Adding oak

[Scott G.]

Has anyone ever added oak to dragons blood wine for a different taste. Pros or cons.

 

[winemaker81]

I've not made Dragonsblood, but have read the basic recipe. It's a light fruit wine, so I would not use a lot of oak.

However, your taste matters. If you want to try it, I'd add 1/2 oz medium toast cubes (American, French or Hungarian, your choice) to a carboy and taste after 2 to 4 weeks. You'll want to do this with clear wine, as you'll need to stir the wine gently to distribute the oak flavor, as wine doesn't have convection currents. The wine nearest the cubes will have the most oak character.

Take the cube out when you are satisfied. Spirals and staves are easier to remove, but you also don't have the ability to fine tune the dosage.

For reference, in red wines I use 2 oz cubes per carboy for 3 months.

 

[Scott G.]

I've not made Dragonsblood, but have read the basic recipe. It's a light fruit wine, so I would not use a lot of oak.

However, your taste matters. If you want to try it, I'd add 1/2 oz medium toast cubes (American, French or Hungarian, your choice) to a carboy and taste after 2 to 4 weeks. You'll want to do this with clear wine, as you'll need to stir the wine gently to distribute the oak flavor, as wine doesn't have convection currents. The wine nearest the cubes will have the most oak character.

Take the cube out when you are satisfied. Spirals and staves are easier to remove, but you also don't have the ability to fine tune the dosage.

For reference, in red wines I use 2 oz cubes per carboy for 3 months.

Thanks for the help