Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

Hey guys,

I'm currently soaking some of macs French oak medium dominoes in port to replace the unsoaked ones in my macwhisky at the moment. Working on a 3 month age period, 2 on non soaked and 1 on soaked in 2L jars with around 25g. Can anyone recommend how to prepare the dominoes after the soak? Just plonk them straight in, air dry for a few days or air dry and re char??

Dominoes will have been soaking for around 2 months.

Looking for quite a heavy port influence :handgestures-thumbupleft:

To speed up preparing oak dominos try vacuuming them into a food saver bag with a bit of sherry, port etc...the vacuum speeds up take up of the sherry et al to just a few days.
Doc

I've just shook excess off but I'm a touch lazy some say dry them I don't see the point.

the Doctor wrote:To speed up preparing oak dominos try vacuuming them into a food saver bag with a bit of sherry, port etc...the vacuum speeds up take up of the sherry et al to just a few days.
Doc

How would I stop the liquid getting sucked out in the vacseal process ?

If its same-ish brew just drop them in and halve your expectations of the results of what you got first time round. If you wanna flavour staves do as doc says put them with port or whiskey or whatever inside a vacuum. The vacuum will speed things up dramatically..

prawnz wrote:

the Doctor wrote:To speed up preparing oak dominos try vacuuming them into a food saver bag with a bit of sherry, port etc...the vacuum speeds up take up of the sherry et al to just a few days.
Doc

How would I stop the liquid getting sucked out in the vacseal process ?

Do a manual vac seal so you can turn the vac on and off and then manually seal. You might lose a little liquid in the process but it always happens when doing a wet vac.

prawnz wrote:

the Doctor wrote:To speed up preparing oak dominos try vacuuming them into a food saver bag with a bit of sherry, port etc...the vacuum speeds up take up of the sherry et al to just a few days.
Doc

How would I stop the liquid getting sucked out in the vacseal process ?

I use a couple of vac machines and they are all different... but I will assume you are using a domestic machine like a Sunbeam Foodsaver... There are 2 ways of using this type of machine...firstly using a bag...place the machine up off the countertop by about 4 inches ( on a phone book etc) sit the bag with the minimal sherry and oak on the counter and rest the lip of the bag on the vacuum machine ..then proceed as per normal...vacuum and seal.

The other way is to buy a hose and adapter for vacuuming mason jars... most vac machines can accept a hose for vacuuming mason jars...place dominoes and sherry etc into a quart mason jar vacuum and hold.

soaking the vacuumed dominoes in the jar or bag in warm water (sous-vide) will also speed things up.

remember that in a vacuum bag very little liquid is needed as none is wasted...by removing the air you are going to force total contact between the liquid and the oak.

hope that explains it.

Doc

the Doctor wrote:
hope that explains it.

Doc

Yup , perfect :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Thanks for the info guys, looks like I'll be shopping for a vacuum food saver.. any suggestions on what to get or which brands to stay away from? I see Kogan have one for $69.

Just make sure that whatever machine you buy can take a tube for vacuuming mason jars. I can post a picture if needs be...but a bit of research will tell you if your machine has the tube adapter.
Doc

Just had a thought
The older alamiumn pressure cooker they have nice thick walls
And vacuum it down with a refrigeration vacuum
They really pull a vacuum