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In wine homebrew shops oak chips cost a fortune... you use them to simulate aging your wine in oak barrels - its a good cheat and it works! You can also steep them in vodka/clear spirit to make a passable whisky.. Some oak chips appear to be "toasted" to varying degrees...
But how to get hold of of some at a cheaper rate? I have some branches from an oak tree which I have dried for a year... what next? anyone got any tips?

Strip the bark and cut them up.

There's no reason, apart from ease of handling and greater surface area, why it has to be oak chips. For instance, you'll get a much quicker effect by adding oak sawdust during fermentation. Some people stick a few stripped oak twigs in a maturing wine. You can mature in a steel vat and add an oak plank.

Chop it, saw it, gnaw it - it doesn't matter. And it's a sight cheaper than an oak barrel.

Mike

EDIT: In case you're wondering, the English oak (as opposed to the Sessile oak) is the same species as the main French oak.

but I say leave em out - i hate the taste of 'oaked' wine

I know what you mean, Red - I hate oaked white wines. But I like it in a heavy red.

Mike

Wow, if we had a chipper I'd send you all you want---We have four different varieties of Oak growing on our farm!

I have an electric planer that might produce useful shavings... wasn't sure about the bark... but what about the toasting? I believe that some wine barrels are "fired" to some extent, which may be sterlisation, but also may be to get a different or better flavour.

mustardseed - I did buy some cheaper oak shavings from ebay a while ago.... they were intended for home smoking your own kippers, ham etc.... they were pale and untoasted.... and were a LOT milder in effect than the homebrew shop chips, which is why I asked about toasting. Anyway, that could be a useful opportunity for you to investigate.... not sure how big that market is though.... and presumably big sawmills will already be shifting their waste product in this way... or maybe not.

There's a site here ...

http://chezraywinery.blogspot.co.uk/200 ... taves.html

... which deals with oak staves. You'd have to adjust for smaller pieces, but the technique should be good (oh, temps. are in degrees F). I know that some people use a blowtorch, but that seems hitty-missy to me. And I've seen somewhere that the different oak flavours appear at different stages of toasting, but I can't find the info. on that. I do remember that the flavours most wanted in wine appear during the lighter side of toasting, heavier toasting being more suitable if you happen to be flavouring a heavy beer such as a stout.

Mike

EDIT: Ah, here's something I found and nicked ...

Instructions

1 Spread the oak chips out on a baking tray, one layer deep.
2 Place the oak chips in an oven heated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour for a light toast. Place the oak chips in an oven heated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours for a heavier toast. Remove the chips from the oven and flip them with a spatula at the halfway point.
3 Remove the oak chips from the oven and allow them to return to room temperature before adding them to your wine.

... The flash point of wood is 572 degrees F, so it isn't going to burst into flame - but it WILL smoke a lot.

Thanks Mike - that's just the sort of info I was looking for.... just been checking my electric planer :-)

dave45 wrote:mustardseed - I did buy some cheaper oak shavings from ebay a while ago.... they were intended for home smoking your own kippers, ham etc.... they were pale and untoasted.... and were a LOT milder in effect than the homebrew shop chips, which is why I asked about toasting. Anyway, that could be a useful opportunity for you to investigate.... not sure how big that market is though.... and presumably big sawmills will already be shifting their waste product in this way... or maybe not.

Nah,...I didn't mean for money. Besides, if I had a chipper, everything I chipped, (aside from sending some to my friends of course!) would be aged for my garden.

Oh hell, sorry STOP.

You want white oak - red oak contains too much tannin - it will make you wine or spirit bitter and astringent.

Next you only want heartwood, not the sap wood on the outside of the trunk and that makes up the majority of the smaller branches.

once you have some heart wood, it needs to be thoroughly dried - a year per inch of wood - you want all of the sap to evaporate. Cut 1 inch by one inch by 6 inch sticks and it will take a year - these are the perfect size for a gallon of spirit YMMV for wines.

Once you have cut aged staves you want to toast them - get a wee metal biscuit tin and punch a bunch of FINE holes top and bottom, pop it in an oven (i suggest a toaster oven outside) and cook it for a while.

The longer you cook it and the hotter you cook it will alter the flavors, see chart here:
http://homedistiller.org/aging/aging/wood

Some then char the outside of their staves to get a greater range of flavors.

If you are using chips the aging will go much faster, as will the toasting - this step is very hard to control with chips and you are better off doing small batches for different lengths of time to get a range of toasts and thus flavors.

A good shortcut is to go to a garden center and grab a 1/2 wine barrel planter (unused) and knock it down for the oak - it is the right species, already aged and is easily cut to the right size. You then just need to re-toast the staves and char them if desired (this can be done on a BBQ or with a gas torch)

I would suggest shaving the inside (wine stained side) back to bare wood for doing wine.

For aging my whiskey (Distilling for personal consumption is legal in New Zealand BUT NOT IN THE UK) I use the sticks un-shaved, toasted and charred as i feel i get a better range of flavors with the wine stain left on, my brandy gets it toasted only and my rum usually gets old (pre used) brandy staves (often re-toasted) as i don't want such a strong oak flavor to be imparted.

General consensus is that chips will give you the right colour faster, but staves will give you better flavour.
A little bit of oak left longer is much better than a lot of oak for a short amount of time.

All the best,
Jed

Ahhh - thanks for that Jed - sounds like I'd be wasting my time with these small-branch oak prunings then?

Well, at the risk of contradicting Jed, I'd say that you weren't wasting your time. They're aged and the sap will have gone. They certainly contain oak flavours, and they won't be in contact with your wine for years.

Maybe a test of a couple of weeks in vodka is called for.

Mike

What have I got to lose? experimentation is a good thing! If it doesn't work I can always ..emm send the stuff across to NZ for re-distilling ;-)

Try it and see - there is a brilliant 'Black Books' eppisode that entails using oak leaves to flavour wine 'oaky'. . .
Try it on a bottle, not your whole brew