Read an interesting article on wine barrels yesterday...

[TheGoodTexan]

...while waiting in the dentist office.

(My wife scheduled me and her for a teeth cleaning...on the same day off...consecutive appointments...which means that we got there at 10:45 for her 11:00 appointment....and I waited there by myself until 11:45, for my appointment. I told her to never do that again.)

(I have a cavity.)

While I was waiting, I found a magazine titled "Food & Wine". There was an article about the importance of choosing the correct wood when making wine barrels. A single wine barrel can cost as much as $1000. Most all of them are made of oak, but in the wine world, all oak is not equal. No.

And it's not just "select" oak that they're interested in. Some of the wine-makers claim that in a glass of quality wine, they can TASTE WHICH FORREST the wood came from to make the barrel.

They claim they can actually taste the forrest. ?!?

The most desirable forrests are in (where else) France.

The US has almost (wait for it......) ... no desirable oak, for wine barrels. Seems that the grain is all wrong.

So there you go.

[Guitarzan]

Originally Posted by TheGoodTexan

And it's not just "select" oak that they're interested in. Some of the wine-makers claim that in a glass of quality wine, they can TASTE WHICH FORREST the wood came from to make the barrel.

Well, I can up that one because Eric Johnson claims he can distinguish between batteries in a stompbox by ear...

Interestingly, the scotch makers recycle barrels used for other purposes, like port and sherry.

Bourbon, TN whiskey, Scotch, Irish, etc. are clear alcohol, and get their brown amber color from the barrel in which they are aged. Bourbon and Tn makers char the inside of the barrels.

[TheGoodTexan]

Originally Posted by Guitarzan

Bourbon, TN whiskey, Scotch, Irish, etc. are clear alcohol, and get their brown amber color from the barrel in which they are aged. Bourbon and Tn makers char the inside of the barrels.

Yeah, I've been on the tour in Lynchburg, and I learned a lot of stuff.

I'm an avid (BBQ) smoker. I've been smoking meats for several years now. I mostly use apple wood, but there is a whole community of smokers out there that love to use old wine and whiskey/bourbon barrels for the wood in their smokers. I've tried it...and I think it's more hype than anything. The apple still imparts the best flavor on the meat, in my opinion.

[whodatpat]

Originally Posted by Guitarzan

Interestingly, the scotch makers recycle barrels used for other purposes, like port and sherry.

Even more interestingly, Port and Sherry producers typically get their barrels from Kentucky Bourbon Distillers. When the Scotch is done the barrel can be 50 years old depending on the aging of each prior use.

I think I smell a bourbon barrel telly in the future. maybe a thinline with the bung hole used for the F hole.

[geddins]

Originally Posted by TheGoodTexan

I'm an avid (BBQ) smoker. I've been smoking meats for several years now. I mostly use apple wood, but there is a whole community of smokers out there that love to use old wine and whiskey/bourbon barrels for the wood in their smokers. I've tried it...and I think it's more hype than anything. The apple still imparts the best flavor on the meat, in my opinion.

I like Pecan wood for smoking as well....

[1293]

I can't argue with French Oak. We use a French oak barrel from the Nevers forest in my winemaking consortium. Our Pinot Noir won a Gold Medal at the New York State Fair.

[SMPTE]

The wine picks up the wood sugars soooo, I guess you could maybe taste it. But I can't think it'd be that distinctive...

[Guitarzan]

Originally Posted by 1293

I can't argue with French Oak. We use a French oak barrel from the Nevers forest in my winemaking consortium. Our Pinot Noir won a Gold Medal at the New York State Fair.

I like pinot. Is yours distributed?

[TheGoodTexan]

Originally Posted by 1293

We use a French oak barrel from the Nevers forest in my winemaking consortium.

YEP...I was trying to remember the name of the forrest that was mentioned in the article as yielding the "best" wine-barrel-oak....and that was it.

Nevers.

I guess it would be similar to Brazillian Rosewood in the guitar-community.

[TheGoodTexan]

Originally Posted by geddins

I like Pecan wood for smoking as well....

I've used pecan, and I like it too. Not to abundant around here though.

Everyone in Tennessee seems to use hickory....which I'm not a big fan of. It works on pork, but that's about it. And you have to be sure to strip all the bark off the wood, and split it up real nice....OR ELSE! ...you'll have some bitter food.

I've got a load of hickory out behind the house right now. I'll probably use it up on a homemade hamburger-party that I'm throwing next month.

But for everything else....it's apple. My brother-in-law has apple trees on his property, and every time we have a big storm, one of them gets blown down. He just calls me, and I go over there in my truck, with chain-saw in hand, and clean it all up for him. It's a great situation....free wood for me...free clean up for him.

[geddins]

Originally Posted by TheGoodTexan

I've used pecan, and I like it too. Not to abundant around here though.

Everyone in Tennessee seems to use hickory....which I'm not a big fan of. It works on pork, but that's about it. And you have to be sure to strip all the bark off the wood, and split it up real nice....OR ELSE! ...you'll have some bitter food.

I've got a load of hickory out behind the house right now. I'll probably use it up on a homemade hamburger-party that I'm throwing next month.

But for everything else....it's apple. My brother-in-law has apple trees on his property, and every time we have a big storm, one of them gets blown down. He just calls me, and I go over there in my truck, with chain-saw in hand, and clean it all up for him. It's a great situation....free wood for me...free clean up for him.

That's a good deal for you....Apple is a wood we NEVER see around here, and I've never used it....of course we have our fair share (and then some) of Pecans....I hunt on a lease that has about a 40 acre Pecan orchard...and the storm/blown over tree equation applies for me there ...

It's all the same, ain't it?

[TheGoodTexan]

Originally Posted by geddins

Apple is a wood we NEVER see around here, and I've never used it....of course we have our fair share (and then some) of Pecans....I hunt on a lease that has about a 40 acre Pecan orchard...

I tell you what...I grew up in East Texas, and there are almost as many pecan trees in that region as there are pine trees (almost).

I'd like to have some mesquite from time to time too...when I do briskets...but that's a tree that you absolutely cannot find in Middle Tennessee...anywhere. But they do sell good size chunks of it at Academy Sports.

[RiverDog]

Originally Posted by Guitarzan

Well, I can up that one because Eric Johnson claims he can distinguish between batteries in a stompbox by ear...

Horse Hockey!

[superchicken_VI]

My wife and I are wine lovers, and NC has a booming winery business on the back of Golden Leaf grants. We have taken to visiting them, and have to date visited 34 of the NC wineries, and tasted another 15 or so at festivals.

One of the local wineries had 3 varieties of the same wine, one aged in French oak, one American, and one in Hungarian oak (the third country of oak cooperage), and after having tasted them back to back, I've been able to reliably identify the different oaks. I'm not saying I have super-palate, it's just very distinctive. American oak is very aggressive in comparison to French, and Hungarian falls in the middle. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I think that I could identify the oak more reliably than the grape used.

Unfortunately, some wineries worldwide are using a lot of chips, staves, and even sawdust to give a more oaky-character in wines that are aged in steel and plastic, and that's giving oak a bad name. Some of these overaggressive methods are ruining some wines that would probably be okay otherwise.

Costs are high on barrels, with French oak barrels in the $850-1000 range, American oak in the $650-800 range, and Hungarian in the middle. I wouldn't say that American oak barrels have no place in winemaking, because they yield an excellent product when used properly. The winemaker needs to use the barrels as spices, just like a chef. Too-aggresive oak is like too much cilantro...Nasty.

[brillocaster]

Originally Posted by TheGoodTexan

Yeah, I've been on the tour in Lynchburg, and I learned a lot of stuff.

When I was down there some associates liberated an (empty) Jack Daniels barrel from the bondage of it's oppressors (and we will leave it at that in case any of the good men and women of law enforcement are reading along) one evening.

We put a couple two-three gallons of lemonade in it and rolled it out in the back yard, gave it a quarter turn or so a couple times each day. The next saturday we had us some high-octane lemonade! It wasn't mule-kick strong, but it made the effort worthwhile.

It used to be that they would sell you one, then they quit that so as to send them all to the scotch guys, now I think there is a store on the square in Lynchburg that will sell you any number of things made out of them, or a whole one if you so choose.

What I want to do is get one of the single-barrel deals. You can arrange through your local liquor distributor to go down there and have Jimmy Bedford or one of his lieutenants go out in the barrel house with you and select a barrel that's to your liking (i.e. you get a tasting tour of the joint). Then they bottle it up and ship it to you, empty barrel and 14 (I think) cases of JD, shrink wrapped on a pallet.

[<jbc>]

Most recently there were two remaining cooperages left in the USofA. In the past couple of years the NorthCA shop was shuttered. The remaining cooperage is in Lynchville.

The 'new' technology is to suspend oak boards vertically in stainless steel tanks.

OTOH, since global warming has caught on theres been year after year of really good vintages.

[TheWasp]

Last year KT Tunstall was given a Fylde acoustic guitar made out of old Talisker whisky casks,which she is purported to like as her drink of choice. The company I work for presented it to her,and I wasn't even asked if I wanted one too...

[Unseen]

Originally Posted by Guitarzan

Bourbon, TN whiskey, Scotch, Irish, etc. are clear alcohol, and get their brown amber color from the barrel in which they are aged. Bourbon and Tn makers char the inside of the barrels.

Maybe some of the color comes from the barrel. Maybe even most in some cases, but I'm pretty sure neutral-tasting caramel coloring is used to make the color consistent and probably accounts for the bulk of the color in many distilled beverages.

And you're right about whiskey being clear as it comes out of the still. This is true of all distilled alcohol, be it whisky, vodka, brandy, or pure alcohol.

[Stubbs]

I read about the Fylde guitars made from the whiskey casks last year in The Fretboard Journal. The have a very unique look to them. Even the binding is the reclaimed oak.
http://www.fyldeguitars.com/guitars/smg/smg_ds.pdf

[marshman]

As a homebrewer I'd like to get hold of an old wine/port barrel for aging beer in, but they're pretty freekin' big for my purposes, as I only brew for a max 5 gallons at a pop. I've been thinkin' of buying a new, small, 5-ish gallon barrel and seeing of a local winery will age in it for a season or two for me first. Might be my best bet.

I've had a few beers that've been aged in Whiskey/bourbon barrels, and they're quite tasty, but not something I can drink a ton of, truth be told.

[getbent]

Soy Sauce

Standing on a stepladder
up under hot ceiling
tacking on wire net for plaster,
a day's work helping Bruce and Holly on their house,
I catch a sour salt smell and come back
down the ladder.

"Deer lick it nights" she says,
and shows me the frame of the window she's planing,
clear redwood, but dark, with a smell.

"Scored a broken-up, two-thousand-gallon redwood
soy sauce tank from a company went out of business
down near San Jose."

Out in the yard the staves are stacked:
I lean over, sniff them, ah! it's like Shinshu miso,
the darker saltier miso paste of the Nagano
uplands, central main island, Japan--
it's like Shinshu pickles!

I see in mind my friend Shimizu Yasushi and me,
one October years ago, trudging through days of snow
crossing the Japan Alps and descending
the last night, to a farmhouse,
taking a late hot bath in the dark--and eating
a bowl of chill miso radish pickles,
nothing ever so good!

Back here, hot summer sunshine dusty yard,
hammer in hand.

But I know how it tastes
to lick those window frames
in the dark,
the deer.

[neocaster]

Originally Posted by Guitarzan

Well, I can up that one because Eric Johnson claims he can distinguish between batteries in a stompbox by ear...

I've read that before. Sounds like he's been smoking some bad meat...