# never oaked before need advice



## winehomie (Oct 8, 2016)

Ok, I have this beautiful Tart Cherry dessert wine making right now, it is still 2 weeks until I start finishing it, I plan on a sweet dessert wine, I also have about 8 oz of white oak that I harvested, dried, and lightly toasted. 
I have never oaked a wine before, but have tasted some nice homemade Reds that have been oaked. So would this be a good choice to oak, or should I wait until I make a dryer red?


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## TonyR (Oct 8, 2016)

I make a blackberry port every 4 or 5 years and I put 2 8" med toasted oak sprials in a 6 gal carboy. The oak goes VERY good with the port.


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## hounddawg (Oct 8, 2016)

i uh have never oaked nor tasted to my knowledge any oaked wines, i do however love to experiment , you say 2 spirals, so exactly what are 2 spirals, are they like shavings, as well do you do your oaking during the bulk aging time of the wine making process. and i don't know if it makes any difference , but all my wines are country wines, nothing against grapes, they are just not all that abundant in my area. where i'm at i'm sure there's wine grapes i just don't know anyone that has them, although i am planning before any to long to give some possum grapes and some muscadines a try, I have never made muscadines wine my self but over the years i have drank enough muscadine wine to float a small flat bottom boat, i believe i'll subscribe to this thread to see how the thread starter does this ,, and see an hopefully get his thoughts on this subject on his experiences with this subject,
Dawg 






TonyR said:


> I make a blackberry port every 4 or 5 years and I put 2 8" med toasted oak sprials in a 6 gal carboy. The oak goes VERY good with the port.


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## TonyR (Oct 8, 2016)

I put them in after my first racking and leave them in for 6 months or so.
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/assets/images/oak-spirls-close-up-large.jpg


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## hounddawg (Oct 8, 2016)

please keep your experiences and results posted on this thread, I'd like to keep up an learn about doing some oaking my self, especially since your doing a sour cherry country wine, I aint to crazy about sweet cherries but I love tart/sour cherry wines that are back sweetened. 
Dawg







winehomie said:


> Ok, I have this beautiful Tart Cherry dessert wine making right now, it is still 2 weeks until I start finishing it, I plan on a sweet dessert wine, I also have about 8 oz of white oak that I harvested, dried, and lightly toasted.
> I have never oaked a wine before, but have tasted some nice homemade Reds that have been oaked. So would this be a good choice to oak, or should I wait until I make a dryer red?


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## hounddawg (Oct 8, 2016)

ok that surprised me, i take it spirals like those are made for more surface contact with your wines,
thank you TonyR
Dawg




TonyR said:


> I put them in after my first racking and leave them in for 6 months or so.
> http://www.austinhomebrew.com/assets/images/oak-spirls-close-up-large.jpg


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## winehomie (Oct 8, 2016)

Ok I decided that when I do my final rack I am going to split the batch in 1/2 and oak one of them so I can compare the tastes, seems like the safest way to do it, that way if I totally hate it I haven't ruined all the wine, and if I love it I can add oak to the other batch and just age it longer before I bottle it.


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## heatherd (Oct 8, 2016)

@winehomie That is a good plan.


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## winehomie (Oct 8, 2016)

hounddawg said:


> i uh have never oaked nor tasted to my knowledge any oaked wines, i do however love to experiment , you say 2 spirals, so exactly what are 2 spirals, are they like shavings, as well do you do your oaking during the bulk aging time of the wine making process. and i don't know if it makes any difference , but all my wines are country wines, nothing against grapes, they are just not all that abundant in my area. where i'm at i'm sure there's wine grapes i just don't know anyone that has them, although i am planning before any to long to give some possum grapes and some muscadines a try, I have never made muscadines wine my self but over the years i have drank enough muscadine wine to float a small flat bottom boat, i believe i'll subscribe to this thread to see how the thread starter does this ,, and see an hopefully get his thoughts on this subject on his experiences with this subject,
> Dawg



My first taste of a really good oaked wine was a Cranberry wine my Aunt use to make years ago. We were cleaning out her house after she passed and found 3 bottles of it. It was 10yrs old and had hand written labels on them that just said Oaked Cranberry 1980. Her son and I pulled the cork on one, and it was very good. Full body with just enough sweet, and Oak to balance it out. I was just 20 at the time so I didn't have much experience with wines but I remember it being very good. Sadly she never wrote any of her recipes down.


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## hounddawg (Oct 8, 2016)

a lot off people don't like elderberry wine, the secret is age you let elderberry get 10 years old and it is the nectar of the gods.
i bet the 10 year old cranberry was beyond good, a lot of decent wines are pretty good but you give it a few years and good turns to fantastic, i always run my alcohol up to around 18%ABV then after i sorbate it i back sweeten with granular dried honey never powdered ,, powered honey is over 1/2 cane sugar a quality granular honey is close to pure i run my back sweetened up to a SG of 1.010 to 1.040 Depending on which fruit or berry i use, reds age slower whites quicker. but age turns a decent wine into a killer good wine.
Dawg 






winehomie said:


> My first taste of a really good oaked wine was a Cranberry wine my Aunt use to make years ago. We were cleaning out her house after she passed and found 3 bottles of it. It was 10yrs old and had hand written labels on them that just said Oaked Cranberry 1980. Her son and I pulled the cork on one, and it was very good. Full body with just enough sweet, and Oak to balance it out. I was just 20 at the time so I didn't have much experience with wines but I remember it being very good. Sadly she never wrote any of her recipes down.


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## winehomie (Oct 27, 2016)

ok I split the batch, still fermenting slowly, and I wanted to get it off the lees that were building up. I have 3oz of my home made white oak in one 1.5 gallon and left the other gallon to finish without oak. It's been cooking for 27 days now so fermentation should be about over (forgot to take a SG when I racked it off) Haven't seen any bubbles but the airlocks are uneven so still fermenting slowly or at least still releasing CO2.


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## winehomie (Nov 4, 2016)

I have a question for the more learned than myself. I split the batch and the unoaked batch is clearing nicely probably be ready to do a final rack and back sweeten in the next week or so, but the oaked batch hasn't started to clear at all, still very cloudy with no sediment on the bottom it has been at .990 for 8 days now so fermentation has stopped. Could the oak be keeping it from clearing?


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## winehomie (Nov 13, 2016)

Ok same question as above, still very cloudy, very small amount of dead yeast on the bottom, unoaked wine clear and beautiful, don't understand it.


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