Making Oak Chips

[dis-still-in]

I have read the page on making oak chips and have sliced up some oak from my property in anticipation of running my first batch of whisky. I thought the quickest way to char the oak would be to hit it with my oxy-acetylene torch, but am now wondering if that will achieve the desired result. Too much heat? I also thought about putting a selection of oak in the whisky, from some raw slices, to get the 'oaky' flavor, to some toasted slices, to achieve the 'sweet' and some 'vanillins' and then some heavily charred to get some 'almond' and 'toasted' flavors.

I assume that at this stage it is mostly up to the desired flavor profile of the final product as to what levels of toasted/charred oak one uses, but just want to make sure that I am going about it in the right manner. I am worried that the torch is just scorching and not achieving the right levels of sugar caramalization etc. That is, I don't want to throw a bunch of merely burned wood slices into my first whisky! I am also about to throw some in the oven in some aluminum foil to get a nice toast, any suggestions on cooking time?

Finally, if I do use the torch, will a quick quench in water help 'activate' the charcoal layer and provide some filtering capacity?

Thanks.