wife to surprise me with a barrel, I decided to try the chips. I normally use the oak infusion spirals with great success.
I split the bag into 3.
I used my propane torch to char 1/3 of the bag.
I toasted another 1/3 of the bag in the oven at 360 degrees for 1 hr.
The last 1/3 I left as purchased. I just ran off a stripping run of a 30% 6 row/70% corn sour mash. I decided to pull one quart at 130 proof. I let air for the night and added 1/2 cup of the chips( I blended all 3 types). I hope I can pull good color and a decent flavor profile with this.
When using spirals, I generally reach desired color and flavor profile somewhere between 3-8 months. If I can duplicate those results I will continue this method as it is significantly cheaper.
I'm surprised you made the effort to separate the chips to 3 different piles of pre-treatment only to combine them into a single jar. Most here would've aged 3 different jars, sampled the difference, and then combined if desired. Its kinda like you took the experimentation out of the process.
ss
The bag I bought had very little charred pieces in it. I tried a couple different ways to char some of it. The oven method and taking a torch to it. I don't see much difference myself, 2 different ways to get to same place I suppose.
I might add that I have had real good results with medium char French Oak cubes, it's a totally different profile, more vanilla-ish IMO.
you can lead a horse to water but it's hard as hell to drown it
I thought about trying each one separately, but I feel it would be a bit redundant. I know that my spirals come with toast only, so after a few trials with them I decided to start charring half of it.
I knew going into it that I like the earthiness of the char and the flavor of the toast, so I just decided to go for it.
I ended up using "nuclear aging" on one bottle. 4 cycles and it is just like I aged it for 6 months. Amazing! Still not sold on the safety part though. I think the chips may be my new go to.
My best luck with the JD chips has been keeping it pretty simple, just tossing a handful in each jar and shaking occasionally.
I have cycling heat to freezer, but found some of the flavours that came off were not what I was looking for. In and out of freezer is okay to speed it up, I avoid heat now though. I try to leave my jars for 3months before adding glycerine, a little vanilla and caramel, then 1 more week after that before it is done.
I know I'm new to this board, but my experience with the JD chips has been GREAT! I bought a bag, took out a couple of big jars, added some chips from the bags to the jars, filled jars with homemade spirits, let them set for about a week or two (shaking occasionally), then drained and filtered the spirit and bingo, I had stuff that looked and tasted like JD!
I didn't char anything or do anything to the chips. One thing I didn't notice, after about a week of still in the bottles (after the initial filtering) a small deposit accumulated in the bottle of the bottles so I just passed through some cotton and was back in business!
Is this the right way to do it? I don't know, but it seemed to workout OK for me!
I want to be fair in response to this...
I did add JD chips to some of my 2nd and third generation UJSSM.. Granted it was a sugar wash. the chips were added to 2 jars.. a 2nd gen and a 3rd gen.
The jars were exposed to the elements in my stilling shed... Heating and overnight cooling...
They definitely added some character and oak and flavor..
To be honest depending on my mood I did or did NOT prefer the chips over white dog...
As Jimbo stated in a previous thread sometimes what I have is OK and sometimes it seems to be the Primo stuff..
My BEST advice is try some.. let it age for several months... See what YOU think about it.... what did it cost you?? some time..???
As Mr. Flatwoods says.... The hardest thing to add to a bottle of shine is patience...
Got a pint jar at 65% abv from an all feints run I am using the chips on. Straight out of the bag, no extra toast or char. About three weeks now and it's coming along nicely. Doesn't taste like jack, and thankful it doesn't. Think I'll use these more often.
Never take all your 'essence of corn' on extended hunting trips.
