Oaking/Ageing - how exactly are you doing it?

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Oaking/Ageing - how exactly are you doing it?

Postby Nardy » Sun Oct 23, 2011 6:33 pm

I'm up to my 5th batch of rum now - today I ran a spirit run containing my last 3 batches and now have a good supply of raw rum ready for ageing. The first 2 batches I made I split the blends into 700mL bottles and put varying amounts of oak (and other ingredients) into each bottle. But for this batch (well 3 batches) I was planning on using 5L demijohns. I was going to blend hearts/heads/tails into the 5L demijohns and then add oak and leave.

With my first batches I over-oaked. I tried anywhere from one stick to 3 sticks in a single 700mL bottle. My sticks are about 150mm x 15mm x 15mm and are from an American Oak wine barrel that I bought and chopped up. I then toasted the oak in the oven for 2 hours. I also heavily toasted a batch of it for an additional 2 hours.

Now because I have been over-oaking the rum and ending up with a woody-flavoured spirit, this time I plan to really under do it and leave it for a while. So I am thinking one or two sticks of the lightly toasted stuff in each 5L demijohn. With no other ingredients.

What do you all do?? Exactly what, how, and for how long do you do it? How do you taste test and how do you work out when it is ready and at the point of any longer and it would get worse?
Nardy
 

Re: Oaking/Ageing - how exactly are you doing it?

Postby R-sole » Sun Oct 23, 2011 7:23 pm

Your plan will work :clap:
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Re: Oaking/Ageing - how exactly are you doing it?

Postby Tracker » Sun Oct 23, 2011 8:53 pm

Exactly as you plan and 5Star said.
I would even suggest to not oak your new distillate at all. Blend the two, taste, then decide if it needs some more dilution with another ferment distillution or, maybe it may need just a bit more oak to align with your taste buds.
As a last resort, you could forget all that and re-run your over-oaked spirit and see how it tastes.
The best part about this hobby is that there is no wasted product, only wasted opportunities. :dance:


Cheers.
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Re: Oaking/Ageing - how exactly are you doing it?

Postby maheel » Sun Oct 23, 2011 9:00 pm

i mostly use chips but reckon i need to go get some oak and toast it up for something different

i am a laze bastard but

but i reckon a little over a long time (of whatever your using) really does smooth out the flavors if you can get some stock built up
maheel
 

Re: Oaking/Ageing - how exactly are you doing it?

Postby Frank » Mon Oct 24, 2011 5:48 pm

Having tried 'both', I reckon there is a big improvement using toasted/charred oak sticks over chips/sawdust or whatever. The thing is.... one or a couple of charred/toasted sticks per demijohn will keep getting slowly better with age for a bloody long time (probably toasted with rum is best :think: ) whereas almost all other oaking alternatives don't seem to have such a 'polite' improvement timeframe (except putting it all in an oak barrel of course ;) ). You will find there is a relatively slow oak infusion ( or whatever the word is :? ) with a few sticks/one stick so a tastetest every 'few weeks' will give you the opportunity to 'get it right' for your enjoyment. As many a (far more than I) learned folk has said before, the best time is purely subjective. Mind you, I have yet to oak anything for more than 8 months......but will.

Of course there is also a suggestion from Bang300 over on the 'Lurking from the US' thread but..... :laughing-rolling:
Frank
 

Re: Oaking/Ageing - how exactly are you doing it?

Postby Al Qaemist » Tue Oct 25, 2011 6:02 am

I do it in DJs as you plan to do - I age at 65%ABV I did one lot in the low 70's and it was very woody. Got 1 dj left that is around 8 months old - that i had ran off my T500 at 93 and watered down, its the best stuff I've produced hands down- until now.
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Re: Oaking/Ageing - how exactly are you doing it?

Postby Griffo » Wed Nov 30, 2011 1:06 pm

I have a question when you toast the oak in the oven do you let it cool down before puting it into the rum and do you brush off the oak before you put it into the rum
Thanks Griffo
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