Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I've read that to reuse spent oak that you just have to plane it back to reveal some new wood.

Would charring it have the same effect?

G'day tipsy,
I use 50x15mm oak, toasted or charred, i reuse it twice before i scrape of the charring and rechar again. The second/ third charring is heavier than the first as i reckon the older the stick gets, the less flavour it has so mostly use the older stick to clean as it goes.
I get a noice flavour by using an old stick with a new stick.

Put in the fish smoker. Nice piece of salmon. Delicious :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Never found reused sticks to produce the required colour or taste in a given timeframe compared with fresh oak.

It does offer a softer taste/colour but you can get that with reduced oak volume and lower temp toasted oak imho.

Forgetting the commercials under the US bourbon laws for a sec, where only new oak barrels are mandated by law, The remaining whisky makers don't appear to see any advantage in re using barrels and tend to use mainly new oak barrels also.

I reckon the timber is spent, it's done it's job we've leached out the goodies, especially with the much thinner, smaller high surface area stick we tend to use at the craft level.

Tips if you need a supply for a quality American oak or even a French let me know.

bt1

they work fantastic in the webber as smoker chips for me :handgestures-thumbupleft:

bt1 wrote:Forgetting the commercials under the US bourbon laws for a sec, where only new oak barrels are mandated by law, The remaining whisky makers don't appear to see any advantage in re using barrels and tend to use mainly new oak barrels also.

Unless ur talking about scotch whisky makers who often use old bourbon barrels.