Research/Data on how long wood adjuncts can impart compounds?

[Ty520]

Does anyone know of any research on how long wine can be sat on wood before truly becoming neutral and losing all of the compounds they impart? particularly for home wine makers using cubes etc.

to put in context, I'm curious how sitting a gallon of wine on 0.5 ounces of oak for 1 month (which is my typical starting point), would vary from sitting a gallon on just 0.1 ounces, but for 9 months

 

[Rice_Guy]

The cubes I have are roughly 1cm cubic to square by 1/4 cm deep. This isn’t a lot, the flavor compounds travel at most .5cm. Gut feel, ,, in a month at room temperature the flavor compounds are in steady state with the surrounding solvent, after this no change is detectable. A different solvent system but the standard method for running a Soxlet fat extraction on food with 1/8” maximum particulate was one hour of refluxing.

 

[Ty520]

my cubes are about the same, averaging ~0.1 ounces per cube. do you have more context on what study you cited?

 

[Rice_Guy]

I was referencing ASTM standard methods. ie what is generally accepted if I hire a lab to tell me what a fat content is.
Looking for specific numbers a supplier like Scott Labs might have a number, or searching the free abstracts of American Journal of Viticulture and Enology might give a conclusion from a graduate school study.

 

[Ty520]

i actually did just manage to stumble across an interesting study from Spain via MDPI specifically on the use of oak fragments, and their contribution of compounds as a function of time. Jsut took a bit of tweaking search word parameters right to find what i wanted.

Although it was only using Tempranillo, it tested everything from chips to barrels, and everything in between, and seems to suggest that nearly all major compounds peak at around 6 months, regardless of oaking method used - and surprisingly, oftentimes begins to fade thereafter.

It also noted that most acids peak at 12 months.

and for those interested, ethyl compounds from the use of Brett didn't make an appearance unless barrels were used, and not until 12 months, rising rapidly through month 24

Use of Oak Fragments during the Aging of Red Wines. Effect on the Phenolic, Aromatic, and Sensory Composition of Wines as a Function of the Contact Time with the Wood

The use of oak fragments allows wine cellars to reduce costs and the length of wine aging compared to traditional aging in oak barrels in the winery. The main objective of this work was to study the effect of the use of oak fragments on the volatile, phenolic, and organoleptic characteristics of...

www.mdpi.com

 

[Hazelemere]

Does anyone know of any research on how long wine can be sat on wood before truly becoming neutral and losing all of the compounds they impart? particularly for home wine makers using cubes etc.

to put in context, I'm curious how sitting a gallon of wine on 0.5 ounces of oak for 1 month (which is my typical starting point), would vary from sitting a gallon on just 0.1 ounces, but for 9 months

about 120 days

 

[Raptor99]

@Ty520 An excellent article, thanks for sharing your find. It is helpful to find scientific paper on this topic.

Scanning through the article, I found a few points I want to keep in mind:

• Overall, staves outperform chips
• The optimal time for aging on chips is about 2 months, so chips are suitable for wines destines for short aging periods
• To get the full benefit of staves requires 4-6 months on oak. Chips outperform staves if only left in the wine for 1-2 months.

Staves are much larger than oak cubes or spirals, so I suspect that the results for those would fall somewhere between the results for chips and staves. I did not focus on barrels because I am unlikely to get barrels anytime soon.

I have been using chips, but based on this research I am considering switching to cubes if I can leave them in the carboy for at least 4 months.

 

[QuiQuog]

I made a Cabernet recently and decided to pull a couple of bottles before adding oak cubes in the bulk vessel to compare later. Then I decided to drop a single cube into one of them before corking as an additional experiment. I’m interested what the one with the oak cube will be like after a couple years in the bottle.

 

[Rice_Guy]

This article has a few pointers as alcohol is a better solvent for oak flavors than water.

When using oak cubes in a recipe from concentrate, at what stage in the process should they be added? - WineMakerMag.com

Ah, the timeless pairing of American oak and Zinfandel. It’s a taste combination that’s got more than 100 years of history in U.S. winemaking and if the number of Zin labels that sport something like “aged for 18 months in American oak” is any indication, then its second century is off to a good...

winemakermag.com