I ordered a 2 liter med charred oak barrel. I plan on making a sugar mash run it through the reflux and when I figure out what I'm doing cut it down and let some soak in the barrel. I'm not sure if this will work but I figured since I've never done any of this before if it doesn't turn out I can just blame lack of experience.

Well JB looks like you are going to have enough oak for a while. First your going to knock the bands off the barrel and it should just fall apart.
How wide you cut your stave strips depends on how large the mouth of your container is. I use 1 gallon and 1/2 gallon jars. The 1/2 gallon jars have a mouth about 3 3/4" ID across and the 1 gallon jar is a little wider about 4" ID across.The max width I use is 3" and the least width I use is 1 1/8"

How long you cut the staves is determined by the height of the inside of your container. I the case of the jars it's measured from inside bottom up to the lowest part of the shoulder.

I also cut some of the smaller width staves to fit in pint jars for experiments.

There are many different styles of ageing sticks, as far as the types of cuts go. The newest ideas I'm aware of concentrat on increasing the surface area available to the fluid. This is done with drilling holes though the stave flats and along the edges. Another method, if you have a table saw handy, is to cut shallow grooves all the way around the stave leaveing a solid core.
I'm sure everyone has heard about the cubes so I see no need to go into those here.

As to the toasting of the staves; traditionally the barrel staves are assembled in the bottom ring then the second ring from the top is pounded into place to hold the barrel together. A pot about a 1/3 of the diameter of the barrel is filled with oak scraps and fired up. Then the barrel is place over the fire pit and watched very closely so it's not toasted any more than wanted. Once the wood is heated the rest of the rings are pounded into place and the barrel is turned over.

A light toast has a barley noticable color change in the wood.
A medium toast barrel is about the color of deep golden honey. A little lighter than you would expect.
A heavey toast is a dark rich brown, but not black.

The main difference in the toasts, besides color, is the aroma of the wood. Toasting brings out the sugars and carmelizes them. It also brings out the aromas of nuts and the floral aromas of the wood.

As to the toasting of stave strips, it can be done in the oven at a temp between 275 and 400 degrees. Depending on how deep you want the toast to go and how dark you want it is what determine the time. Keep a close eye on it especially at higher temps.
Ideally the staves should be suspended from a rack. Laying them on a rack will also work but they will need to be turned at the half way point in order to insure an even toasting.

Another way to toast is to use a torch run across the staves. Don't let the flame stop on the wood or it will scorch instead of toast. OR.........

You can use a gas grill. Just be sure it is very clean or you'll end up with toasted staves that give off the flavor of hot dogs.

Well that's more than enough for one sitting. Hope it helps. Any questions give me yell.
Oh, I'll post some pics next week as I'm kinda busy right now.

Bushy: Other than cutting, drilling or routing, do you do anything else ... like sanding down the old exterior surfaces?


Md: I was worried about chemicals as well. I saw the barrels when they were still on the palette. It had instructions for the recei

Why not just buy oak chips they sell at Walmart to smoke BBQ food? They work just fine. Jd even makes some the are for their oak charred barrels.

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Those were my thoughts exactly ... I want to experiment with the different degrees of toasting to see what I like the best.

I've also read some complaints/criticism of chips ... some I understood, others were above my pay grade. But what I took away was a lack of consistency among brands, styles, etc. and even some inconsistency within a particular brand/product. There were also a few comments along the lines of, ""size matters!""

Then there's the cost. I wasn't inclined to keep dropping $$ on every bag of chips I wanted to try. I know that chopping up a barrel costs time. But this is a hobby for me ... if the time I spent doing this was an issue, I'd just drive down to the store and pick up a few bottles of some commercial stuff.

BTW: I'd like to find where the data points for that chart came from. It's a cool looking chart and clearly gets the point across ... but I'd like to get a chart that is easier to use when selecting a particular temperature range (i.e. - a 2-D rendering rather than 3-D). The first application is for my rice whiskey ... so I'm thinking sweet/vanilla would be appropriate ... but it's hard to see what temp range to shoot for ... maybe around 300 F? We'll see."

"Here's a picture that shows the prepared oak stick on the left and an unprepared stick on the right. Both of these sticks were cut from the smallest stave on the barrel. The dimensions are (very roughly) 0.5"" x 0.5"" x 7.5"". I used a hand saw to cut the sticks and a sanding pad on my drill to prepare the stick.

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Hi JB, nice looking sticks you've got there. From the color they look a little darker than medium but not quite a dark toast.

I see no reason to soak them and I've used mine without any adverse effects. I do know that new barrels are soaked so they seal up.
I belong to a beer club and we just had a 50 gallon barrel made for ageing beer. The only thing we did before adding the beer wash to fill it with water and let it sit for a week before filling it to seal the joints. We had it toasted to a medium toast as it's being used for dark beers.
We are ageing it for three months this first time due to the concern for tannin flavors. Our second batch ageing time will be determined by the results of the first batch. I'll let you know how it goes.

If you are concerned about the tannins try useing three pint jars one with a stick soaked before toasting and one soaked after toasting then one toasted and not soaked at all. I,'ll reiterate I do not soak the sticks at all and like the results. But maybe I'll try this experiment myself to find out the differences and maybe I'll find out something new that I like.

No problems with the wife or kids. There was definitely an aroma that filled a good portion of the house ... the same olfactory "coverage" as when my wife bakes ... but everyone thought the aroma was fairly pleasant ... or at least not objectionable. And my wife has the oven fired up right now ... there aren't any lingering "smells" that I can detect.

BTW: Maybe I just wasn't patient enough at the lower temps? The only aroma that comes to mind with those two sticks is roasted coffee beans. I've been sniffing at them from time to time to see if I can detect something different ... training the nose. I have found that if I run some warm water over the end of the stick it makes it much easier to pick up some scents ... but I think it may also be masking some that I just haven't "picked up" yet. Pretty weird ... it's not unlike learning how to pick up the scent of tails ... takes several go 'rounds before you even notice them.

Hi JB, glad to hear no one objected to the aroma of toasting wood. I found that the aroma of the wood after toasting isn't the same as the flavor that is produced. With my limited experience I've found that the flavor is more than the aroma. But color and smell are the only ways to gauge the toast.

Here are the last three pics from the beginning stages of makeing ageing sticks.

Pic #1 the top three staves are a chared roast color and the bottom one is a dark toast.

Pic #2 is of my crude setup for drilling the staves to add more surface area. There are a lot of ways to add surface area to the sticks. I could have done a much pretier job on the router table but I'm not building furniture here.

Pic #3 these are the roughed out pieces before sanding or toasting. The larger piece on the bottom is where the actual break in the stave occured. This piece will be cut up into smaller squares since it's so split and cracked I can't get any straight cuts that will stay together.

This all took a little over an hour useing a skill saw, hand power planer, and a drill.

Comeing next I will be sanding and toasting. The toasting will be done in two ways, one will be with a propane torch and the other will be in the oven like JB did.