Wood Aging Mead with Barrel Char Products - Put to the Test!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ต.ค. 2024
- Wood Aging Mead using Barrel Char Wood Products. We put wood aging to the test using wood samples sent to us by Barrel Char Wood Products. Most people think oak when they think of aging on wood, but why not try some others? Oak, Maple, Cherry... sure! We put wood aged meads up against a control to see what if any differences the wood aging of mead made.
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Ok, full disclosure here... I see one video of yours and I didn't like it, but I was curious about how to continue, so I see another one... 3 weeks later and I see all your videos, and I mean ALL your videos, and I have a couple (ok, 8) demijohns fermenting with your recipes. I have added another beautiful hobbie thanks to you guys. Love you both, hugs from Argentina (Yeah, and a big thanks for the conversion to the metric system!)
From another D&D player and brewer you guys make fantastic content! I love breaking out one of my brews when my tables party gets to a new region. I've actually convinced a few more DMs at my local game shop to start home brewing themselves and I always send them your way lol.
Where do I sign up?
I ordered 2 packs today. The sampler and requested an apple wood for my cyser when it's ready to bottle. I will try the cherry in my Vikings Blood when it's ready to bottle. Of course, a pack of french oak which I will use for traditional. Maybe I will use the maple for my raisin mead...not sure.
Fyi, the 24oz flip top lemonade bottles are back in stock at Aldi's. I bought a dozen. The lemonade is too strong for me so I use it to flavor a glass of water. It will take me awhile to get those emptied. Thanks for another great video!
Thanks for the heads up
I did a 5 gallon wine (grape juice) that I put oak spirals into primary. Ended at 17% and was pretty nice. The oak in primary didn’t affect the fermentation and gave a super strong oaky flavor.
17%🤔🤔 are you sure there was no affect? Yeast were very happy and active!
I added an oak spiral to my blueberry wine and a dry, traditional mead, and both taste so delicious. I also say Car-mel and so does everyone else where I live say. Car-a-mel sounds weird to me.
I've made all of my meads and wines as a direct result of watching your videos. It looks like I'm following you down yet another path. I've ordered the charred wood and am very excited to experiment with them. Thank both of you, not only for my initiation to this fantastic pastime, but also continuing to spark my enthusiasm.
You are welcome! Enjoy!
You should consider making your own "whiskey". You can dilute everclear to cask strength and add oak chips. I like a mix of medium, heavy toast and a little char. I put it in the fridge every few days to help with wood contraction and expansion for faster extraction. After 4-6 weeks you can dilute to 40 ish abv and it's pretty tasty!
you can also open the lid and burp it each day to simulate the angels share in casks. It will expel some of the off flavors you don't want in it
Really interesting video guys - nice one! 👍
Again, thank you for your work.
I let me mead sit for almost two years in glass carboy !! Then bottled it for another year 3 years total was so good everyone loved it !!
After making my very first batch of mead i immediately thought "wow...how wonderful would this be if i brewed or aged in oak barrels" but I had never tried because i thought of barrels only. Had i thought simpler i probably would have gotten to this already! This vid gives me high hopes for my original plan. Glad they turned out so amazing!
French oak medium plus toast has a touch of toffee flavor. Love the combination it gives to brews.
Excellent.
It might be a good idea to remind people of the effect of temperature on hydrometer reading. Yesterday I had a reading of about 0.995. I was a little confused at first, then I remembered to check the temperature. Yep, it was very warm. A quick calculation brought it to about 0.999. I'm checking the temp from now on.
My favorite mead that I've made, bar none, was a bochet that I oaked for 3 weeks. My reaction was the same: there's no going back, oaking mead every time now.
I English Oaked (medium toast) a blackberry, raspberry and cherry mead and it was absolutely amazing. It had a vague whiskey taste to it and made all the flavours smoother.
Being a woodworker, I felt a little silly buying somebody else’s wood chips, so I chopped up some pieces of my own, American red oak, baked them at 350°F for 2hr, then put them under the broiler until they just started smoking. Then added .3oz to 1gal dry mead ABV 15.3% and added 1.5oz to 3gal acerglyn ABV 8.7% I added the oak still hot from the oven so no need to boil or otherwise sanitize. The oak seemed really aromatic so I only let it sit for a week before racking off today. The flavor in the dry mead, was very strong, not displeasing, but too woody for me. I may combine this with a sweet mead. The acerglyn, on the other hand, although it had more oak per gallon, is tasting real nice. Not sure why, lower ABV? oak mixes better with maple? Idk. I kept the oak and want to try retoasting it, especially the maple and trying again, but maybe not as much. Thanks for reading this far👍
Interesting results. I have been thinking of doing this with a batch for awhile now, now to figure out something that works.
Thank you SO MUCH for posting this video! Over the past few months I’ve grown intrigued by rhe concept of oaking but no video or tasting ever properly described the effects. Pretty much most of them focused on explaining it from the viewpoint of someone who already is familiar with the process and so far I’ve never seen a side-by-side comparison that properly explained the differences and effects.
Definitely ordering myself some oaking chips, probably French oak. Possibly other kinds too.
Dude, I'm telling you. You have got to try sassafras. I can't keep up with the demand.
Did you make a sassafras mead? Do you sell it?
I oaked a meadjack for 7 months and it came out to be the tastiest brew I ever made. I was thinking about throwing it away at the beginning but now I want to brew a new one. I'm really glad you did a video on it though.
I’ve got some spirits aging on maple and it seems to be a much slower process to really impart flavors bc of the density of the wood. Mine are medium toasted and lightly charred on one side. I’ve ordered from barrel char before and so glad I did. I’ve also got some Cherry and apple chips that I toasted to a medium toast. I’m going to chat some as well. Of course the standard American white oak in medium toast and some charred, and picked up some rum chips.
I smoked some apples that I quartered and added to apple juice with pectic enzyme yesterday. I made my yeast starter last night with Premier Cuvee, and have 1 oz of toasted apple and 1 oz rum chips ready to put together. OG is 1080. I cannot wait to see how the smoke and fruit come together.
I just made a lemon mead not too long ago, and I noticed a weird bitterness at the end of the taste that I don't really enjoy. This video makes me want to use the French Oak... thanks!
I get an odd bitter flavor in the back end of most meads too.
That’s awesome! I had the same reaction when I added oak for the first time to my wines. It’s an absolute game changer. You can tie the wood with dental floss the string kind with no scent and it’s easier to fish it out. Over oaking it’s a thing lol
I think the unique taste from the cherry comes from the high mineral content in the wood. I'm a furniture maker that uses mostly cherry and it always has a myriad of color streaks and dark spots from mineral deposits. Oak and maple have far fewer "imperfections" than cherry.
just started my first batch of mead yesterday! thanks for the inspiration & know how on how to get started. thanks you guys! definitely pumped to see how it goes.
Thanks for prodding me on this. Had been back and forth on trying oaking my wine/mead but didnt know which way to go. Think I'll try a French oak vs American oak in a 1 gal carboys of my mesquite honey mead that should finish primary soon
I made a dry traditional mead and added amarican oak, i also cut it onto pieces for more surface area, the places where i cut actually got a char on and that char added a lot of flavours.
I fell in love with oaking ive got a pyment on american oak soaked with a little vanilla bourbon
I love seeing the joy that your creations bring to you two. I'm gonna totally try this as I picked up some oak aging sticks from a distillery in Tennessee.
I think the oaking with the jalapeno mead you guys made, possibly with a heather honey could bring out alot of rounded flavours and could be interesting and worth a try on my next batch. Damnit now I need to buy more carboys as all mine are full 🙈
Think you should redo your Coffee Mead and see how it comes out with the french oak.
I could possibly do that!
Yeah, redoing stuff with slightly different aspects to it would be interesting.
I used rum barrel chips in my coffee mead. Good stuff.
I like the way you think! Coffee and vanilla are a match made in heaven IMHO. The vanillin in the oak might really up the ante on a coffee mead and the oak will also make it smoother. One of the reasons my preference goes to higher ABV meads that’ve been aged a loooooooong time is their smoothness. Although I must admit that long ageing has always kind of been a thing for me regardless of the ABV of my brews. Not that it keeps me from regular tasting of my meads!
I have a coffee mead just finishing up now, and was looking in the comments to see it anybody thought any particular wood would be good to put in it... So I guess french oak it is.
my latest batch of acerglyn was oaked with 2/3 med french oak and 1/3 american oak.... fun and interesting to mix it up. Have to try an unoaked mead sometime, I've oaked everything I've done.
I left paolo santos and white sage in mine. I had it in for the fermentation process. It turned out really well imo.
Could you guys make a video on how to oak a brew? Like get into the knitty gritty? Im really new to brewing and your videos are my fav so far!
We showed it on this video. It’s really just put wood into a brew and let it sit.
Just went right over to their Etsy shop & got a French oak & sugar maple!
Be nice to get a review on American oak vs French oak.
I ordered french oak sticks from Gnarly Apple, just from the absolute pleasure and glee on Brian's face
I'm going to order French Oak purely on that reaction too. It was a moment of TH-cam joy.
Would you ever consider combining different woods to see the outcome? Like maybe the French oak and the cherry combined?
Been waiting for this one :)
Hope you enjoyed it!
Same. We have gotten hints of this a few times.
I did! Now I have to try it!
1. I demand more videos on aging.
2. If you put something like coffee or energy drinks in your mead would the caffeine come out in the mead? Like would the mead then be caffinated.
1) I don't respond to demanding.
2) Don't ever put an energy drink in mead.
Yes, the caffeine stays to answer your question :)
Immediately bought some French oak sticks from them. I can't wait. Did they give you any details for reuse? I've got some ciders too that I want to try
I have some plans to use your old pyment recipe and fortify it into a kind of port, might try and get my hands on some of the French oak for it
I have used oak spirals in a few of my brews, mostly medium toast French and American. I prefer the taste I get from American oak. My next traditional mead I am planning on a 60/40 mix of American and French. I have also used Whiskey soaked French Oak Cubes which imparted really interesting flavors
Probably has nothing to do with anything, but I find that Freach Oaked version of Maker's Mark is better than the regular version of Maker's Mark. And for this reason, i think I'm going to try this!
Now I have my own apartment im gonna be working on making different meads might do an oak aged one to see how it goes
As a cooper this is fun to see, but it would have been nicer to see barrels, and especially swedish oak ;)
I'm sure Brian and Derica would love you to send them a barrel :D
Hi Brian and Derica, I just tried a dragon blood (blackberry, raspberry and cherry mead?) with a 16 day medium toast English oak and it is special. That oaky tannin and whiskey type note goes really well with the blackberry. Definitely one to try.
Thank you. I am going to try this!
I highly recommend toasted oak aging for a cyser. I’ve done 3, and they are all fantastic. They taste like hot apple pie.
Excellent experiment! Great idea and well executed. Well done.
my family has a recipe for calva (based on the 50 ° ABV distillation of the hard-cider produced on the property).
for the aging the recipe uses one small wooden barrels that were used before to make Madeira wine.
these barrels associated with oak shavings give, after a slow aging of 3 years, birth to a nectar worthy of the gods.
maybe this combination (barrel for the production of Madeira + oak chips) can be an idea for your meads.
ps: contrary to wines, the aging of this calva is not done in the cellar but under the roofs;
hot summer and cold winter cycles seem to speed up the process by a factor of 10 without negatively impacting the final product at all
Hi there, great stuff. I have a question: I made a pumpkin mead in view of having it ready for Halloween, so it's got time to age. I tasted it two weeks ago (fermented from 1.115 to 0.995) and it is nice, but I was thinking of oaking it for some more body and tannin. How much wood chips (American oak, medium roast) do you think would be good for about a gallon and a half (1.3 US gallon, 5 liters, I do metric? Do you think 3 weeks would be enough for a mead with very little body?
You should try the cherry wood aging on the Taj
How do you drink your mead?
I made my first batch and love it, but my family hated it until i served it with ice cubes... Now they cant get enough of it
Drink it however you like!
I lived in California for the first 50 years of my life, and I've always said Caramel the same as you do: "Carmel". I've since started saying caramel. No idea why. I'm looking forward to getting some BCW products, but I'm waiting until I can get some (and excuse me if I'm screwing up the spelling) amberana wood.
You have sold me on French Oak to try on half of my Brew :)
I was very happy with the plain Mead but after seeing your reactions to the French Oak, I will see if my Local Brew Shop sells it as I am in Australia.
Yes. This one. Thanks.
Interesting to see the results
I'm in the process of making maple wine. I think I'm going to wood finish it I really thing the sugar maple will work super well with it.
Sounds good.
I used med+ French oak chips on a pumpkin pie cyser with honey from my hive and fresh pressed cider I pressed with an antique press and is the best mead I've made. I've only got two bottles left and I don't wanna drink em lol.
another great and informative video thanks guys
There seems to be some harmony between woods that are good for smoking and woods that are good for aging brews. Not sure why, maybe there's a correlation?
It makes me wonder about hickory, pear, even maybe alder? TIME FOR EXPERIMENTS!
Just my opinion but the cherry on a spiced metheglin would be the best way to utilize it. It helps wraps the flavors together and adds to as opposed to covering up those subtle flavors
Any thoughts on getting a small barrel and doing a primary or secondary fermentation in it?
You can. They tend to leak though. You actually get the same effect adding wood right to the fermenter as we’ve done many times :)
I'm honestly very happy to see you guys doing this test. Ordered some wood from Black Swan Barrels as they have a sampler they have various different woods and have been trying to do something very similar. Would love to see what comes from this test if you decide to continue to develop it further.
This was a really fantastic video. Well planned and executed!
I've been oaking meads a lot lately too ... not with all of the variety you just tested, so this is helpful.
An oaked bochet is some level of heaven.
Great job!
So french oak has a compound in it call vanillin which is the main flavor compound in vanilla beans. Its often used in imitation vanilla extract.
As does American oak. I think most (if not all) oaks have vanilin.
It's a shame you didn't have enough to try the birch as it contains trace amounts of wintergreen.
I oak almost all my meads. The only ones I don't is if I get one that's a lighter honey that comes out tasting like white wine I'll add acid to get it crisp. Other than that I love the complexity it brings.
Thanks for doing this. I've been thinking about 'oaking' but wasnt sure. Next time I order supplies I'll add a bag of oak chips.
Got some of the French Oak used in this video from your friend on Etsy to use on your traditional mead recipe. Also planning on trying some Jack Daniels BBQ smoking chips (which is made 100% from charred white oak aging barrels of Old No 7) on a batch of traditional mead but using figs instead of raisins.
Good morning Derica and Brian! My gf likes the sweet red (black tea added), but I find it a bit too sweet and somewhat monoplanar...tasting like alcoholic concord grapes and lacking any complexity. I'd like to play around with the recipe (less added sugar, darker/stronger/more black tea) for added tannins and mouth feel, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are on using the French oak on this? Thanks in advance!
Since you liked the french oak, you should try an american oak side by side. You are a big whiskey fan so try a bunch of different oaks and get some toasted in some chard there a difference between.
Any word on how Bearded and Bored’s oaked spiced metheglin is doing?
I am not sure if this has already been covered, how many times can you reuse the oak / wood when aging, i have never oaked my mead before would like to try, but oak is very hard to come by where i am and have to order online.
I am attempting the second use of a couple myself. I'm assuming 2, possibly 3 uses. We have to order it too.
Questions: you mention 2 weeks to six months. So if you use for 2-3 weeks as you suggest, can you reuse those wood samples for other batches. do you need to let dry out or soak in hot water again? Also, as I'm on the other side of the world, other than purchasing oak chips or similar, how old does the wood need to be? I have a cherry tree for instance - what do I need to do to prep some pieces from it - dry, char it etc? Thanks
I believe they can be reused, yes.
Try oaking your Vikings blood. I did mine with medium char American oak. It was amazing!
Are the wood sticks reusable?
Nice.
Yeah, I use a medium oak spiral in my maple mead (aka moose juice) for 2 weeks. I think anything beyond that would be a bit much. I've actually never tried it without it.....next time? Nahhhhh.
It does take a while to mellow out. Now I feel like I need to try the others and see if it's a more mellow addition.
Do not complain about cloudy drink, drink from horns ;-))
I prefer the French oak also goes great in a bochet.
I've had some interesting results from medium toast applewood chips. It imparts a slightly tart flavor along with the usual "oaked" flavor.
Wonder if you toasted some apple wood. And adding it to an Apple cider mead?
Hi Brian just watched video on wood aging with barrell char products , just wondering if you had final sg reading on control mead and had it been back sweetend at all ? Cheers Jeff
How many months or years should a Mead be from start to when it would be best to drink ?
Is there a recommended age for a Mead ?
Mine is 5 months now as it's the first one I have done, I made about 35 litres let it ferment for about a month and then racked it, left it settle for about two months and then Bottled it.
So bottled for two months.
Great channel, keep up the good work :)
They're all different, but normally around 3-6 months things start tasting pretty good.
I wonder if you could save time by putting the wood in primary (or maybe secondary). Why not?
You can, but most brews benefit from some conditioning time anyway so…
Always fun seeing new ideas for "personally flavoring" meads.
I wonder if I can mix two of them? Would it become too strong too fast to control?👍❤️
Start with one, and once it gets the flavor you like, switch it to another. It’s how spirits are ‘finished,’ as well. The label you see in whiskey, ‘finished in rum barrels,’ means it was primarily aged in new American oak, then put into a second cask like a rum, wine, brandy, etc barrel to Finnish for a few more months to impart added flavors.
Oaked the banana wine with VA white oak med toast and it was amazing.
Wondering if mesquite would add a new layer of spice to either the spiced methyglyn or a capscumel
Thank you guys for providing such a wide variety of information, you're leading me through this mead journey. I made mead one time 7 years ago and forgot about it, recently rediscovered that gallon carboy in my pantry and tried it. Now I'm planning on making four 5-gallon carboys of various recipes and aging it indefinitely. Do you have any advice on the point of diminshing returns? I don't have the experience to know if my 7 year mead was drastically different from a 5 year or even a 2 year.
Thanks again
I believe, 2-3 years is probably optimal for the majority of brews. That said, they will vary. Now, at what point is it no longer enjoyable? That's impossible to say. If you like it, drink it, is pretty much how I see it.
@@CitySteadingBrews Do you mean that aging it too long will eventually make it unpalatable?
Theoretically. It could take decades though to get to that point.
Thanks for postings this, when you boil the barrel char staffs could you also add the wooded water by product directly to the mead? Have you tried this before & if so what were your results? Thanks.
I wouldn’t. First… may overpower, second, it dilutes and could cause refermentstion.
Can you oven heat the wood for a while
Like at 250 to sanitize? Feel like boiling will lose so much tannin. Thanks
I thought that as well but Ken from Barrel Char said it might be too much tannin.
@@CitySteadingBrews I forgot to recheck this. So I just sanitized with a little tequila. I made 10 gallons of Cyer. I split into:
5 gallons of it french oak med plus toast aging
1 gallon apple wood med toast aging
1 gallon white oak charred bourbon barrel
1 gallon ash wood medium toast
1 gallon sugar maple wood med toast
I’ll let you know. I’ll check at a week and two and three incase it get tannin faster. Thanks man
Ps ,can you leave to much head on a bottle so yeast doe not activate the bubbler?
Nope, it will still do it since CO2 is being produced.
If I don't like jolly ranchers, should I avoid the oak?
My favorite transfer method is cupping it in my hands and letting it run through my fingers into the glass 🤣
You are so silly.
Interesting. Thoughts on using say scotch/whiskey barrel chips to oak the your next experiment?
Hey guys if I want to bottle my mead but have it carbonated but low ABV what yeast would you recommend for sweet and low ABV.
I know this is an old video but I’m curious would it be a bad idea to put the wood in the brew back with the fruit during initial fermentation? Gonna be making my first mead this month still working everything out
Yes, don't add the wood until fermentation is done. We tried putting it in early and my theory is it was not helpful to the fermentation.
what is the criteria for oaking.. can you use any wood.. like apple, plum, grape, blueberry? Does it have to go through a certain process to use it.. We have many trees that we could use if there is a way to use it from our home trees?
Staves for barrels and such are weathered for a few years typically. The rain and temp cycles help remove excess tannins. Also it’s the heartwood that is used, not the far outer edges so much, as they tend to be more bitter. Some woods are quite toxic, so just verify the type you are thinking of using isn’t toxic before attempting. Also think about additional flavors that can be imparted into and with the wood. Scotch and Irish whiskeys typically use second use bourbon barrels, as do other spirits like tequila and rum. Wine barrels are also used to make whiskey’s, and many reuse those into their wines. The high Abv spirits pull out more astringency flavors, lower Abv spirits, 120 pr and lower pull more of the sweeter vanillans. There’s also the natural oxidation that occurs with barrels, so opening the jars to allow them to breathe occasionally can be beneficial. Hot and cold cycles also force more interaction with wood. Sometimes it is termed forced aging, or speed oaking. That is it though, it is speeding the process of interaction, but you cannot synthetically make time and age.
Do you see any problem with adding a stick to secondary? I want to add maple stick to my raisin mead which I am 1st racking today. I can try it it now, or should I add a racking after secondary and age with stick before I bottle?
I just bottled my first Viking Blood 2020 and oh my gosh, so delicious! I plan to make another batch soon, and with that batch I will try out the cherry wood stick.
Thank you Brian and Derica!
When you say stick... if it's been properly dried and charred, sure. I wouldn't just grab a maple branch though.
@@CitySteadingBrews no, ordered from your wood aging video
@@honeylady108 oh then no problem at all, that's essentially what we did, only several months later, lol.
This may be a silly question, but: Would you say the wood sticks are reusable for several charges of mead? Or are they, unlike barrels, a one-off?
We are testing that!
@@CitySteadingBrews Looking forward to the results :)
Good question, I like reusing as much as possible so I am curious to see the results too.
You can reuse them. Watch Still It's channel (he's in NZ, so it's legal to distill). He re-uses wood often. Might need to re-toast it eventually, as is also done with used barrels sometimes.
@@Vykk_Draygo
Thank your for the advice. How does one retoast, though?
Is it nougat flavor perhaps?
Between the french oak and cherry oak. Which of the 2 would you add to a banana mead with a hint of cinnamon
It’s cherry not oak :) but… I prefer the french oak.
@@CitySteadingBrews nice. I ordered me a couple sticks of French Oak to pit in my banana mead
@@CitySteadingBrews guess I should of said cherry wood 😆
@@CitySteadingBrews and it's pronounced care-a-mel. 😆
@@stephenknecht7189 yep, sorry just teasing a little :)