French Vs. American Oak

Treatment and handling of your distillate.

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Metalking00
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French Vs. American Oak

Post by Metalking00 »

The place I usually get my American oak from has been out of stock for 2 months and so I picked up a bag of toasted French oak staves instead since there was nothing else. Afterwards, I began looking around to see what to expect and found that almost everything I saw contradicted something else that claimed to have some authority on the subject. Some say that American oak brings more sweetness and vanilla, others say French has more vanilla and caramel. Some say French has less sweetness and more spice and is generally more "elegant", and due to its tighter grain takes longer to impart flavor and color, others say that Americans density allows longer aging and that it has more baking spice characteristics and is more "smooth". It seems like people are just making shit up as they go along. Many of these sources were from either barrel manufacturers, wine magazine articles or oenology articles. I did some searching on the forum and didn't come up with much besides "try it out and see if you like it" (which I am).

This weekend, I finished the spirit run of a bourbon that Ive been making every 2 weeks for the last several months. I added my normal amount of oak (French oak, this time) and found the next morning that it was the same color as a rum that Id been aging on American oak (about the same amount) for the last 8 months. Flavor is noticeably changed since yesterday, something I haven't experienced with the American oak Ive been using. I can't yet tell a difference in character of the oak. I know that color isnt everything, but i feel its indicative of something...

The dominoes seem to be the same level of toast and are dimensionally similar.

What are other peoples experiences with French oak vs American oak. Flavor, color, time and anything else-wise?
Last edited by Metalking00 on Tue Aug 09, 2022 3:15 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: French Vs. American Oak

Post by Metalking00 »

Heres a photo. Both bottles are the same bourbon recipe, made in the same way. The left bottle has american oak and has been aging for 2 months. The right bottle has french oak and has been aging for less than 24 hours. Its hard to see in the photos, but the french oak bottle is sightly darker.
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Dougmatt
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Re: French Vs. American Oak

Post by Dougmatt »

I use American, French and Hungarian in my aging cellar.

I found using French spirals with medium toast imparts strong tannins that take awhile to tone down so I don’t use it anymore in whiskey and never tried it in Rum, but use it For brandy and still love it In big red wine making. I also find once the tannins sit down, it is much more subtle in flavor IMO. Bottom line is it’s more subtle, but tastes good to me, just takes longer to settle the tannins I believe.

On the American, did you char it? It’s more traditional to char American white oak in bourbon and that’s what I have always done.. curious now what it would taste like uncharred.

Buffalo trace has an oak series called old charter (had to look it up) and the French oak is aged the longest (12 years) of all the oak types (the rest are 9-10).

Edit: I realized I didn’t comment on flavors. My spirit palate is ok, but more experienced with wine having only used French occasionally so hope this helps. To Me: French is primarily spicy and peppery (maybe better with a rye). I might get some dark chocolate too. Now wondering if my belief that the tannins are stronger is really just that the flavor is more subtle allowing the tannins to be more up front. The American is more vanilla followed by tobacco and then more subtle spiciness.
Last edited by Dougmatt on Tue Aug 09, 2022 4:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: French Vs. American Oak

Post by Metalking00 »

Thanks for the response. Do you only use spirals? Could the high tannin effect be due to it being spirals? One of the many things i read said that french oak is higher in tannins, but that the tannins tend to be "silkier", whatever that means...

Many of the iterations that i did on american were uncharred. I think they were good, but werent characteristically bourbon tasting. I did a few with some of the dominoes charred. I couldnt tell a huge difference, though ive yet to let any get old enough for a fair assessment. So far, the french oak tastes more like flan. Very caramelly and vaguely cakeish. We'll see how this changes over time.
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rubberduck71
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Re: French Vs. American Oak

Post by rubberduck71 »

Dougmatt wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 4:03 am To Me: French is primarily spicy and peppery (maybe better with a rye). I might get some dark chocolate too.
Ha! I thought it was just me that noticed this also...

I soaked about 2L of a CROW sugarhead (and it was heavy on the rye ratio) a while back in an American Heavy Toasted spiral & the other 2L in toasted French oak cubes. The French was "redder" and spicier than the Am. oak.

Neither lasted long, since the point of a sugarhead is to keep your paws off the A/G for aging. They were both good, but I think I liked the French a smidge more.

If you're in the U.S. I get a lot of my "experimental" wood from Adventures in Homebrewing. They deliv internationally also. Once you get the American in stock, try a side by side aging experiment. Have fun with it!

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Metalking00
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Re: French Vs. American Oak

Post by Metalking00 »

Ill see how it turns out. Ive got the french and american in seperate bottles of the same recipe, although the american has a headstart. Ill post an update once i let it get a bit of time.
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Re: French Vs. American Oak

Post by Salt Must Flow »

I've only tried French oak chips with UJSSM and a brandy. Both after oaked turned out excellent. I understand that chips are not as ideal in comparison to larger chunks, but they turned out great. When family or friends are over I like to give them a blind taste test of mine compared to so called "good store bought liquors" and they have always chosen mine. It doesn't burn in their mouth, down their throat or in their stomach. Some have said that the store bought has a bit more complexity, and I would agree, but they still chose mine. I've added a bit more oak since so maybe that will help.
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Re: French Vs. American Oak

Post by jonnys_spirit »

I’ve got a hungarian oak wine barrel that I’ll break up one day and use the staves. I enjoy a solera feed where I use and blend down from different woods and have added plum, peach, apple, and cherry woods into the pipeline as well. Between toast char and raw there so much to explore :)

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