Making your own oak

Has anyone tried to make there own toasted oak staves or chips

Quite a few of us here have made our own oak. You want to use untreated wood to avoid contamination. I prefer native white oak from the family woodlot. It was logged for the last few years so all I do is go for a walk and pick out some likely looking pieces. I cut it into strips on the bandsaw about 3/4 x 3/4" or less and process some like that or break into cubes(or cut if they wont break). I likt mine well dried before processing- it prevents excessive tannins. I've tried various methods of toasting- use whatever works for you, just be carefull not to overdo it or you could start a fire.

I toasted some white oak in the oven at 420* for about 1 hour
Flip them often and keep a good eye on them. They will crackle a lot and sound like jiffy pop as the moisture is burned out. The whole smelled like vanilla.


Edited by: wade

wade

is the white oak lumber that you get from the lumber store
treated? or can we use this wood to make our own cubes? I
guess that I could resaw some of our oak firewood and toast in oven -
wadda ya think? I have been buying the carlson toasted house and
heavy french - american and hungarian oaks.

advise please.

thanx

rrawhide

I would stay away from store purchased, I used some from awhat you could get at a store and this was not treated with any chemicals, how do I know cause I spoke to the representative of the company which supplies our company which happens to be one of the biggest Lumber suppliers in the North East. He said with the way they go through this lumber they dont even have time to treat it but other smaller companies will and do. I would use your firewood and make sure if your gonna put it in your carboy that you make it small enough to allow for some expansion of the wood as my toasted sticks barely made it out of a one gallon bottle. Judging by the smell and taste of the wood that came with my RJ Spagnols kit, it doesnt even come close to comparing with the quality, I will throw mine away and just buy some. I must say hat my wine came out okay with it and the house never smelled better then when toasting that but I dont think it compares to the chips at the store and definitely not the Stavin cubes.

I made a bunch this weekend 3/4" X 3/4" X 12" The white oak I used I cut myself about 2 yrs ago and had it sawed by a bandsaw into planks. I put these in my gas smokehouse on high heat for one hour about 400deg. This smokehouse is used only for meat never fish. For the last 15 minutes I added oak chips and smoked them. Iadded 3 of themto a 3gal batch of wheat wine that is just finishing fementing out

Keep us informed on flavor.