Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

ok.

so for the more experienced oakers and distillers, i have a quick question..

i have two 1ltr jars of CFW. ive oaked for 1.5 days at 89% (straight off the still) and then the rest of the week and a bit at 65%.

what are the characters that i should be looking for in the whiskey. vanillin is one i have heard of talked about here on the site though is it one that i should notice in the cfw?


as im 25 i have no real basis of flavour for pure spirit to guage my results on from anothers, so i'd like a little help in this regard.

ive used Hava's group buy dominoes - 1 with 1 1/2 and the other just 1. if that makes any difference, there is a quite a large colour difference between the two i'll upload a pic tomorrow.

EDIT: ive used the CFW T&P Recipe also.

At the front you'll find vanilla bean, corn on the cob and maple syrup. This will fade into notes of pepper and cinnamon and finish with grandmas old fruit cake.

:laughing-rolling:

Seriously not really sure... Tastes like bourbon to me.

Also don't be expecting much flavour from the oak after only a week... You really need to leave it for at least a couple of months. You will get better results out of charring your toasted oak as well :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Yep less for longer is the general rule.

What were the thought behind leaving it at high proof for the first day :think:

If you want to try and beat the system you can try aeration or changing temps dramatically, both have decent results apparently.

Howdy,

Yep as Zak said colour after a few days does not equal taste... it's deceptive in some respects but true oak flavours don't start appearing until roughly week 4 onwards ...there's some but not enough to really gauge a good spirit.

Just on your oaking method..no fan of oaking over 70% abv tends to pull tanins = sharper tastes through, normally start at 65% letting it air/ age down to about 60% .

Around the 65% mark is where you'll pull the best mix of flavours for a UJ style bourbon imho...

Ageing below fifty gets you some fairly woody but longer term manky tastes so initially its ok but later gets really dead /woody tasting. Some folk do this but I reckon its must be short term quickly consumed spirit say ,4 -6 months to avoid the longer term taste issues.

Having written all this it is fairly dependant on your toasting/char level. Big bold chars up front short term no issues, but longer term reduced quantities of timber and a medium toast is very nice spirit with more of the vanillin's you referred to.

cheers
bt1

sam_and_liv wrote:Yep less for longer is the general rule.

What were the thought behind leaving it at high proof for the first day :think:

If you want to try and beat the system you can try aeration or changing temps dramatically, both have decent results apparently.

i just left it in there to see what happens - i was surprised at how quick the colour infused.

also i had to get some spring water to water down..

bt1 wrote:Howdy,

Yep as Zak said colour after a few days does not equal taste... it's deceptive in some respects but true oak flavours don't start appearing until roughly week 4 onwards ...there's some but not enough to really gauge a good spirit.

Just on your oaking method..no fan of oaking over 70% abv tends to pull tanins = sharper tastes through, normally start at 65% letting it air/ age down to about 60% .

Around the 65% mark is where you'll pull the best mix of flavours for a UJ style bourbon imho...

Ageing below fifty gets you some fairly woody but longer term manky tastes so initially its ok but later gets really dead /woody tasting. Some folk do this but I reckon its must be short term quickly consumed spirit say ,4 -6 months to avoid the longer term taste issues.

Having written all this it is fairly dependant on your toasting/char level. Big bold chars up front short term no issues, but longer term reduced quantities of timber and a medium toast is very nice spirit with more of the vanillin's you referred to.

cheers
bt1

alright no worries - i've just got Hava's group buy leffort dominos i think they're chard or atleast toasted they have quite a dark colour to them

They are toasted but you can char them as well, a lot do for bourbons :handgestures-thumbupleft:

sam_and_liv wrote:They are toasted but you can char them as well, a lot do for bourbons :handgestures-thumbupleft:

okie doke, looks like charing is next on the list then !

cheers sam and liv
:handgestures-thumbupleft:

Im not good at describing flavours so wont go there, but the more I lean about oaking the more I realize there is to learn, there are no end of combinations. different levels of toast and char will all give different results, Mixes of them both will be different again. Im sitting here at the moment trying a UJ that has been on Dominos since 25 -10-13, its not that old yet.
A month ago it tasted like crap, now its a bloody nice drink.
The other half of the same run is sitting on home charred sticks of American oak. ( old barrel staves) It has a completely different taste, but is just as good in its own way.
At the end of the day nothing will beat a bit of time on oak, it can turn what seems like a pretty plain or tasteless spirit straight off the still into something quite special.
I think you could experiment endlessly with oaking the same spirit in different ways and end up with a different flavor each time.

A drop of your mums sherry into the brew while it sits on oak works wonders too, a little goes a long way so a half teaspoon of sherry into a 4.5l demijohn @ 65% would be heaps.
The sherry tastes strongly at 3-5months aging then it slowly fades to the background after that just adding a subtle something to the taste.