Can't get oaking right

[kiwistiller]

another week later, time for a new photo:

17 days

It's looking a lot more even now, but the tastes and smells are still much better at 70% char, toasted at 60-65%.

What I'm looking forwad to is doing a dilute and colour compare at 40% at the end of this... mid janurary probably.

[blind drunk]

I had enough of the wood tasting likker I've been working on. So, since I was pretty sure it was a lost cause, I said to myself, fuck it and threw in two more sticks just to see. I thought, well I could always bury it in the yard and leave it for a bunch of years, worse case scenario. Funny thing, even though the color is god awful, the extra sticks is making it taste better. It's become less "woody" and more "oaky", if you know what I mean. The flavors are deepening and meeting somewhere in the middle ... Don't get me wrong, it's not great, but I was surprised that more sticks seems to be improving it. I guess I didn't have enough to begin with. Maybe too little makes the likker taste like wood and not like sweet oak. We'll see. bd.

[Hawke]

I do most of my aging at about 65%, with medium toasted red wine staves. If I have enough to use the 3 gallon carboy, I cover the neck with a coffee filter and just let it go. If I only have enough to use the gallon jar, I alternate between open, with a coffee filter, and closed up.
I don't start testing it until my sticks have all sunk to the bottom of the jar. (usually about the end of week #3) The longer it goes, the better it gets.

[rubber duck]

I do most of my aging at about 65%, with medium toasted red wine staves. If I have enough to use the 3 gallon carboy, I cover the neck with a coffee filter and just let it go. If I only have enough to use the gallon jar, I alternate between open, with a coffee filter, and closed up.
I don't start testing it until my sticks have all sunk to the bottom of the jar. (usually about the end of week #3) The longer it goes, the better it gets.

Do you know what the monthly evaporation rate is using a carboy and coffee filter as a cover? This sounds like a way to better mimic whats going on in a barrel.

As a side note, Apparently when aging whiskey on a new charred 40 days per gallon at 60% is the sweet spot. So for a 5 gallon barrel 200 days and for 50 gallon 2000 days. I got this info from two different sources but in not sure if it changes at less then 5 gallon, couldn't get info on that.

[kiwistiller]

i'd be quite interested in reading that info if you have links? jack daniels goes in at 70%.

[Hawke]

I haven't noticed much more than 2 to 3% evaporation from the carboy.

[kiwistiller]

I've been talking with a cooper about getting some 20-30l barrels, charred american oak, with the intention of moving them through a bourbon-scotch-rum and eventually cider as they deplete. They've said they can't (well don't want to) char small barrels, and assert that a medium toast in french oak will be just fine for what I want to do. Their site implied that they'd be able to do small in american oak but I guess not. I'm extremely dubious about this. any thoughts on their reply? full text:

Thank you for your inquiry. I have high quality barrels made of french
oak with a medium plus toast. Small barrels have a slightly thinner
stave and I therefore prefer not to toast them too heavy or char them. It
could compromise the barrels integrity and cause leaks. For your purposes a medium toast will work beautifully.

My gut instinct is that they are talking shit as I've never heard of a medium toast being a good idea for bourbon, I thought it was charred, charred, charred all the way.

The sad thing is these guys are the last commercial cooper in NZ.

[rubber duck]

i'd be quite interested in reading that info if you have links? jack daniels goes in at 70%.

I didn't get the info off the net. I have a friend that works at a distillery and I met a barrel maker. They both told me the same thing, I can't find any documentation but I would bet a cooperage could tell us more, I'm just a little hesistant to be asking to much. I'll keep my eyes open for anything more on the subject.

American borbon is barrled at no more then 125 proof. Jack isn't true borbon because it's not made in ky. so they can go to 140 proof. I think jack goes that high so as to save room but I'm not shure it's the best proof to age at.

[rubber duck]

My gut instinct is that they are talking shit as I've never heard of a medium toast being a good idea for bourbon, I thought it was charred, charred, charred all the way.

The sad thing is these guys are the last commercial cooper in NZ.

There talking shit in my opinion. You can still do a good whisky on a tosted barrel but it's not the same. I can't see any reson why a 5 gallon couldn't be chared but I'm not a cooper. I think they just don't want to mess with it.

[blind drunk]

This might be unrelated but I have a bottle of Scotch from the motherland and it states cask strength 60.2%. Also says to add a little water to open up the bouquet. Could be just marketing, but it does sound right. I really love the .2 part. Cheers, bd.

[Dnderhead]

if their using french oak most likly it is for wine, and they don't char for wine. just add charcoal to the barrel if you want.

(with out time its just flavoring)
I have a sampol barrel (10gal) of singel malt comming around good, its been in there since april.started at 60% and still at 60%
in damp wether you will lose alcohol ,in dry you will lose more water. I use tosted as I can retoast when I want and you cant
with chard.

[blind drunk]

Tried something new - I deep toasted my oak, then I charred it real good. Lots of caramel sweetness and some vanilla so far. Smells like bourbon and the color is deepening. It's been about three days doing it this way on this new batch. Taste is thin but seems to be moving in the right direction. @ 60 abv. Couldn't get that extra 0.2 that I was aiming for Cheers, bd.

ed - one thing I forgot to mention is that the 2 sample jars with pieces of oak staves from a red wine barrel are colouring nicer that the 2 sample jars with good quality untreated oak sticks. It taste a little better too ... so far.

[kiwistiller]

Allrighty, my results are in. Diluted my whisky samples and did a tasting with a whisky geek, and two wine buffs (i.e. some educated palates).

First of all, the colour comparison, which is what I was most interested in. Diluted to 40%, 50% on the left, 70% on the right, 5% step.

Charred (bonus points - how many people can you see in the reflection?)

toasted

So, it's immediately apparent that the char has a deeper colour, and significantly more red tones. What really surprised me is the lack of difference between samples after dilution. It is probably more apparent on the camera than with the naked eye. It is however noticeable that the lower proofs have more colouring than the higher, which is the opposite of undiluted. The difference is really very slight though. In fact, I'm going to ahead and disregard variations in the aging proof for colouring. It is so close that the tiny, tiny change should take a back seat to taste. Speaking of which...

The taste differences that 5% can bring are astonishing. It is hard to believe that all the samples are from the same base spirit. In most cases, you could bottle them separately and convince anyone they are completely different spirits. I'll copy in our tasting notes, in order of sampling.

Char, 50% - highly smoky, almost tar-like on the nose. Harsh overtones. very rough on the tongue, especially on the back of the palate.

Char, 55% - Noticeably smoother and lighter in flavour, and a bit more texture (tannin) to it. more approachable. a little less smoke on the nose and not tar-like, but smoke is still the overriding characteristic.

Char, 60% - smooth smoke on the nose followed by sweet fruitiness, much more complex, full. Stone fruits on the palate, with the smokiness becoming more of a background taste. lots of frontal palate stuff, noticeably sweeter.

Char, 65% - Much lighter nose. Extremely approachable. Much less smoke. still full and fruity on the palate though, if a little lighter. vanilla background.

Char, 70% - Rougher nose. lack of fruit. lots of vanilla and not much else. spirit is noticeably less smooth in the mouth with more burn, but taste is VERY light, not much flavour. just vanilla. no fruits.

Toast, 50% - Extremely dry. a touch of grass / hay on the nose, and a touch of fruitiness on the palate. No vanilla.

Toast, 55% - Extremely harsh. Almost undrinkable. Possibly we thought something has gone wrong with this sample. checked the oak and it was indistinguishable from the other toasted samples, so we think that maybe this is a genuine result. VERY woody, lack of vanilla, an almost saltly mid-palate taste through the burn. seriously nasty.

Toast, 60% - Completely different from the 55%. A light nose with no smoke to speak of, and VERY fruity, stone fruits with hints of berry. faint vanilla coming through on the nose. a very bold taste, excellent character. We were spitting the samples back out but I couldn't resist this one... just slips down. Very smooth.

Toast, 65% - Reminds us of the 55% a bit... getting rough again. Less fruit, a lot mor tannins with a bit more vanilla.

Toast, 70% - VERY vanilla nose, but quite harsh and burning. A HUGE tannin hit, heaps of texture right to the back of the throat. sort of like chewing on sawdust. Nasty.

Right so there you have it. My conclusions are that on toasted I'll try to put it in at ~62ish and try to have it out by not too far under 60. that 55% sample was just nasty. For charred, I think that the approachability of the 65% warrants me putting it down at 65%, and then if it isn't sleeping for years, giving it a dilution to 60-61% after a spell and then leaving it for an equivalent amount of time to get that fruity hit.

I'll also add that tasting 10 samples of whisky is bloody hard work.

Cheers,
Kiwi

[Bull Rider]

Thanks Kiwi, a most excellent and well done test. I'm going to save myself a lot of time and effort and use your result in my aging process. Nice work...

[HookLine]

Thanks Kiwi, a most excellent and well done test.

+ 1.

Thanks

[blind drunk]

Definitely excellent experiment. Explains alot. Thanks Kiwi. Are you going to do any blending between the new different jars? bd.

[kiwistiller]

I'm afraid the jars are gone now no blending was done in any scientific manner / wasn't tasted by all tasters. although I have to say the charred 60+65 was pretty good, and after that we just poured them all in together. and then it went down the sink. it had been aged in plastic. Of the quick taste of one that was all poured in together, I thought I could taste some thing that was different to the component parts, a sort of anise flavour... then I realised that the glass had held an infusion containing wormwood that one of the tasters had bought round other than that, it tasted like you'd expect, messy and poorly defined, confused.

[Usge]

kiwi, just adding my thanks too for this very informative thread. Good job!

[Barney Fife]

Nicely done, Kiwi, but if I may comment?

A month or two is not long enough to get any "aging" benefit. In such a short time frame, it's simply a flavoring, where with the passing of time(always with the wood in the spirits; never take it out!), more and more of the individual flavors marry and become something other than the flavors they began as, and as time passes, the more subtle, less volatile maybe?, nuances of the wood carry-over to the spirits, where in a short time frame, only the strongest, most volatile flavor compounds will be found.

An example: I made single malts all through spring and early summer of '09, and by October, I was almost ready to dump ALL of it back into the still and run it again; it was THAT raw, and that bad. Nothing nice about it at all. This week, I've been drinking nothing but the earliest of them, and ooh, it's beginning to become a really, REALLY fine drink! I made myself one bottle(40% ABV) from whiskey that was just oaked(deep, deep char is all I do now) in a half gallon jar, and another bottle from the same batch(blended and mixed together before splitting off into separate half gallon jars) that had the same amount of oak(a lot ) as well as a tables spoon cracked black pepper and some cream sherry(I'll have to check my notes for the amount if anyone's interested). I've gone back and forth between the bottles all week, and while the pepper and sherry bottle tastes a lot like Jameson's and other Irish whiskeys, and has more character and thus more interesting than the oaked-only bottle, I'm finding I prefer the simpler flavors of the oaked-only bottle more. Less is more, to my pallet, I guess.

But bottom line is that in October, a spoonful of each was so vile I was ready to call it quits and re-run it, and the rest(several gallons) back through the still. But now, they're way nice, and will only get better!

I "age" in a cold cellar, a concrete-exposed, insulated room in my basement where food, beer, wine and other stuff that likes to remain in the cool are kept. That room is cool55-65F), but dry(very arid climate); my ABV goes up ever so slightly with open air again, which for me is a unbleached coffee filter and a few holes punched in the lid. This allows me to shake the jars/jugs every so often without getting splashed, yet allows a wee bit of air exchange.

I'd suggest you take your favorite results from your excellent tests here, and do a long-term, 9 months minimum, aging. If you're like most of us, you consume as you go, so the trick here is to gear up, hunker down and make a lot of overstock for about one year! Once you have more gallons aged long term than you can consume in that time frame, all you have to do is keep replenishing what you use, and you'll always be drinking fine, aged spirits!

[kiwistiller]

I agree it's way too short to be considered 'proper' aging, but the realities of my situation dictated that, I left it as long as possible. If you want to consider it a 'flavouring' exercise then go ahead (especially because I was most interested in the colouration).

On the other hand, I think that this is probably quite in line with the aging time of a lot of members, so will probably be appropriate... Hence the write up.

On the other other hand, my personal habits are to much longer aging, so I agree with you completely there. I've got about a 3 year backstock of UJSM, aging on charred at 63% in a 55l carboy. By the time that's gone, my yet to exist all grain should be coming along nicely.

[Barney Fife]

Ah, I didn't catch that you were more interested in the coloring than flavor. Sorry' bout that; I don't read entire threads too often..

Deepest char(all the way through, even), and adding it to the spirit right after extinguishing the flames colors the spirit quickly, and deeply. I found that leaving the wood out for even a day after charring or making into charcoal didn't color as quickly as adding it right away. For deep, deep color, swap out the used sticks for newly charred ones after a week! Toss the used sticks into some long term product, so's not to waste them.

[kiwistiller]

Yup... main point of interest was actually colour at different ABV's, but if you keep stabbing in the dark you'll get the topic eventually

In all seriousness though, thanks for the input.

[Barney Fife]

but if you keep stabbing in the dark you'll get the topic eventually

Hey, it's still easier than reading the 82 previous posts...

[kiwistiller]

Hey, it's still easier than reading the 82 previous posts...

I can't argue with that!

[Arcane Outlaw]

i'd be quite interested in reading that info if you have links? jack daniels goes in at 70%.

I didn't get the info off the net. I have a friend that works at a distillery and I met a barrel maker. They both told me the same thing, I can't find any documentation but I would bet a cooperage could tell us more, I'm just a little hesistant to be asking to much. I'll keep my eyes open for anything more on the subject.

American borbon is barrled at no more then 125 proof. Jack isn't true borbon because it's not made in ky. so they can go to 140 proof. I think jack goes that high so as to save room but I'm not shure it's the best proof to age at.

I have been researching Tennessee whiskey recently. According to the Jack Daniels website, JD is aged for 4 years in new, charred American white oak at 59% (118 proof). The George Dickel website did not specify.

[kiwistiller]

hmmm I'll have to try and track down where I read 70%! I guess consider me wrong until I find it.

[Arcane Outlaw]

hmmm I'll have to try and track down where I read 70%! I guess consider me wrong until I find it.

Probably got it confused with what comes off the second distillation. The second distillation comes off at 67.5 to 70%. They must then lower this either before or after the charcoal mellowing. Unfortunately, I don't know if it is before or after .

[still crazy]

I will give ya my 2 cents worth on this one.

My dad used to:
1. cut down a white oak and cut into 16 inch logs
2. have me split logs into 8 wedges
3. have me stack the wood for seasoning
4. have me split the wedges into 1/2" staves and cut in half
5. soak the staves in what he called killer catch (which I was cautioned to never touch, now I know it must have been meth foreshot)
6. when it had soaked a few days we would toss it in a trash can steel only in them days
7. toss in a match, smoke a cigarette and cover the can to smother the fire.

Thats what he used called it mellow charcoal

once it was removed we used that to start the wood burning still he kept in the shed

[reb1251]

I use this method and I like the taste, you may not. I have a woodworking shop and I use the planer shaving. Vodka made from sugar at around 110 to 120 proof is pour over the shavings in a quart container. Fill it full of shavings and fill it with vodka. I only have to leave it there for 1/2 hour. Strain it through a coffee filter or paper towel. Taste this. I have used both red and white oak shavings and like to mix it 50/50. You can also try soaking this on Jack Daniels smoking chips after being on the shaving. This is where they have chip chunks form old barrels. I get mine at Walmart. I let it sit about 12 hours. I reuse the chips about 5 times and then use them on the grill. Sometimes I will add a teaspoon of maple syrup to a quart.

[NcHooch]

X2 on the Jack Daniels smoking chips Reb