Oak Dominoe Comparo

Smaug

Such a lovely rainbow.

punkin

I recommend french oak for rum @piiss31 as it doesn't carry over the maple and a lot less and different vanilla than the us oak.
Used french oak is the best i think, so soak the domino's in bourbon or sherry for a few weeks to take the new wood edge off them, then use them over a long period. Rum takes at least six months to loose that bourbon taste from the oak and the mollasses to shine back through in my experience. Those using microwaves and ultrasounds may have different views.

Bourbon our favourite is the US medium with some heavy toast thrown in too. It works much quicker than with rum and you can have drinkable results in 6-8 weeks. Of course it's better if you take a few sticks out and leave it longer. We age at 65% if that helps.

piiss31

Thanks for the advice @punkin, big help thanks, just got one more question, probably a dumb one but when its time to drink it you water it down to what % you like eg 37% is that right? To me that's saying 1 domino per liter aging at 65% is the go to water down when ready. Thanks

punkin

Yep

piiss31

thanks @punkin good onya

piiss31

@Unsensibel said: piiss31

1. make lots of bourbon, make lots of rum
2. put each in at different concentrations (ie. 40/50/60% ABV) with different oaks
3. wait and pull the oaks at different times (ie. 2 months, 6 months, 1year...)
4. taste and see what you like best

Bottom line, there's no individual recipe. The journey is the fun part. The dominoes are already something you can't go really wrong with. I'm currently going with about 1 domino / liter.

Anything more specific you need help with?

finally getting back to ya @Unsensibel but thanks for your advice,i have taken it on,the only thing im having trouble with at the moment is waiting.Thanks mate cheers

punkin

I had a customer email me during the week that his French Oak seemed to be taking a very long time to colour. Just wondering if anyone else is seeing that with the newer batches of French Oak compared to the older batches?

FloridaCracker

Not sure if the French Oak that I got from @Smaug about 6 weeks ago is the old or new stuff but it is coloring up FAST. In 2 liter jars I added one long plank that was about 6" long. After 2 days the color was perfect for gold rum. After 5 days it was the color of dark rum. Not black but mahogany.

Also I used the same plank from the dark jars for a second use in the gold rum and it still colored up after 2 days. I'm sure that the intense ambient temp is partly to blame. I also think that some of the oakiness was removed during the first use thus the golden has a lot less oak smell. All oaking was done at 65ABV.

ElectricEd

We find the medium toast French oak colours up fairly well. In a 2 litre flagon we use 2 average sized dominoes. If we are using a 20 litre demijohn we use between 1.5 dominoes per litre. The larger size of the demijohn doesn't go up and down in temperature as much as a flagon so needs a little more. The flagons take 4 months and the demijohns take 6 months to finish.

DonMateo

How big are the dominos ???

punkin

Usually around 100-140mm long and about 20mm wide i guess. They'd be 4-5mm thick.

DonMateo

Thanks mate.

crozdog

@DonMateo i have had to split some as they were too wide for the neck in the flagon or demijohn - easy done with a chisel ;)