Home Distiller

Fish_06 wrote:...maybe this will give me some good deer lease camp fire drink

It will as long as you've done your part in the distillation.

tp

I've done my best everything is checking out right and tasting right so maybe even better with this ideal. I will tell yall one thing I coach my 7 year old son's Coach pitch baseball team an I have parents that I help their sons learn and improve and they won't help as much as this group of folks here that don't know me from anyone else. And I really like it. Noone is trying to make another fail or look stupid. They are all just willing to help you get better at it.

Well, sure. As long as you do your part in an attempt to research the answers to completely basic questions we'll let you live.
Even more importantly, our site executioner was recently 86'd by the Admins so we're a more gentle, reasonable group of renegades.

tp

I bottled my last UJSSM (at least since everything is all grain now)

For those wanting a lighter oaking more like a Canadian whiskey, use once used oak.

That is what I did with this batch. This was the result of bottling 3 g that have been sitting on oak.

2 were done making pure whiskey and just over 1 year on oak. The other gallon was one that the heads cut was off by about 1/2 a jar and close to 2 years old (no heads now detected and very drinkable but did loose some alcohol went from 65% to 60% sitting in gallon jug with loose fit cork.)

Was 20 full bottles and one about 1/2 full all at about 45%

B

bitter wrote: Was 20 full bottles and one about 1/2 full all at about 45%
B

A beautiful site! Wish I was on your Christmas list.

I'm a noob

But when I see a thread I'm interested in, I start at the beginning and read through.
Except this one is WAY too long with a lot of "oh yeah, I see" kinda posts. I'm not bitchin, just an observation.

Anyway, at some point there was a lot of conversation about how many square inches ( or whatever the metric equivalent of that is) of oak to use per quart or gallon.

I have no commercial interest in the company but hopefully this will help:
The website is http://www.deepsouthbarrels.com/page/ba ... dimensions" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Bamaberry wrote:Except this one is WAY too long with a lot of "oh yeah, I see" kinda posts. I'm not bitchin, just an observation.

Well, I figger that's better than a thread fulla "whatinell are you talkin' about, tp?" kinda posts. Right?

Good chart. Thanks for the input!

tp

Bamaberry wrote:I'm a noob

But when I see a thread I'm interested in, I start at the beginning and read through.
Except this one is WAY too long with a lot of "oh yeah, I see" kinda posts. I'm not bitchin, just an observation.

Anyway, at some point there was a lot of conversation about how many square inches ( or whatever the metric equivalent of that is) of oak to use per quart or gallon.

I have no commercial interest in the company but hopefully this will help:
The website is http://www.deepsouthbarrels.com/page/ba ... dimensions" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

That chart is unfortunately unreliable. Their calculation of the SA/V for a 53-gal barrel is insanely high. I hope we can spread the word among the hobby distillers that those numbers may lead you wildly astray into over-oaking territory. I discuss the ubiquity and the insanity of that chart in this thread: http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... =4&t=68297

Hope that helps.

12 square inches/quart is a pretty good ratio. think of that as a 1.5" x4" slab (6 square in /side)
with that amount of oak, you can age your hooch for 4+ years on the oak, and it just gets better every year.

this is all covered in the old Oaking 101 at http://homedistiller.org/forum/viewtopi ... 64&t=28615

I'm pretty sure, a reasonable figure for the surface area for a 200L barrel is 3600 sq inches, that's based on the barrel being a nominal 24" diameter and 36" tall. Anyway, divide that 3600 sq in by 200L, and you're left with 18 sq in.
I can't for the life of me imagine where they got 6535 sq in.

NcHooch wrote:I'm pretty sure, a reasonable figure for the surface area for a 200L barrel is 3600 sq inches, that's based on the barrel being a nominal 24" diameter and 36" tall. Anyway, divide that 3600 sq in by 200L, and you're left with 18 sq in.
I can't for the life of me imagine where they got 6535 sq in.

surface area is 2π r h + 2π r²

2*3.14*12*36 =2713
2*(3.14*(12*12))=904

2713+904 =3600 +/- for bulge

yup math checks out.

i must be bored.

HDNB wrote:
yup math checks out.

i must be bored.

Tell me about it. I made spreadsheets, man.

Spreadsheets.

I use a 3D cad program that figures volume and surface area for me. Even will do a roll-out for patterns. All I have to do is add the tabs.

Bushman wrote:I use a 3D cad program that figures volume and surface area for me. Even will do a roll-out for patterns. All I have to do is add the tabs.

Bushman, you sounds like a good friend of mine.
Aerospace engineer.
He helped build the stealth bomber back in the day.
That's how he would tackle this job.

I just did it in my noggin

I just did it.

tp

Been aging with t pee's method for a few years, works great but ive been using new oak, toasted and charred.

I got a half whiskey barrel from lowes to use for this season. Whats everybodys method that uses these? Specifically for rum and ginger brandy. Planned on sanding char off and cutting into sticks. Should used oak be toasted? Not planning on charring.

Great Post!

Question: I received from a friend some oak and some appel tree. But the appel tree is VERY smelly. I like it but my wife find it disgusting. Can I T-Pee toast the two woods together? Or could the smell goes from one wood to another?

Fred

Do them separately.

thecroweater wrote:Do them separately.

I thought so...thanks !

Just read this entire thread in an evening... holy crap! Excellent info, thank you guys.

I can't just go lopping down trees here (the hippies get pissed off) so I ordered 10 lbs of white oak chunks from some dude who's going to mail it from ebay. Relatively inexpensive (if it works well and is core. wood not bark n crap)....but I have questions.

It is not toasted or charred yet. That's the easy part. 375F in foil for 1.5 hours in the oven the char outside with map torch then soak in cool water. I got that...

What I don't know is "seasoning". How old n dry this wood is? No clue. Best method for recreation of rapid seasoning? Soaking and drying? How many cycles?

butterpants wrote:What I don't know is "seasoning". How old n dry this wood is? No clue. Best method for recreation of rapid seasoning? Soaking and drying? How many cycles?

Time is time...if the wood isn’t “seasoned”, ie-weathered, you can’t really produce that in a lab (or your kitchen).

But if the sellor has chunked aged oak firewood that’s been setting in his back yard for 5 years or more, chances are it is seasoned. Regardless, you’ve already ordered it so you’ll have to find out. It certainly doesn’t pay to worry about it now, does it? You’ll do what you can with it anyway. It’ll make something....whether or not you like it. If you do your cuts properly, you’ll get something good in the end....but you may need to “get some patience first”.
ss

This site is somewhat dedicated to not only producing superior product but also alternative methods to bumping up timelines on production of that product. Isn't it? Lotta threads about it. Significant amount of success too. If we can alter rates of perceived aging by surface area contact manipulation, heat/cold cycles, a microwave.... it can be done to rapidly age wood.... just haven't figured it out yet.

Got home to a treat today.......a cabinet maker friend of mine sent me a 10 lb box of 1" x 1" x 1.5" white oak cubes that he cut up from left over scrap he had from a recent project. Now I just need the wife to take the kids to a movie so I can toast them!!

Johnlj101 wrote:Got home to a treat today.......a cabinet maker friend of mine sent me a 10 lb box of 1" x 1" x 1.5" white oak cubes that he cut up from left over scrap he had from a recent project. Now I just need the wife to take the kids to a movie so I can toast them!!

In the context of wine and spirits and barrels, there is a difference between what a cabinet-maker calls “seasoned” and what a cooper calls “seasoned”. There’s a reason coopers never use fresh wood. Un-weathered oak will give your spirits a harsh, tannic, green flavor.

You can probably reduce this effect by repeatedly soaking and draining these cubes, many many times, over a long period of time. It would certainly work to place these cubes out in the weather for six months or more.

Thanks for the advice...they are sitting out in the drizzling rain now!

Cabinet makers do not use fresh wood either, well none the ones I know. Their wood is dried outside for a few years before using it and they say it's better like this.
It's not int the rain because it's covered, but it's exposed to wind and temperature changes.

Do you think it's enough weathering for us ?

I've prepared a few sticks the TeePee way. Some left a smoky phenol in the hooch, some did not. Any idea how to alter this? Either making it go away or increasing it?

butterpants wrote:I've prepared a few sticks the TeePee way. Some left a smoky phenol in the hooch, some did not. Any idea how to alter this? Either making it go away or increasing it?

In the future you might be able to reduce it by rinsing them off a bit more than usually before tossing them. I have a few jugs going right now. The first few I gave a nice rinse off and rubbed some of the looser char off, the last couple jugs i did not do this.

The first ones I rinsed off more have a cleaner profile in terms of smokiness. The jugs with the less rinsed oak staves are a little Smokey. I’m just going to rinse for all staves really well in the future and blend the Smokey stuff in little by little when I botttle.

TY