Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

I have looked around a bit and haven't found much information on people's personal preferences on how much oak they use to flavor their spirits. I am making rum and already have 700 grams of medium toasted staves.

Also I was wondering if you can reuse staves after they are removed from your spirit? Maybe shave them down and re toast them or something.

Hey Spar,

For my 2c worth, 15g/L seems to be pretty good. I've over oaked before, it was :puke-huge: .

Some here go by number of average dominoes per litre. It's really a personal thing.

I'd suggest erring on the side of caution, you can always add more if it's not maturing fast enough, but you can't take away too much oaky flavour.

As for reusing, I have never done it myself, but I'm told shaving down and re toasting is an actual thing.

For long term storage I use 5g/L of chips. These chips are NEW, not those flavoured soakers.
4g/L raw and 1g/L toasted. Although these ratios are a work in progress.

I use 20g/L for test batches to gauge flavour, say to decide if I want to use french or american in a particular spirit, but much more than a week at that rate and it may be over done.

I've never used staves or any other form of oak. I keep my spent oak and turn it into charcoal for bourbon etc

HTH

Well seems these chips go a lot further than I expected. It did say on the bag 2-4 grams per liter but I assumed that was for wine and we would be using substantially more than that. Guess it's going to come down to a lot of trial and error.

I believe I read that Mac uses app 7g p/L in his rums, so that's pretty much my std for anything :handgestures-thumbupleft: (still learning)

TBH I never weighed my oak.. I overoaked once and it was rank.. now I just drop a few dominoes in, usually about 1.5 per L and remove about 1/3 after two months.

I have a crazy habit of splitting the oak and dropping into drinking strength shine once bottled to keep a bit of the goodness going on and this has worked for me so far :handgestures-thumbupleft: as I never know how long it will be before I crack it open

I keep realising a little oak for a long time is far better than a lot of oak for any time, if you use a bit of tails in your product (I certainly do) it will need the time to smooth out anyway.

Urrazeb wrote:
I have a crazy habit of splitting the oak and dropping into drinking strength shine once bottled to keep a bit of the goodness going on and this has worked for me so far :handgestures-thumbupleft: as I never know how long it will be before I crack it open

That's not crazy (because I do the same). Great reaction from friends when you hand over a bottle and they look at it and make a comment about why is there a stick in the bottle?

I have some BWKO which has been aging for 6 months now and I tried some the other night. It is beautiful but I think will continue improving if I bottle it with some oak long term.

I've never over oaked by leaving a small amount of oak in the bottle for as long as possible.

Would you use more if you were using mini staves as opposed to using chips? Less surface area and all...
Currently I only have mini staves and I'm guessing they would be 30 grams each so I would need to cut them in half for a flagon size bottle if the 7 gram per L is still relevant.

You guys are not referring to charred oak at all are you? Just raw or roasted?

Which do you find imparts a stronger flavour, raw or roasted?

Crazyk wrote:
Which do you find imparts a stronger flavour, raw or roasted?

Neither, I prefer toasted :teasing-neener: actually I might have another drink now that we're talking bout getting toasted :laughing-rolling:

Crazyk wrote:You guys are not referring to charred oak at all are you? Just raw or roasted?

Which do you find imparts a stronger flavour, raw or roasted?

I like raw ..and I like Toasted....for Rums anyway .I don't like charred much .

Having said that , when you have drunk all your raw and drunk all your toasted , the charred ain't so bad :-|

Try both... I like a touch of charred in my bourbons... Nothing but toasted in my rum or other whiskies.

Beauty of this hobby, make whatever it is that suits you best :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I've got some American toasted oak...just wondering if I should char it

I'm looking to age my UJSSM so not sure which would be more complimentary

toasted IMHO but why not try both ?

Some peeps just prefer one over the other, toasted gives me what I like :handgestures-thumbupleft:

I'm just going to experiment a bit..I'm not a big drinker, just make it for the fun and leaning experience

Crazyk wrote:I'm just going to experiment a bit..I'm not a big drinker, just make it for the fun and leaning experience

Yup thats the way :handgestures-thumbupleft: . It also helps to form a conclusion if you can leave it for over 6 months or more .

quick happens in the first few weeks but subtle goodness happens later one :D