Home Distiller

Hey guys, first of all what a great site you have!
Just about to distill my first batch of the cornflake whiskey here in the next day or two, I have one 5l oak barrel that will get filled and hidden away some where. But i ran across some oak chips made from whiskey barrels intended for a smoker....as well as a few other "flavored" chips. Any type or flavors to stay away from?
Also used brown sugar on one batch of the cornflake whiskey any predictions on how this will turn out?

Yeah smoker chips work great a lot of guys use the jack Daniels ones

+1! The bigger chips/chunks work better than the smaller ones.

Odin.

Sinner wrote:Also used brown sugar on one batch of the cornflake whiskey any predictions on how this will turn out?

Probably get rum notes. Good if you like rum. I have a small batch of rumskey that I made by starting rum using UJSSM backset. Quite nice.

Not sure if the very small parts of molasses present in brown sugar give off any rum taste. Maybe my taste isn't that great, but I have never noticed a real taste difference using white or brown.

Just my experience.

Odin.

I was reading online somewhere about molasses and brown sugar and found that dark brown sugar is about 6.5% molasses and light brown sugar is about 3.5% molasses. The remainder is just processed white sugar with a slightly finer granule than just plain white sugar.

S-C

That does not sound bad, S-Cak! Not at all! Over here it is 0.5%. I guess 6.5% does give you taste transfer.

Odin.

Sinner wrote:Hey guys, first of all what a great site you have!
Just about to distill my first batch of the cornflake whiskey here in the next day or two, I have one 5l oak barrel that will get filled and hidden away some where. But i ran across some oak chips made from whiskey barrels intended for a smoker....as well as a few other "flavored" chips. Any type or flavors to stay away from?
Also used brown sugar on one batch of the cornflake whiskey any predictions on how this will turn out?

I've used the JD chips straight out of the bag - about a cup of chips and a few drops of vanilla to a quart of whitedog SF. I did the nuke process (3 times). It wasn't all that great in the beginning, but seemed to get better over time. I'm a light drinker and a quart will last a couple of months. By the time I got down to the last glass from that quart, it was really nice.

Based on that experience, I'm thinking of doing a little experiment using the same process as above, but let it age for a couple of months off the chips. That is, strain it off the chips and periodically give it a good shake, remove the lid and let it air for a few hours - do this every few days over a couple of months time. This would serve to simulate the actions I took while drinking that original quart.

About other chips - I have apple, cherry, and pecan. I tried the apple and pecan, but totally screwed it up. I toasted both in the oven at about 300F for about 1.5 hours and then charred them with a propane torch. I guess I over charred because they came out with an over powering smoke taste. Someone in another thread (Scout I think) advised against charring some woods - including apple, pecan and citrus woods. I just recently reran these failed attempts with some feints I had laying around and the resulting whitedog has a very interesting woody undertone. This may be reason for another experiment.

Sorry about the long response,
S-C

Odin wrote:That does not sound bad, S-Cak! Not at all! Over here it is 0.5%. I guess 6.5% does give you taste transfer.

Odin.

Truckinbutch uses brown sugar in his SF mix instead of molasses - says it works real well. One of the "Tried and True" rum recipes (Hook I think) has an alternative to the recipe using brown sugar instead of molasses.

S-C