I made an orange blossom mead that I aged with Hungarian oak cubes (medium toast) after the first racking. It was pretty good. I would suggest trying it.
I firstly want to convey my appreciation for CS brewing and the charismatic presentation! I have never tried brewing but has been a dream of mine for a VERY long time. You give me the confidence to get in a give it a go. P.s my dream is to create an apiary in Tasmania and make crazy mead concoctions. Love you guys keep it up!!!
I spent 8 days in Tasmania hitchhiking around, saw the penny-farthing races, went to wineglass bay, saw all the black swans at derwent, the royal botanical gardens, it's a beautiful place full of the friendliest people on earth. I hope you get that apiary 🍻
I know this question I'm going to ask will depend on what flavour I want ect.. but, with a ball park figure! how much oak chips would you suggest per uk gallon? I'm going to buy some medium toasted chips. Also I've heard figs go really well with oak? so I have bought some figs which I will chop up and add in. Would you do this separately or add them in too for a month and check?
I made a ginger-orange mead that I messed up by putting in too much ginger. Even after heavily back sweetening, it was still pretty hot. I added about a half an ounce of medium toasted French oak chips for a little less than a week, and WOW! The heat is still there, but the oak smoothed out all the rough edges. It did seem to cloudy the mead a little, but I'm hoping that letting sit for a while will clear it back out.
Working as a cooper here in Sweden I just want to adress some things, althought rare there is some barrel fermented wines both red and white. Which I've found to be phenomenal. The most important thing about aging wine in barrels is the toasting degree on the barrel, havn't heard of anyone using new charred barrels as it would just overtake the wine. I've seen a few zinfandel wines aged in bourbonbarrels however. The most common toasting degree I believe is medium toast ( about nougat brown) on the inside. And about the smaller casks leaking, that just depends on the coopers really, seems like they're not too picky the fibers in the wood. We also a lot of whisky distilleries/ independent bottlers here in sweden that use 30-40L casks and sell them as "private casks" for customers. So that a customer can buy their own barrel of whisky, rum and what not, then bottle it whenever they please. Actually barrelaged a blackcurrant mead myself, about 18% abv which I let sit for 6 weeks in a 5L "new" american oak barrel, medium toasted. And it turned out quite nice although it had somewhat of a acetone note due to the barrel having been dry earlier, forcing me to make the wood swell up using hot water. Looking to barrelage more mead and wine in the future, I just have to make more barrels than we sell ;) Cheers
Rikard that sounds quite nice and I hope that goes well for you, was wondering on if there was a website where one could procure entire barrels of liquor?
@@pepealasquid6005 The only I can recall are either people auctioning out their private casks that's maturing on a distillery. Or distilleries selling barrels to be filled and matured in their warehouse. yet to find a site which sells full wooden barrels with liqour, yet alone ship it due to regulations etc
One option I have done to get the oak spiral out of a carboy is to tie a string to it before putting it in and then leave some hanging out. Then just push the airlock back in. Has worked pretty well for me.
Use kevda wood to get the ancient Indian flavour in the mead. Or Khus syrup (a kind of grass). It will give you another flavour to your mead just as rose in rhodomel, khus and kevda have their own characteristic aroma.
A thing also to check is the toast level of your oak. Different levels of toasting will in part different flavors. Somewhere their is a chart that shows the different levels of toasting and what they will infuse into your brew.
Hi Nrian and Derica, Would wood chips/chunks that are sold for smoking in the BBQ work? I’ve got some because I dabble with smoking meats. Totally off-topic as this relates to cooking: BBQ’d chicken that’s smoked is awesome! Spatchcock a bird for better heat distribution, rub it with anything you fancy, give it a little smoke on the BBQ and crank up the heat to get it to golden, crispy perfection. Or, alternatively, smoke it over higher heat. Serve with salad and maybe enjoy it with some cider or mead... crispy, fresh bread along the side is a given at my house.
Small cask work but they take alot of after market time to seal them proper. Bees wax works good but is sticky and can affect your brew if any gets into it. But you gotta check it alot. To make sure it don't leak
Hey y’all! I read a very interesting snippet on the internet about taking those little barrels and switching the climate artificially every few days (I.e. - putting in the fridge/freezer for 48 hours then taking out and putting outside in the heat for 48 hours), then after a few transitions it will pull out more of the wood flavors. With that said it was really talking about aging whiskey but I think this could be interesting with mead. Love y’all’s videos and information, keep it up!
I made a white wine that came out of primary tasting like slightly fermented grape juice (at 14% abv). I conditioned it for 6 weeks with half an oak spiral, and it tasted like honey. My wife doesn't like the taste of honey, so now it's aging. We've got three bottles, and I plan to open one every six months.
First difference by cask and pieces of wood is the oxigen. The cask permitt microoxidation. Here in Italy have a great deatribe between the use of big cask (more than 1000 liters to 5000 L, low oxidation) and little cask (like barrique 225L, fast oxidation and big impact in the wine taste). Cheers, love yours video, and come to Italy to taste Barolo :-D
If I am not mistaken for the shape of a cylinder the ratio between surface area and volume only increases the smaller the magnitude of the cylinder is, which means that the exposure of the content of a barrel would actually improve for miniature sized barrels, not decrease. This would make sense in the example you brought up of the producer that uses quarter-sized barrels. This is why! I take the point you made about exposure to temperature changes and its effect on the wood, but that could also be done with miniature barrels in the same fashion!
Brewing stores carry them. I don't know if they are different in any way from the ones you find in BBQ isle (however, some brewing stores might have different kinds of oak, or different types of wood).
Can I add whiskey wood chips like you would use in a BBQ smoker if I make a bag to put them in and infuse it into a basic mead? Also how about adding some tinned cherries into another sample? Cheers for any advice
Thank you for the entertaining way you bring brewing to life. I have finally started making my own mead. I like you recipes and follow them. In regards to oaking would it be possible to oak a mead in the smaller oaking barrels you can find on Amazon?
I have a 1 pound bag of American Oak Chips. I have several brews that are almost ready for conditioning (maybe) they are 1 gallon brews and I don't know if you can add too much. for example , I have an apple wine that does not have much of a mouth feel so i want to add something. and another great video.
To be fair, the oaking sticks have taken military special whiskey up to at least Jack Daniels levels. To me at least. Made it suitable to be used as a mixer rather than straight rotgut. So if you start with a better ingredients then it oughta do great right?
Bought some chili powder once as a gift for a friend that was smoked with bourbon barrel wood chips. The chilli powder smelled amazing; Y'all could smoke some jalapenos either in the green stage or let them fully ripened to red stage and smoke your own chipotles. Then make another capsicumel mead when ever you get the notion to make another one.
@@CitySteadingBrews that's interesting so if you were to add smoked chilies to a mead; then couldn't you just add it in after the fermentation process was done? I believe y'all said citrus stunts the fermentation process as well. So if I wanted to make a ginger and Buddha hand mead; You would add the fingered citron fruit after you've racked it and when the fermentation is done?
Thanks for the summary. I have a question though: Have you any information on oaking during the primary fermentation of a wine? I could imagine that the metabolic activity of the yeast could change the flavor profile that the wood imparts.
@@CitySteadingBrews mmh … IF you rack fairly soon / oak conservatively with a small amount of weakly roasted chips, overextraction shouldn’t be much of an issue I assume. I’ve read that the addition in the primary fermentation, as I thought, doesn’t really cause an ‘oaked’ flavour profile but rather a fuller body. Mold could be handled by weighing it down or regularly agitating the fermenter, as I usually do anyways. I went through some forums and some people provide the following arguments for oaking in primary: (1) fuller body / more interesting flavour profile; (2) antioxidant effects by the (thus decomposing) phenols/vanillins, thus better colour-retention and protection against Sherry-like off flavours and (4) faster clearing of the brew. Sounds quite appealing to me. I’ve gone ahead and tested this in a brew I made today. We’ll see. However, I don’t have enough free fermenters to make a reference. So … if you have time … I’d appreciate it very much if you could make a video giving a ‘semi-scientific’ head to head comparison of primary versus secondary oaking. Maybe even including not oaked and primary+secondary (raking and using new wood of the same batch in the secondary). Much like you did in the tannin powder versus tea video (which was very helpful, thanks for that). Anyway, thanks for the advice and the great videos you two make
Did you ever use those rum soaked wood chips? I'd love to watch the video if you did? I can't seem to find it if you have. Thanks for all the great content!
@@CitySteadingBrews I think I found it by looking around a bit! It was your Pyment! Thanks for the other video I'm going to check that one out too! Keep up the awesome work!
Soooo... I made a 1.5 gallon cranberry wine. The final gravity reading put it at 16.4 % abv. I took 1/2 gallon and oak aged it. HUGE mistake! I some how over oaked it. How much oak chips, and for how long should I have let it age with said chips?
Love the vids guys. I have made a traditional mead with a French oak spiral, after four days it had made big difference!! Any thoughts on which type of oak would go well in a mango melomel if at all?
Wow, this is so fascinating...! I have to try this with my mead 😃😃😃With that said, do you think those woodblocks would be reusable at all? I mean, this is simulating what an oak barrel would do to wine , and oak barrel is reused? I am very curious to know what your thoughts on this idea is 🤔
I have a habit of making Blackberry wine from the wild bushes where I live and it can sometimes be a bit tart in flavour, especially in the meads, so oaking it sounds like something it could really benefit from.
Please help, I'm making apple cider for the first time, I'm buying 55 gallon oak barrels. Should they have some degree of toast? Or should they be clean? Thank you!!!
Been waiting for this video. Love it. One question though. Is it still possible to get vanilla and caramel flavors from chips/spirals or are these mainly to mellow out the brew? Kinda got the impression that these flavors were mainly only achieved through full barrel oaking.
You can reuse them a couple times in my experience, though different chips vary in quality from brand to brand. How much? That's also going to vary depending on the type an desired effect. There's no one answer, sorry!
I am new at this and won't be ready to start adding oak until I get more experience. I have two going right now that I just started. I like to smoke meats and I have different woods that produce different flavors like pecan, cherry, and even peach wood and a few other traditional smoke woods like hickory. I am just curious, have you ever tried using fruit woods in the wine instead of oak? They really work well with smoke so I am just curious. Cherry and peach produces not only a good smoke flavor, the smoke is very fragrant while cooking. Cherry and pecan are easy to get in Lowes or most grocery stores. Peach I had to order on Amazon. I have an electric smoker and I always have charred wood chips at the end of a smoke of varying degrees of char. I'm just asking out of curiosity.
I don't do a lot of oaking to be honest, but different woods would give different flavors I would think. Oak is commonly used due to a familiar profile and you do have to be careful as some woods have toxins.
Has anyone tried oaking ciders? I have 5 litres that is almost ready to go into conditioning and I was going to throw some chips in with it but not sure if, because of the lower alcohol, I’d need more to get the same levels of extraction from the chips? Any advice would be awesome 😊
@@CitySteadingBrews some microbes in the barrel remain making the brew in long term periods very different and complex and it varies from barrel to barrel. thats one reason someone might get them. for say a lambic beer or scrumpy ciders. some people never let their barrel go dry making every brew a very complex brew.
I made a Bochet and I think i need to add some dimension to it. I figured going with oak chips but I'm not sure how to add it. I just racked secondary right now. Do I just dump them in? how much for a 1 gallon batch? should I pop a campden tablet in as well?
The thought emporium(youtube channel) found that you could speed up the aging process by using an ultrasonic cleaner. The sound waves apparently speed up the process(though to what extent I don't know). Might be worth looking into.
I saw a video from "the thought emporium" where he was using an ultrasonic cleaner to speed up the extraction of flavors from wood into spirits. I wonder if youd get the vanilla or caramel flavors with this method or just the wood 🤔 I have an ultrasonic cleaner but I haven't got around to trying it yet.
There's no artificial method to age with wood that reproduces the natural process. Sure, the color might be there, and some flavors will be extracted, but it won't be anything close to real wood aging. Also, using chips or spirals is SOOOO much faster than doing it in a barrel. It's also, not exactly the same, but 4-8 weeks vs 4-8 years? I'll use chips!
This is making me think about a mead specifically designed to use the oak to enhance or highlight the Mead.. Maple Mead with Oak chips,, something. Any ideas where the flavors would be more than complimentary, closer to the feature?
@@CitySteadingBrews I made a Beer recently, trying to be reminiscent of a wooded clearing, I used maple syrup in that. Not ready to use more Maple quite yet.
I've recently bought two 200L ex-whiskey barrels for the purpose of Oaking Cider. Slightly off topic but how many pounds or kilograms of apples would I need to press to fill them?
I have no idea how many apples you would need, but... I can tell you that you're better off just using chunks of the wood in smaller vessels. Whiskey is aged over many seasons with the liquids going in and out of the wood with temperature changes. Cider isn't aged that long, for many reasons, including spoilage.
@@CitySteadingBrews I intend on using the barrels for primary fermentation, then bottling when the next season of pressing starts. So approximately 10-11 months in the barrels. What do you think?
I think that is a lot of cider and would be difficult to manage without spoilage or commercial equipment. Also… fermenting in the wood isn’t recommended. Wood is for aging, otherwise you can more easily get infections. Also it could over extract in that time and… fermentation takes a few weeks really. Much of this depends on your experience level. If you haven’t made much cider, I wouldn’t do this yet. If you have… then you would know much of what you need to know :)
How long do you typically leave your oak in for? I added 1/4 ounce of medium toast oak to a one gallon batch of cherry melomel. I am not sure how long to leave it in for.
Jessy @ Still It! Has a video on expectations. Toasted some White American Oak splits. Shows a diagram about halfway through of the different flavors to levels of toast used on them.
Have you ever used any wood other than oak? I’m new to brewing, but old to woodworking and I'm curious if fruit or nut woods like cherry, walnut, hawthorn, apple, etc might make an interesting addition either as a small addition to oak or on their own?
@@CitySteadingBrews can’t wait! I’m suddenly eyeing my birch trees. It’s too late this year, but I’m thinking that tapping them and fermenting on birch water might be interesting...
@@CitySteadingBrews Wow! After seeing that video I’m thinking French oak all the way! and I’m also curious what using oak from my wood shop might be like. I have red oak (open pore) and white oak (closed pore) I think I’ll try some toasted red oak shavings cuz I think the open pore will work faster, idk......
I plan on buying the oak spirals for my bochet. I bought 1.5 L swing top vodka bottle, with the idea that would be a good bottle to drop the spiral in. Would you recommend the wide mouth Conditioning bottle for oaking or the 1.5L againg bottle?
Also when I was shaking my gal. Small mouth carboy the bung got stuck inside... any ideas on how to get out? I tried blocking hole w bottling wand and the tubing w boiling water, the steam wasn't enough pressure to push it back out
Sooo!... I made a 1.5 gallon batch of cranberry wine. It finished at approximately 16.4 percent. I took 1/2 gallons and added oak chips. HUGE mistake!!! Some how, I over oaked it. All you can taste is the oak!!! How much and how long should I try oak ageing a home brew???
Hello. I need some help. I tried making oak chips my self with about 6month dried oak wood. But result tasted too phenolic? Tanin like. Do i need some kind of preprocess of the oak wood?
I don't do this myself... we purchase them. But, the wood is kilned or dried to a specific dryness and usually charred. Beyond that, I'm not much help I'm afraid.
I've been looking everywhere for oak spirals but here in Spain I've only been able to find oak chips. Considering I like to make a base batch and do different things with it( a sparkling litre, a dry litre, a backsweetened litre etc) chips just aren't that convenient. No question, just a bit of venting.
Whats up. I am having an issue. I came across some black honey a while back and decided to make some mead. After mixing everything and using a 14% ABV yeast it went dry at 9.5% since i didnt add the normal amount of honey. After seeing the sediment clear out and noticing it look very close to bourbon in color and clearity, i had a wild idea to instead make this a sack mead project and then add charred oak in secondary. So, i added a half pound more black honey and then threw in some k1-v1116 yeast to hopefully step feed to 20% or so. But now i have a very sluggish fermentation. Barely bubbling at all. Any advice on how to fix this or should i just sit back and wait?
I tried it once and it turned out having a very dilute watermelon flavor. I used a seedless melon and heard you should use one with seeds and when melons are in season.
Ok so "oaking" fast results their is a episode of Moonshiners that does charred oak cubes and puts them in 5 gallon buckets, adds the shine and alternates heating the buckets to like 120 degrees for like 4 hours. Then chilling them down for another 4 hours, and repeat to simulate the seasons you repeat the process till you reach the flavor profile you want. May not be as fast as you want. But it's faster than waiting the 4 to 5 years. For the same effect. And yes. I do have a brain full of obscure and useless knowledge. Roflmao.
I have read a lot about sterilizing your oak spirals or chips. Boiling or soaking in whiskey. Seems to me this is a waste and anything more than a dip in some Star San is pointless. Brain what you take ? Just dump it in and don’t worry about it?
I made an orange blossom mead that I aged with Hungarian oak cubes (medium toast) after the first racking. It was pretty good. I would suggest trying it.
I firstly want to convey my appreciation for CS brewing and the charismatic presentation! I have never tried brewing but has been a dream of mine for a VERY long time. You give me the confidence to get in a give it a go.
P.s my dream is to create an apiary in Tasmania and make crazy mead concoctions.
Love you guys keep it up!!!
Lol thanks to you for watching! Enjoy Tasmania!
I spent 8 days in Tasmania hitchhiking around, saw the penny-farthing races, went to wineglass bay, saw all the black swans at derwent, the royal botanical gardens, it's a beautiful place full of the friendliest people on earth. I hope you get that apiary 🍻
@@NleAdventures Cheers, it certainly a beautiful place!
Glad it has made as much an impact upon you, as it did I.
I know this question I'm going to ask will depend on what flavour I want ect.. but, with a ball park figure! how much oak chips would you suggest per uk gallon?
I'm going to buy some medium toasted chips. Also I've heard figs go really well with oak? so I have bought some figs which I will chop up and add in. Would you do this separately or add them in too for a month and check?
You pronounced my name right! That's awesome! And I love the fact you guys pay attention to the comments like you do. Thanks for the shoutout!
I made a ginger-orange mead that I messed up by putting in too much ginger. Even after heavily back sweetening, it was still pretty hot. I added about a half an ounce of medium toasted French oak chips for a little less than a week, and WOW! The heat is still there, but the oak smoothed out all the rough edges. It did seem to cloudy the mead a little, but I'm hoping that letting sit for a while will clear it back out.
Working as a cooper here in Sweden I just want to adress some things, althought rare there is some barrel fermented wines both red and white. Which I've found to be phenomenal. The most important thing about aging wine in barrels is the toasting degree on the barrel, havn't heard of anyone using new charred barrels as it would just overtake the wine. I've seen a few zinfandel wines aged in bourbonbarrels however. The most common toasting degree I believe is medium toast ( about nougat brown) on the inside. And about the smaller casks leaking, that just depends on the coopers really, seems like they're not too picky the fibers in the wood. We also a lot of whisky distilleries/ independent bottlers here in sweden that use 30-40L casks and sell them as "private casks" for customers. So that a customer can buy their own barrel of whisky, rum and what not, then bottle it whenever they please. Actually barrelaged a blackcurrant mead myself, about 18% abv which I let sit for 6 weeks in a 5L "new" american oak barrel, medium toasted. And it turned out quite nice although it had somewhat of a acetone note due to the barrel having been dry earlier, forcing me to make the wood swell up using hot water. Looking to barrelage more mead and wine in the future, I just have to make more barrels than we sell ;) Cheers
Rikard that sounds quite nice and I hope that goes well for you, was wondering on if there was a website where one could procure entire barrels of liquor?
@@pepealasquid6005 The only I can recall are either people auctioning out their private casks that's maturing on a distillery. Or distilleries selling barrels to be filled and matured in their warehouse. yet to find a site which sells full wooden barrels with liqour, yet alone ship it due to regulations etc
One option I have done to get the oak spiral out of a carboy is to tie a string to it before putting it in and then leave some hanging out. Then just push the airlock back in. Has worked pretty well for me.
Philip Teasell I do the same. Works great
Use kevda wood to get the ancient Indian flavour in the mead.
Or Khus syrup (a kind of grass). It will give you another flavour to your mead just as rose in rhodomel, khus and kevda have their own characteristic aroma.
What do ancient Indians taste like, Dev? ;)
@@Nova_Needle I'm talking about Indian cuisine, not people. 😂😂😂
They put this into summer coolers to give it spectacular taste.
A thing also to check is the toast level of your oak. Different levels of toasting will in part different flavors. Somewhere their is a chart that shows the different levels of toasting and what they will infuse into your brew.
Hi Nrian and Derica,
Would wood chips/chunks that are sold for smoking in the BBQ work? I’ve got some because I dabble with smoking meats.
Totally off-topic as this relates to cooking: BBQ’d chicken that’s smoked is awesome! Spatchcock a bird for better heat distribution, rub it with anything you fancy, give it a little smoke on the BBQ and crank up the heat to get it to golden, crispy perfection. Or, alternatively, smoke it over higher heat. Serve with salad and maybe enjoy it with some cider or mead... crispy, fresh bread along the side is a given at my house.
Small cask work but they take alot of after market time to seal them proper. Bees wax works good but is sticky and can affect your brew if any gets into it. But you gotta check it alot. To make sure it don't leak
Hey y’all! I read a very interesting snippet on the internet about taking those little barrels and switching the climate artificially every few days (I.e. - putting in the fridge/freezer for 48 hours then taking out and putting outside in the heat for 48 hours), then after a few transitions it will pull out more of the wood flavors. With that said it was really talking about aging whiskey but I think this could be interesting with mead. Love y’all’s videos and information, keep it up!
I made a white wine that came out of primary tasting like slightly fermented grape juice (at 14% abv). I conditioned it for 6 weeks with half an oak spiral, and it tasted like honey. My wife doesn't like the taste of honey, so now it's aging. We've got three bottles, and I plan to open one every six months.
First difference by cask and pieces of wood is the oxigen. The cask permitt microoxidation. Here in Italy have a great deatribe between the use of big cask (more than 1000 liters to 5000 L, low oxidation) and little cask (like barrique 225L, fast oxidation and big impact in the wine taste). Cheers, love yours video, and come to Italy to taste Barolo :-D
If I am not mistaken for the shape of a cylinder the ratio between surface area and volume only increases the smaller the magnitude of the cylinder is, which means that the exposure of the content of a barrel would actually improve for miniature sized barrels, not decrease. This would make sense in the example you brought up of the producer that uses quarter-sized barrels. This is why! I take the point you made about exposure to temperature changes and its effect on the wood, but that could also be done with miniature barrels in the same fashion!
Yes, they would over expose to the wood, which precludes the seasonal changes from happening before overdoing the wood flavors.
I have been using Jack Daniels barrel chips, which adds a smoky pineapple flavor. I also toast the chips for more flavor.
Yes! I'm going to make a rosmery Mead with oaking.
Sounds good to me!
great video as always, going to have to order a few chunks of oak and give it a shot once Amazon is back to normal.
We have been getting deliveries.
Where do you get oak chips? Can you just get regular wood chips from the BBQ isle? Or do you need to get some kind of special “food grade” wood?
Brewing stores carry them. I don't know if they are different in any way from the ones you find in BBQ isle (however, some brewing stores might have different kinds of oak, or different types of wood).
What company do you get your wood from for your brews?
I used some maple chips in a muscadine/brown sugar wine, not sure if it did a whole lot but it was good.
Yeah, it can be quite subtle sometimes. Needs the right wood, right amount, and enough time.
I have the same Bubba mug
Very apropos. Considering oaking some wine you guys convinced me to make. Lol.
Can I add whiskey wood chips like you would use in a BBQ smoker if I make a bag to put them in and infuse it into a basic mead? Also how about adding some tinned cherries into another sample? Cheers for any advice
Thank you for the entertaining way you bring brewing to life. I have finally started making my own mead. I like you recipes and follow them. In regards to oaking would it be possible to oak a mead in the smaller oaking barrels you can find on Amazon?
I have a 1 pound bag of American Oak Chips. I have several brews that are almost ready for conditioning (maybe) they are 1 gallon brews and I don't know if you can add too much. for example , I have an apple wine that does not have much of a mouth feel so i want to add something. and another great video.
You can overdo it. Put in a handful, test after a few days. Every brew is different as well as every palate.
You would think chilling the bottle in the fridge may cause the wood to shrink. Would be an interesting experiment
To be fair, the oaking sticks have taken military special whiskey up to at least Jack Daniels levels. To me at least. Made it suitable to be used as a mixer rather than straight rotgut. So if you start with a better ingredients then it oughta do great right?
I should give this a try
Bought some chili powder once as a gift for a friend that was smoked with bourbon barrel wood chips. The chilli powder smelled amazing; Y'all could smoke some jalapenos either in the green stage or let them fully ripened to red stage and smoke your own chipotles. Then make another capsicumel mead when ever you get the notion to make another one.
Smoked chilies can stunt a fermentation, nice idea though.
@@CitySteadingBrews that's interesting so if you were to add smoked chilies to a mead; then couldn't you just add it in after the fermentation process was done? I believe y'all said citrus stunts the fermentation process as well. So if I wanted to make a ginger and Buddha hand mead; You would add the fingered citron fruit after you've racked it and when the fermentation is done?
Thanks for the summary. I have a question though: Have you any information on oaking during the primary fermentation of a wine? I could imagine that the metabolic activity of the yeast could change the flavor profile that the wood imparts.
I don't recommend it. First, less control over extraction. Second, mold growth point since wood floats.
@@CitySteadingBrews mmh … IF you rack fairly soon / oak conservatively with a small amount of weakly roasted chips, overextraction shouldn’t be much of an issue I assume. I’ve read that the addition in the primary fermentation, as I thought, doesn’t really cause an ‘oaked’ flavour profile but rather a fuller body. Mold could be handled by weighing it down or regularly agitating the fermenter, as I usually do anyways. I went through some forums and some people provide the following arguments for oaking in primary: (1) fuller body / more interesting flavour profile; (2) antioxidant effects by the (thus decomposing) phenols/vanillins, thus better colour-retention and protection against Sherry-like off flavours and (4) faster clearing of the brew. Sounds quite appealing to me. I’ve gone ahead and tested this in a brew I made today. We’ll see. However, I don’t have enough free fermenters to make a reference. So … if you have time … I’d appreciate it very much if you could make a video giving a ‘semi-scientific’ head to head comparison of primary versus secondary oaking. Maybe even including not oaked and primary+secondary (raking and using new wood of the same batch in the secondary). Much like you did in the tannin powder versus tea video (which was very helpful, thanks for that).
Anyway, thanks for the advice and the great videos you two make
Did you ever use those rum soaked wood chips? I'd love to watch the video if you did? I can't seem to find it if you have. Thanks for all the great content!
We did in the bourbon bochet, and something else.... I don't recall what it was atm.
@@CitySteadingBrews I think I found it by looking around a bit! It was your Pyment! Thanks for the other video I'm going to check that one out too! Keep up the awesome work!
Soooo... I made a 1.5 gallon cranberry wine. The final gravity reading put it at 16.4 % abv. I took 1/2 gallon and oak aged it. HUGE mistake! I some how over oaked it. How much oak chips, and for how long should I have let it age with said
chips?
Love the vids guys. I have made a traditional mead with a French oak spiral, after four days it had made big difference!! Any thoughts on which type of oak would go well in a mango melomel if at all?
Mango? Hrm... I don’t do mango, but a medium Char on a spiral should work?
Wow, this is so fascinating...! I have to try this with my mead 😃😃😃With that said, do you think those woodblocks would be reusable at all? I mean, this is simulating what an oak barrel would do to wine , and oak barrel is reused? I am very curious to know what your thoughts on this idea is 🤔
We are trying that now.
@@CitySteadingBrews Great! I'll stay tuned for your next video!👍
I love Laphroaig!
Can oak wood shavings be used for faster aging.?
I have a habit of making Blackberry wine from the wild bushes where I live and it can sometimes be a bit tart in flavour, especially in the meads, so oaking it sounds like something it could really benefit from.
Good to know. Hoping my thornless bush bears this year.
Sooooooo anyone have a good idea on getting a stopper out of a glass carboy? asking for a friend lol
Wire coat hanger!
Please help, I'm making apple cider for the first time, I'm buying 55 gallon oak barrels. Should they have some degree of toast? Or should they be clean? Thank you!!!
I would start with a smaller batch personally. But toasted oak gives more flavor to answer your question.
@@CitySteadingBrews thank you very much for the fast response, you saved my life! Wish me luck!
Best of luck to you and your brew!
Been waiting for this video. Love it. One question though. Is it still possible to get vanilla and caramel flavors from chips/spirals or are these mainly to mellow out the brew? Kinda got the impression that these flavors were mainly only achieved through full barrel oaking.
A little comes through.
Do you have to sanitize the oak chips before adding them, or is the bag they come in sanitized (like when you add jam from an unopened jar)?
I don't generally, but many do, or soak in vodka or something similar.
@@CitySteadingBrews Thank you!!
I'm very late to this discussion, but is it possible to use other woods such as maple in this process?
Sure, but you want to make sure it's kilned first to remove all sap.
Can we reuse the oak spirals?
Can you reuse oak chips, or should you discard after one use? Also, how much wood chips should be used in a gallon of wine in conditioning?
You can reuse them a couple times in my experience, though different chips vary in quality from brand to brand. How much? That's also going to vary depending on the type an desired effect. There's no one answer, sorry!
I am new at this and won't be ready to start adding oak until I get more experience. I have two going right now that I just started. I like to smoke meats and I have different woods that produce different flavors like pecan, cherry, and even peach wood and a few other traditional smoke woods like hickory. I am just curious, have you ever tried using fruit woods in the wine instead of oak? They really work well with smoke so I am just curious. Cherry and peach produces not only a good smoke flavor, the smoke is very fragrant while cooking. Cherry and pecan are easy to get in Lowes or most grocery stores. Peach I had to order on Amazon. I have an electric smoker and I always have charred wood chips at the end of a smoke of varying degrees of char. I'm just asking out of curiosity.
I don't do a lot of oaking to be honest, but different woods would give different flavors I would think. Oak is commonly used due to a familiar profile and you do have to be careful as some woods have toxins.
Did you mention anything on sanitizing the oak prior to using if not soaking in alcohol?
Tnx
No and I generally dont, tbh.
Has anyone tried oaking ciders? I have 5 litres that is almost ready to go into conditioning and I was going to throw some chips in with it but not sure if, because of the lower alcohol, I’d need more to get the same levels of extraction from the chips? Any advice would be awesome 😊
Sure, works well. Adds a lot of complexity. Generally they need less time due to flavors not being as bold.
however you forgot to mention you can use a small barrel at home that will also hold some nice microbes for each batch you make.
Microbes?
I didn’t forget, I have found there is no difference in using barrels vs chips, spirals etc except for loss with the barrels.
@@CitySteadingBrews some microbes in the barrel remain making the brew in long term periods very different and complex and it varies from barrel to barrel. thats one reason someone might get them. for say a lambic beer or scrumpy ciders. some people never let their barrel go dry making every brew a very complex brew.
I made a Bochet and I think i need to add some dimension to it. I figured going with oak chips but I'm not sure how to add it. I just racked secondary right now.
Do I just dump them in? how much for a 1 gallon batch? should I pop a campden tablet in as well?
ua-cam.com/video/47c3clafZQ8/v-deo.html
The thought emporium(youtube channel) found that you could speed up the aging process by using an ultrasonic cleaner. The sound waves apparently speed up the process(though to what extent I don't know). Might be worth looking into.
*shrug* Sure? I don't own one of those devices and probably won't buy one either. Faster doesn't mean better in most cases.
@@CitySteadingBrews Well he did taste test it and supposedly did taste good(I don't drink so I don't know).
„Half-behinding“ :D
Good Oak is difficult to get in South Africa I can get good clean hickory chips(for smoking) can I substitute the oak ? Help would be appreciated !!
It will taste different, but, hickory has been used yes.
I saw a video from "the thought emporium" where he was using an ultrasonic cleaner to speed up the extraction of flavors from wood into spirits. I wonder if youd get the vanilla or caramel flavors with this method or just the wood 🤔 I have an ultrasonic cleaner but I haven't got around to trying it yet.
There's no artificial method to age with wood that reproduces the natural process. Sure, the color might be there, and some flavors will be extracted, but it won't be anything close to real wood aging. Also, using chips or spirals is SOOOO much faster than doing it in a barrel. It's also, not exactly the same, but 4-8 weeks vs 4-8 years? I'll use chips!
I love you guys! What's the longest time you were able to get the top to spin for?
Uhh, have yet to test that.
Are the spirals reusable? They sound convenient to use!
Supposedly!
@@CitySteadingBrews how many times would you say?
That I don’t really have an answer for. 2 maybe 3?
This is making me think about a mead specifically designed to use the oak to enhance or highlight the Mead.. Maple Mead with Oak chips,, something. Any ideas where the flavors would be more than complimentary, closer to the feature?
We did a maple mead! ua-cam.com/video/bRJCFUmr8Os/v-deo.html
@@CitySteadingBrews I made a Beer recently, trying to be reminiscent of a wooded clearing, I used maple syrup in that. Not ready to use more Maple quite yet.
I've recently bought two 200L ex-whiskey barrels for the purpose of Oaking Cider. Slightly off topic but how many pounds or kilograms of apples would I need to press to fill them?
I have no idea how many apples you would need, but... I can tell you that you're better off just using chunks of the wood in smaller vessels. Whiskey is aged over many seasons with the liquids going in and out of the wood with temperature changes. Cider isn't aged that long, for many reasons, including spoilage.
Rough estimate on the internet says about 1200-1400 pounds of apples to make enough to fill both of those.
@@CitySteadingBrews Thank you :)
@@CitySteadingBrews I intend on using the barrels for primary fermentation, then bottling when the next season of pressing starts. So approximately 10-11 months in the barrels. What do you think?
I think that is a lot of cider and would be difficult to manage without spoilage or commercial equipment. Also… fermenting in the wood isn’t recommended. Wood is for aging, otherwise you can more easily get infections. Also it could over extract in that time and… fermentation takes a few weeks really. Much of this depends on your experience level. If you haven’t made much cider, I wouldn’t do this yet. If you have… then you would know much of what you need to know :)
How long do you typically leave your oak in for? I added 1/4 ounce of medium toast oak to a one gallon batch of cherry melomel. I am not sure how long to leave it in for.
Honestly? 1 to 12 months. Taste it every so often.
what are the expected results on charring level regarding flavour, aging time required, amount of chips required etc?
More char will be more pronounced flavors, less char, less so. Most of this is 'to taste' so there's no right answer.
Jessy @ Still It! Has a video on expectations. Toasted some White American Oak splits. Shows a diagram about halfway through of the different flavors to levels of toast used on them.
Stupid question, how might a lad char oak at home? And can I oak a hard cider that I brewed? Asking for a friend of course.
Blowtorch? Fire? :) That's how it's done.
Have you ever used any wood other than oak? I’m new to brewing, but old to woodworking and I'm curious if fruit or nut woods like cherry, walnut, hawthorn, apple, etc might make an interesting addition either as a small addition to oak or on their own?
We have a video coming out tomorrow on this :)
@@CitySteadingBrews can’t wait! I’m suddenly eyeing my birch trees. It’s too late this year, but I’m thinking that tapping them and fermenting on birch water might be interesting...
@@CitySteadingBrews Wow! After seeing that video I’m thinking French oak all the way! and I’m also curious what using oak from my wood shop might be like. I have red oak (open pore) and white oak (closed pore) I think I’ll try some toasted red oak shavings cuz I think the open pore will work faster, idk......
Awesome!
I plan on buying the oak spirals for my bochet. I bought 1.5 L swing top vodka bottle, with the idea that would be a good bottle to drop the spiral in. Would you recommend the wide mouth Conditioning bottle for oaking or the 1.5L againg bottle?
Either one. If you tie a string to the spiral, you can leave it hanging out the top maybe and fish it out.
@@CitySteadingBrews I heard you say that and it's a great idea! And from your video its sounds lik I'd get more flavor over a few mos. Vs a few weeks
Also when I was shaking my gal. Small mouth carboy the bung got stuck inside... any ideas on how to get out? I tried blocking hole w bottling wand and the tubing w boiling water, the steam wasn't enough pressure to push it back out
Coat hanger.
@@CitySteadingBrews what?
How many oak spirals would you recommend for a one gallon carboy of traditional mead?
One or two, for a month or so... then test.
Sooo!... I made a 1.5 gallon batch of cranberry wine. It finished at approximately 16.4 percent. I took 1/2 gallons and added oak chips. HUGE mistake!!! Some how, I over oaked it. All you can taste is the oak!!! How much and how long should I try oak ageing a home brew???
Normally I test weekly.
Hello. I need some help.
I tried making oak chips my self with about 6month dried oak wood. But result tasted too phenolic? Tanin like. Do i need some kind of preprocess of the oak wood?
I don't do this myself... we purchase them. But, the wood is kilned or dried to a specific dryness and usually charred. Beyond that, I'm not much help I'm afraid.
what u think about soaking oaks chips in bourbon and then add them to cider?
We talked about that in the video.
The Bouchet I made is pretty good, but using a bourbon to get it stronger (like Wild Turkey 50% strong wood flavor) gets to a higher level.
What kind of wood could you use
Hey Brian the method you talked about you couldn't use the word for...that's the "half baked" method right?
That’s it yes!
what about mesquite? we get cords delivered for our smoker grill
It’s been done and for some things moght be interesting.
I've been looking everywhere for oak spirals but here in Spain I've only been able to find oak chips. Considering I like to make a base batch and do different things with it( a sparkling litre, a dry litre, a backsweetened litre etc) chips just aren't that convenient. No question, just a bit of venting.
Whats up. I am having an issue. I came across some black honey a while back and decided to make some mead. After mixing everything and using a 14% ABV yeast it went dry at 9.5% since i didnt add the normal amount of honey. After seeing the sediment clear out and noticing it look very close to bourbon in color and clearity, i had a wild idea to instead make this a sack mead project and then add charred oak in secondary.
So, i added a half pound more black honey and then threw in some k1-v1116 yeast to hopefully step feed to 20% or so. But now i have a very sluggish fermentation. Barely bubbling at all. Any advice on how to fix this or should i just sit back and wait?
How much honey did you start with?
Started with 2 lbs. Starting gravity was 1.072
have you guys ever thought about doing a watermelon wine with juicing watermelons for the juice
Lots say this doesn’t work too well. May have to test it.
I tried it once and it turned out having a very dilute watermelon flavor. I used a seedless melon and heard you should use one with seeds and when melons are in season.
Where did you get TODD, do you have a link?
amzn.to/42S0rjs
Can you reuse those oak spirals?
Once or twice sure. Gets weaker each time.
I've done this and it tasted like whiskey to me
You say it like that’s a bad thing.
I've got a mead sitting in a 5ltr oak barrel at the moment. I'll tell you how it goes.
how did it go so far?
I'm looking at getting one around Christmas time, to use as a brief aging after 6 months or so for mead, would be interested to hear your results.
@@RobertBuchanTerrey bottled after 6 months, it has taken on a darker colour and a subtle oaky taste. Love it
@@arsenioslampropoulos2136 tastes great
You could have said maybe half Jack method
What?
Is It stupid to get my tiny barrrl in and out of the freezer througout the months?
Crazy maybe.. but I wouldn't say stupid. :)
@@CitySteadingBrews im aging some cachaça, ill let you know
Expands when it gets larger. Because science-ish!
Yeah not when it absorbs liquid. Glad someone else got that lol
A friend just gave me a taste of Ace's Pineapple Cider.... could you make something like that?
The Ace's tastes like it has whole pineapple in it, vs just pineapple juice... it has a core tanginess to it... soooooo good!
Would have to find it.
@@CitySteadingBrews I hope you can, it was like a tangy pineapple juice. I could not taste the alcohol!
Oak Chips Saturated In Concentrate... Hmmm...
Are you an oak man Jimmy?
Sincerely
Winston Wolf
No mention of oaking with ultrasound? A long aged flavor can be achieved in hours instead of years with the help of an ultrasonic parts washer.
Not really my thing to do that. We're a little more keep it simple and natural than that.
Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel made you out of clay.
Ok so "oaking" fast results their is a episode of Moonshiners that does charred oak cubes and puts them in 5 gallon buckets, adds the shine and alternates heating the buckets to like 120 degrees for like 4 hours. Then chilling them down for another 4 hours, and repeat to simulate the seasons you repeat the process till you reach the flavor profile you want.
May not be as fast as you want. But it's faster than waiting the 4 to 5 years. For the same effect.
And yes. I do have a brain full of obscure and useless knowledge.
Roflmao.
I have read a lot about sterilizing your oak spirals or chips. Boiling or soaking in whiskey. Seems to me this is a waste and anything more than a dip in some Star San is pointless. Brain what you take ? Just dump it in and don’t worry about it?
second like of the video someday I will be the first 😁
Lol