More about Oak Wood

[scout]

Thought I would put this up so those that are using oak sticks would have the info we use at the cooperage. I believe the way we treat the staves would also apply to using sticks, it is the same wood (hopefully) after all.

First off, I will lay down how we do it in the process of making a barrel, just leave out the steps you don't need.
We are old school, our wood comes in in logs. We cut faggots ( the right name for a stick of a log) about 34 inches long, quarter them then split out stave wood from the hearts. Once we have the staves ready ( I won't bore you with how to make staves in this post) we set up a barrel (a 53 gal barrel will use @36 staves) and put on the bilge hoop, quarter hoop and head hoop then we set this splay over a brazier that holds an oak wood fire (made from left overs from stave splitting), heat it and draw the splayed end tight and set those three hoops, next is the heating so we can use the windlass to draw the splay end tight for hooping. Once that is done we are Now we are ready to toast the interior, this can take 4-6 hours, depending on the toast required for that build, we don't use big fires. During the toast we take the temp of the wood (now a days we use the laser type, instant read, hand held thermometers) Here are the temps ( degrees f) we are trying to achieve and the level of toast they represent. These are taken at the floor end and bilge area of the barrel, the brazier we use sits about 4 inches above the floor and is 10 inches deep.

131 f = light toast
149 f = medium toast
167 f = medium heavy toast
176 f = heavy toast

When a barrel reaches the target temperature, we turn it over and check the head section that is on the floor, since it will not have reached target temp on the first heat.

If a barrel is going to be charred, that will happen, later in the build, just before we set the heads in the chimes. the interior of the heads are toasted separately and charred when called for before they are set.

Some notes for you on how we dry our wood stave material, since it does affect the toasting. our staves are air dried out in the open for 2-3 years. The rain is what washes away the nasty, harsh tannins that oak contains, it also allows a fungi, aureobasiclium pullulans to grow, we actually aid it in growing. This is how we ensure that the vanillin will be peaked.

If you are cutting your own oak sticks, be sure to let them dry very well before toasting them. I would try to make my sticks around 1 inch square and let them dry for about 6 months out in the weather, that should be about equal to what our 2x6 pieces go through. I would then toast these to the temps I listed above, the flavors change with each level of toasting. a light toast will leave more tannin flavors, a medium toast brings in vanillin flavor just a bit, as you go darker in toast the more vanillin you will impart up to the heavy toast which will lower the tannins quite well while bringing in just a touch of smoke. I've tried some barrels lately that came in for re-work and a re-char was requested, this works well for used whisky barrels, not so much for old wine barrels. It will indeed make a difference in your end products taste, mouth feel and aroma.

[S-Cackalacky]

More good info Scout. I have a big, straight trunked, white oak laying in the woods behind my house. It blew down in a wind storm a couple years ago. The trunk is close to two feet in diameter. It was probably around 80 feet tall and I would guess the first 40 feet of the trunk is limbless - I think because it was growing in a cluster of 3 trees. I don't have the equipment or the health to process it, so I reckon there it will lay until the bugs eat it. Kinda makes me sad to look at it and imagine what I could do with all that heart wood.

I plan to cut sticks from a whiskey barrel planter when they become available in the spring. I figure I can cut up enough 1 X 1 X 6 inch sticks to last me a long long time.

S-C