oak

I have glass carboys of both Syrah and Barbera. In past years I've used light-toasted staves, one per carboy, for the 10 months (or so) aging period. This year I went with two medium-toasted staves in each varietal. What are your opinions about the quantity, the toast, and how long the staves...

I have a 6 gallon batch of pinot noir made from fresh grapes. MLF finished a month ago. I split the batch into 6 1-gallon carboys and put a different oak in each one. I looked at my Heavy toasted American oak one today, and saw what looked like a film on top. Smells and tastes fine as far as I...

A few years ago, I made a cab sauv kit where I didn't use the included oak cubes and instead used a M+ toasted french oak spiral from my LHBS. The package said 1 spiral for 3 gallons, so I used 1 spiral in about 5.5 gallons in secondary for a milder flavor and left it for 6 weeks per the...

I have an RJS Toasted Caramel Port approaching day 42 when it's supposed to be racked. I added 20 grams of medium toasted French oak on Day 1 (not per instructions), but it fermented down to an SG of 1.000 in 6 or 7 days. At this time I racked it to a 3 gallon carboy per instructions, leaving...

I am just about to start bulk aging my Malbec kit. What is the best type of oak to use for malbecs?

My cabsauv kit has completed it's course however it seems to be still gassy/fizzy. Can I still oak while letting the airlock degass, or do I need to wait for it to be finished degassing I did degass after the primary for 5 mins. It seems there was too much water in the lock and did not let the...

I am trying to make a cab with a bourbon barrel oak characteristic. Has anyone done this without a bourbon barrel? Can you infuse oak spirals or cubes with bourbon? If so what is the process?

What is the best type of oak for aging sangiovese?

I am aging an off dry wine kit with a spiral of French oak. I tasted after a month of the oak and it seems more dry than my first kit with only the directions. Does aging with oak make the wine more dry? If so what can I do to mellow it out and nake it more off dry again?

I have a WE Lodi Cab Sauv that's getting close to bottling, and I was toying with the idea of taking 1 gallon off and making a port out of it. My family loves port wines, and this cab sauv has some great flavors that I think would do well in a port style. My only concern is that I oaked this...

I have completed my kits initial time frame, i can bottle now, but I'd like to add some oak spirals to give more oak flavor. How does the oak age in the bottle? Does it increase over time? Decrease or stay the same .I guess I am trying to figure out how long to keep the oak in. If I need more...

I have some preliminary results from one of the experiments I'm running on my 2018 Dornfelder. The wine was fermented with BDX, D80 and RP15 yeasts and kept separate until after MLF was complete. Some of each was set aside for a yeast comparison experiment. The rest was blended, then divided...

Do oak chips need to be disinfected before adding to the must?

I’m only a few years into my wine making adventure so looking for all the help I can get! Has anyone used One Step to clean and sanitize equipment? I have always used b-brite and Kmeta in the past, but I want to keep sulfites low to allow for a better fermentation and MLF. Also curious if my...

I have a 6 gallon WE Eclipse cab sauv in a carboy after a 6 week EM. I used the included hungarian oak cubes but I wanted more oak. So on Tuesday 10/9 I added 2/3 spiral of Medium+ french oak and 1/4 spiral of Heavy french oak. I wanted to add toasty, chocolately flavors to balance the...

Just bought a new 50L French oak barrel, and racked a red blend (Cab Sauv, Merlot, Zinfandel). The wine was sitting in an older oak barrel (100L), but I had to rack into a smaller vessel. Had the wine in the new barrel for about a week now, and it has already greatly affected the taste of the...

I'm making my first Cab using the Master Vintner Cab kit, and would like some suggestions on what level of toast to use for oak cubes. A 50/50 combination of american and french oak seems like it should balance out the wine. I'm leaning towards medium-plus toast, but have medium, medium...

We experimented with this using 5 pounds in our bin at crush last season with our Cabernet. So far, the results are really good. So good, that @NorCal and I and other partners will be crushing our Cab Franc and Petite Syrah into oak chips once again this coming season. So what are the...

Hi all. I will be making 4 small (30L) batches of red wine from grapes this year ... in ascending order of fruit weight: -grenache -nero d'avola -primitivo/zinfandel -shiraz. I will be fermenting & ageing them in neutral containers but I want to add a bit of oak, particularly for the Primitivo...

What is the shelf life of oak (powder, shavings, chips, cubes, spheres, squares, sticks, spirals, staves)? Assuming it has been stored clean and dry.