Treating oak before adding to distillate

[Waylan_Britefire]

I was thinking about how scotch is generally aged in ex-burbon barrels and wondered if anyone has ever tried "treating" oak cubes or dominoes by soaking them with a commercial burbon for a short period to take some of the strength from the wood and impart some of the burbon essence into it before using them to age a barley AG run? May be an experiment I have to try myself.

[fizzix]

I can only go by a single malt barley I'm aging on Merlot wine chips, and it's coming out great after just a couple months.
Now I had also soaked the chips in Merlot for 2 months to really saturate them. Point being, soak yours in
bourbon first for as long as you can. Just a few days might not do it.

[still_stirrin]

If aging in glass, ie - not in a cask, I use oak chunks cut from barrel staves. They’re from a hardwre store from the BBQ accessories aisle. My favorite chunks are either from once used bourbon or rum casks. Often, I just rinse them off and add to the jar with the white in it.

But, my best bourbons go into oak casks. Can’t beat that.
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