Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I have just started using oak to get some flavours going, have a few jars put away for as long as I can resist with different oaks. In a search around to see what else I could put in the jars I thought about the wood I use in my smoker. I have tones of red ironbark laying around and wondered if anyone had used this for flavouring/ageing?
I couldn't find anything on the site about using ironbark so if anyone has any experience with it I'd love to hear your results. None the less I'll try with a small jar and a medium toast on a few sticks and see what happens. I won't put anything else in the jar just ironbark to isolate the flavour. Using TPW at 65% in 500ml jars.

Stop and do serious research before tasting anything :scared-eek: it may not kill you today(or it might) it may do serious damage to you over time. I dont know anything about using ironbark but think very carefully if this is worth the risk..has the potential to be lethal if ironbark is not suitable.. :law-policered:

Have a read here for a start
http://aussiedistiller.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5023

Its a eucalypt. That's a big NO.

This is an interesting read.
http://library.davidtilson.com/materials/toxic.html

Thanks for the advice, I'm aware of eucalyptus issues but red ironbark may be an exception. It's used widely as a smoking wood for cooking and is recommended by likes of Heston on his list of smoking woods. I've used it for years and hence why I have so much available.

I was pretty much going to stick with woods that are accepted as smoking woods as long as they don't appear on any other "do not use list". See graph.

I didn't see any listing for red ironbark (Eucalyptus cerebra) on the list of toxic woods in the above link.

Yeah but smoking is way different than soaking in a solvent and then drinking :think:

I'm with these other guys, I wouldn't be putting eucalyptus wood in spirit. Is it really worth the risk? Oak works fine as years of use has proved and if you want different flavours try different toast and char levels as well as amounts of oak per litre and time on oak etc there is plenty of excrementing to be tryed with what we know is safe :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I hope you meant experimenting woodduck! :laughing-rolling:

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

woodduck wrote: there is plenty of excrementing to be tryed with what we know is safe :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:laughing-rolling: definitely don’t put excrement in your alcohol, that’d leave a shitty taste :laughing-rolling: 8-}

Doubleuj wrote:

woodduck wrote: there is plenty of excrementing to be tryed with what we know is safe :handgestures-thumbupleft:

:laughing-rolling: definitely don’t put excrement in your alcohol, that’d leave a shitty taste :laughing-rolling: 8-}

Like any wood from a eucalypt. :handgestures-thumbdown:

Professor Green wrote:I hope you meant experimenting woodduck! :laughing-rolling:

Cheers,
Prof. Green.

Mmmmmm not my best effort at english :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling: :laughing-rolling:

Eucalyptus oil is toxic but is safe in small quantities would that be the same as whats in the wood .

Eucalyptus is toxic. Whether its the oil or alkaloids doesn't matter. Burning it is a vastly different beast to dissolving it and drinking it.
Small quantities? Heck, even small quantities of arsenic is ok to consume as well! How is that measured by a home brewer?

I would recommend you forget about using any wood from any true eucalypt in your spirits but if you decide to go down that route understand that eucalypt oil is considered highly toxic. Not a little bit toxic.

And before anyone mentions gum leaf tea, that was normal tea with a gum leaf or 3 thrown in for a few seconds to give it a little flavor when the tea leaves were losing their strength in the droving days. Not tea made out of gum leaves I discovered to my detriment as a young fella.

Manufacturers often incorporate eucalyptus oil into cough lozenges, cough syrups, toothpastes, mouth washes and as a flavour ingredient in foods.

That they do.
Do you happen to know how much they include?
My guess is it wouldn't be much. They also have a recommended dosage written on the labels.

One Internet site has 3.5 ml of eucalyptus oil could be lethal.

I remember my mother giving me a spoon full of sugar with a few drops of eucalyptus oil on it when I had a cold. But then everything is poisonous depending on quantity.

I have spent years working with this wood and dare I say ingested more than my fair share either through dust or smoke. I'm not about to go holus bolus by soaking a heap of my alcohol in it.

It may be ruled out as being a viable flavouring wood for reasons other than being poisonous (although that is a good reason), having used it as cladding I found I had to apply a chemical to remove the tannins before surface protection was painted on, the wood is so thick with tannin if not removed it looks like running ink.

I guess it comes down to whatever you think is safe. We here don't as you can tell from the responses above but at the end of the day it's your body and you can do as you wish with it but at least you have been warned and you know the risks. What I would hate to see is a headline along the lines of "man dies after drinking illegal home distilled spirits" they won't even mention the wood use. These type of headlines will and do make it very hard for our hobby to ever become legal. We all need to do this hobby right so we can show it can and is safe. That's what's great about this forum, it's a bottomless pit of knowledge and it wasn't just made up, it’s from blokes that have been doing this for a long time and alot of trial and error.

Just my take on "unsafe" experimentation. No offense intended either mate :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I'll do my best not to die and make you look bad, but no promises.