Well, I got my apple brandy finally finished from last fall. Mix of all sorts of domestic and wild apples. Ran my spirits run and made my cuts (I really really suck at making cuts as I have nothing to compare my knowledge against) but I ended up with 19 quarts ranging from 75.5% down to 55% (ran the rest, from 55%-15% into my feints collection). I cut the first four quarts and the last four quarts out (pretty much where the chemical burn lessened in the front and where the wet dog/cardboard kicked in at the rear). I ended up with six - 1/2 gallon mason jars cut with distilled water to 60%
. Now Im to the point of oaking them up and waiting 
The question is, what wood to use and how much per 1/2 gallon. The first jar I used 1/3 of one of those spiral cut oak dowels from the brew store (French oak, Medium toast - the package recommended using one dowl for 3 gallons of wine but 1/6 of the stick looked too small so I went with 1/3 ). I want to use different wood (or different oak toasts) in each jar as a sort of experiment but don't want to ruin any (too bad).
Im open to suggestions - I was curious if charred oak would be bad or if there is a wood (cherry, plum, .....,) that I should try. Im also curious is the 60% is the strength I want for brandy.
Suggestions?
. Now days and don't have access to apple wood but I've use to use that and after few months spirits were quite mellow. You can also use some wood used for making wine (apple wine if you do that). If you don't want to ruin anything use small batches of alcohol and small quantities of wood if you find something you like keep it, or do some experimenting and save some unoaked stuff for dilution if you somehow overoak some batches. Hope I've helped a bit 
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