Oak, french x english

[Moorea]

I´m planning to buy some new oak barrels to let some production stay a long, long time, i was looking for oak barrels and found french ones, that was supposed to bring malt whisky to Brasilian whisky blenders and have been refurbished, and english oak barrels aldo refurbished, but nobody can told me what they bring here, since the price difference is considerable, the french ones costing almost 50% more i want to ask friends here what they thing about the difference in aging in french or english oak.

thanks and my regards

Moorea, from Ilhabela - Brazil

[The Baker]

I´m planning to buy some new oak barrels to let some production stay a long, long time, i was looking for oak barrels and found french ones, that was supposed to bring malt whisky to Brasilian whisky blenders and have been refurbished, and english oak barrels aldo refurbished, but nobody can told me what they bring here, since the price difference is considerable, the french ones costing almost 50% more i want to ask friends here what they thing about the difference in aging in french or english oak.

thanks and my regards

Moorea, from Ilhabela - Brazil

If you can physically inspect the barrels, smell them; that will give you some idea of whether they have some bad smells, and also what they might have had in them (if you can't smell the previous contents it might not have much effect at all on your product).

[rtalbigr]

White oak is used for barrels because it is a closed cell wood, as opposed to red oak which is open cell. That being said the differences between French (Quercus petraea) and American (Quercus alba) is that the French has a tighter grain, higher tannins, and lower aromatics. Because of the tighter grain it is primarily used with aging wine because of its much lower rate of oxygenation, which can cause wines to turn to vinegar. These characteristics make it unacceptable for use in aging whiskys because oxygenation is important in the aging of whiskys. American white oak also has more vanillins which is desirable in whiskys and not in wines.

Big R

[rubber duck]

Are you sure your not talking about French vs. American oak?

If the barrels are refurbished it shouldn't matter what was inside. I live in wine country and refurbished wine barrels are becoming a popular alternative as they're almost as good as a new on at half the price. I'm not aware of any other barrels being refurbished.

French oak is tighter grained and is hand split, there is also less of it around. American oak wine barrels can have more vanilla but not always, it depends on where the oak came from and how it was processed. American oak is milled and not hand split. It's mostly just labor and availability that make French oak barrels more expensive.

Almost all wine barrel staves are air dried for years. on an American chared barrel used for bourbon the staves are kiln dried. This is one of the big reasons chared barrels are less expensive. Kiln dried staves are a lot cheaper the air dried staves.

For the proposes aging spirits I would use one of the refurbished American oak barrels. If you want a chared barrel just get a new one as it will be half the price of a refurbished wine barrel. You could also get a used wine barrel and char it yourself, it wouldn't be exactly the same but it would still be good.

What do you plan on aging?

[Moorea]

I have almost 100 liters of rum (sugar cane molass and broiwn sugar) and 40 to 50 liters of a spirit made of corn, brown sugar, corn syrup and cocoa malt, these are resting from 6 months the older to 2 months the newer in 34 liters glass bottles with charred oak stripes, this weekend i have 3 more batches of 100 liters each to distill, if everything went right i´ll have another 40 liters to let rest, but i have no more glass bottles, so i´m planning to get the oldest spirits in glass bottles, pump them to 2 or 3 oak barrels (maybe one red and one white to see what happens) and put the new distilled spirit in the glass to its initial aging.
I have a dive-compressor room fully insulated, sound and moisture, its the most dry place around and the one with minor temperature changes, i plan to put the barrels there and forget about them at least for the next year (of course a little tasting sometimes).
My only concern, when i used small barrels (5 to 20 liters) was evaporation, but these small barrels had 1 to no more than 1,5 cm walls, so i believe that with ticker wall barrels i will loose less spirit.
Also, i´m looking for a kind of spirit with a full range of taste and smell, i got something quite good on glass, but i want to see if i can reach something ever better with real wood barrels and not stripes and chips.
I apreciate very much the ideas, tips and suggestions i can get around here, these kind of information exchange helped me save a lot time (and money) using other people's experience to avoid making the same mistakes.
I think one day we should plan a meeting, to drink some spirits and know each other personally

thanks again and my very best regards,

Moorea, from Ilhabela - Brazil