What's The Cheapest Way To Oak Your Wine?

[shadow47]

I think those Oak chips you can buy are a complete con, £3 for 100 grams of oak!

There must be a cheaper option, where can I get some French Oak? I can then cut up into cubes, toast them myself and then use them for aging the Wine.

Any ideas? :wha:

 

[ricardo]

Suppose you could find your own oak sawdust maybe from a local joiner / cabinet maker / sawmill.
Your big problem is going to be finding out if it has been treated with something 'oribble.

 

[RobbieD]

Find a piece of ntural oak and i could soon turn it to sawdust or chippings

Rob

 

[fluff]

you could always go to a timber yard and ask for some off cuts?

This place sells em by the bag load but sure you'll find some more willing to let you have a few bits here and there as a bag of this may be a little on the large size....

http://www.uk-timber.co.uk/builders-har ... -p-74.html

 

[metalmickey]

arent the oak chips/dust from the insides of old oak barrels which have had wine or spirit in them?

i think they only get sent to the saw yard as they get old and start to leak/creak and lose their airtightness (is that a word?)

 

[evanvine]

and lose their airtightness (is that a word?)

As "airtight" is one word, I don't see why not (it's not in my spell check though).
Mind you, neither is "watertightness".

 

[shadow47]

I guess it doesn't really matter if it's officially a word or not, as long as people understand the point you were making, that's the main thing.

This is how language evolves anyway :

 

[evanvine]

Could not agree more shadow!

 

[gilgamesh]

I found an oak tree with a loose branch :whistle: , shaved off the bark and roast it in the oven, just to darken it and kill anything living in it. I think it was about 200 for 15 mins, but you can tell when it is done by the lovely smell. Then the stick went in a bottle of Beaverdale Rioja red. This was good after two months and so I added a few sticks (8g) to a 5ltr PET for two months. Seems to work out ok so far, though I would try it with one bottle first, just to see if you like it more or less oaked. I think the larger amounts of oak/wine need a little longer to mellow but it is more interesting and tastes much more like a true rioja, I found it a little flat to begin with.

 

[shadow47]

I'll have to try that gilgamesh, thanks! :)

Just need to walk around and find an oak tree with a 'loose' branch, I'm sure I seen one earlier when I was walking the dog...

 

[Endadmcc]

I am nearly sure on another forum wurzel said about adding vanilla essence as an oak substitute but i could be wrong. :hmm:

 

[shadow47]

I am nearly sure on another forum wurzel said about adding vanilla essence as an oak substitute but i could be wrong. :hmm:

That might have been me actually, I remember telling someone that, but I probably copied it from Moley .

So unless he verifies it then I'd give it a miss for now.

 

[evanvine]

Do they not set fire to the insides of Oak barrels before ageing spirits in them?
Then afterwards mature wines in them, the flavour coming from spirit soaked Oak charcoal?
May well be wrong again!

 

[Moley]

I am nearly sure on another forum wurzel said about adding vanilla essence as an oak substitute but i could be wrong. :hmm:

That might have been me actually, I remember telling someone that, but I probably copied it from Moley .

So unless he verifies it then I'd give it a miss for now.

I'll verify that Wurzel said it on another forum.

I haven't tried it as we don't paticularly like oaked wines, but if Wurzel says he got that from Tom, that would be good enough for me.