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?