Home Distiller

Hi everybody -
Well, I got my apple brandy finally finished from last fall. Mix of all sorts of domestic and wild apples. Ran my spirits run and made my cuts (I really really suck at making cuts as I have nothing to compare my knowledge against) but I ended up with 19 quarts ranging from 75.5% down to 55% (ran the rest, from 55%-15% into my feints collection). I cut the first four quarts and the last four quarts out (pretty much where the chemical burn lessened in the front and where the wet dog/cardboard kicked in at the rear). I ended up with six - 1/2 gallon mason jars cut with distilled water to 60% . Now Im to the point of oaking them up and waiting

The question is, what wood to use and how much per 1/2 gallon. The first jar I used 1/3 of one of those spiral cut oak dowels from the brew store (French oak, Medium toast - the package recommended using one dowl for 3 gallons of wine but 1/6 of the stick looked too small so I went with 1/3 ). I want to use different wood (or different oak toasts) in each jar as a sort of experiment but don't want to ruin any (too bad).

Im open to suggestions - I was curious if charred oak would be bad or if there is a wood (cherry, plum, .....,) that I should try. Im also curious is the 60% is the strength I want for brandy.

Suggestions?

I'm drinking apple spirits unoaked . Now days and don't have access to apple wood but I've use to use that and after few months spirits were quite mellow. You can also use some wood used for making wine (apple wine if you do that). If you don't want to ruin anything use small batches of alcohol and small quantities of wood if you find something you like keep it, or do some experimenting and save some unoaked stuff for dilution if you somehow overoak some batches. Hope I've helped a bit .

I use medium char oak for my apple brandy. Actually.... I use that for everything. I love oak.

Depends on what you want to come through, I use a 1/2 a handful of JD chips and small sticks from the heartwood of a plum tree I got.

Ok fellas -
-One with medium roast chips (coloring nicely but really have heard good things about chips)
-One with a 1"X1"X6" chunk from medium roasted red wine barrel (red wine color carved off and oven toasted again for 2 hours at 400 (F)) \
-One with same as above but charrred with my little torch
-One with a three cinnamon sticks, a small handful of organic (no sulfur or crap) dried apples,and a pinch of whole cloves (for the ladies....)

I don't have any aged fruit wood (Damn!!) and really don't want to buy 15lbs from online (way too much for an experiment). I did cut down a dead cherry tree a few month ago and may try to ax out the heart wood from the thick base...but im concerned it may be too fresh (the tree died last year but was only cut this spring when it did not bud out). The plum I cut down this at the same time was green so I will have to wait a few years on that heart wood.

Does anybody have various varieties of well seasoned fruit heart wood they would part with? I'd pay the shipping of course....

Wal-mart, and I'm sure others, sell cherry, and apple wood smoking chips. I think they also sell them as larger chunks too. I personally don't like the JD chips because to me it makes the brandy taste too much like bourbon or JD and I don't really care for either, My current favorite wood is Japanese Maple, not easy to come by but does a very nice job without adding the sweetness of other maples. My personal suggestion is play around and see what works and start getting ready for next years batch.

Yeah, I am hoping to have some feedback from my current experiments for next season. I got bee boxes (from my few hives I keep in my back yard) i put on a few friends small orchards during their bloom this spring with a promise of a share of the apples. Win/Win (plus we all get honey!)

I have a wild cherry tree on the property. Every year I prune it. I save all the pieces bigger than my thumb and age them with bark for about a year. Later I take the bark off and saw them up on a table saw and let them dry further.

I bake them in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 425 deg F. They turn medium gray.

They add more sweetness than oak chips and a more yellow/red color.

DAD300 wrote:I have a wild cherry tree on the property. Every year I prune it. I save all the pieces bigger than my thumb and age them with bark for about a year. Later I take the bark off and saw them up on a table saw and let them dry further.

I bake them in the oven for 20-30 minutes at 425 deg F. They turn medium gray.

They add more sweetness than oak chips and a more yellow/red color.

I did very similar with a plum tree that was cut down and given to me, used the heartwood from it and after first cutting it to size with a chain saw I cut the staves on my bandsaw.