Toasting Oak - wrapped or unwrapped

[CH3CH2OH]

Most people are toasting oak wrapped in tin foil with a few holes poked in it.

Being that barrels are toasted in an open air environment is there a reason why people wrap them instead of just putting them in the oven?

It seem that in an open environment the temperature would be more stable than in a confined package

Does anyone toast unwrapped to release more of the undesirable off gasses during the toasting process?

[CH3CH2OH]

Temperature

All of the reading I have done has got me confused!!

Early stages of the breakdown of Lignin is the main source of vanillin. Here is an excerpt from a textbook

"An increase in the syringyl/guaiacyl ratio of oak lignin during heating was observed as the treatment temperature
increased. In the temperature range 175–195 °C, significant amounts of monomeric lignin
breakdown products were found in water/alcohol extracts of the thermally treated oak,
but these decreased markedly above 195 °C. This may be because cross-linking reactions
are now beginning to dominate.

This picture below that we have seen when you put the angle parallel to the outer line, it puts it around 280F.

toastflavorsline.jpg

What is the consensus for temperature and vanilla flavors for rum?

[CH3CH2OH]

well I toasted them up. Ended up doing them straight on the rack, no tinfoil.

Used 375F for the first hour and it definately had a "baking wood" smell. Then 400F for the next hour. About 75 mins in the smell changed to a much nicer aroma.

They darkened up really nice, so no pics!!

[1 2many]

:text-worthless:

[CH3CH2OH]

Here is how they turned out

image.jpg

[1 2many]

Thanks mate the color looks good,do you have any spirit on it yet. :-B

[Urrazeb]

I don't think wrapping it would make much of a difference on end product, I only do it to prevent a flash fire :-B

[WTDist]

I don't think wrapping it would make much of a difference on end product, I only do it to prevent a flash fire :-B

I agree. i recently did a uni assignment where i researched different temps that timber would ignight naturally. unsure of the timber i was looking at but some timber can ignight with as little temp as 270'C.
i like mine a lil burnt though

[CH3CH2OH]

It was nice being able to watch the wood as it toasted.

At about 410-415 it would start to smoke so at 400 it toasted up nice without filling up the house with smoke

They are toasted all the way through.

[CH3CH2OH]

I put 2 sticks 3/4 x 3/4 x 6 into 5 litres ( had to cut them in half to fit the carboy hole ended up being 4 sticks 3/8 x 3/4 x 6 ) which weighed a total of 96 grams.

Colored up quick to a deep amber after 5 days so will pull half out on the weekend to avoid a jug of liquid wood. Already had oak spirals in it for 5 days before I pulled them out.

Starting to get some nice flavours, it will be a while before the bite settles down but flavours are coming nice.

[flamehawk]

My understanding is a flammable gas is produced when you heat timber to the flash point. The foil will not protect against fire or explosion.

During the war you could convert a car to run on wood gas. The is an example of the wood gas heater fitted to a car at the National War Museum