How long to leave oak and spices in a home spirit

How long to leave oak and spices in a home spirit

The mistake nobody warns you about with infusing is leaving it in too long. Oak and spice keep pulling out of the wood and the seed the whole time they're sitting there, and the flavour doesn't stop when it gets to nice, it keeps going until the batch tastes like a wet teabag.

So this one's about timing. What comes out when, how to tell you've hit the point to pull it, and what you can do if you've already gone past.

What's actually happening while it sits

Two different things come out of oak and they come out at different speeds. The sweet stuff comes first. The vanilla and that round toasted note both show up inside the first few days, and they're the reason anybody puts oak in at all. The tannin comes later, and tannin is the dry, tea-like grip at the back of your mouth. Leave it long enough and the tannin catches up and then overtakes, and past that point every extra day makes it worse rather than better.

Spices do the same thing but faster, because you're pulling flavour out of a small amount of material with a lot of surface area on it. Cloves and star anise in particular will get away from you in a couple of days if you aren't tasting.

Rough timings to start from

These are starting points and not rules, because a 2 litre jar in a cold shed behaves nothing like a 5 litre demijohn sitting somewhere warm. Taste at the early end of each range and only keep going if it needs it.

• Toasted oak chips, 5 to 10 days for a light toasted note, longer if you want it obvious
• Oak soakers, much the same again, though they're easier to lift out in one go
• Vanilla pod, split down the middle, 7 to 14 days, and it's very hard to overdo
• Cinnamon stick, 3 to 5 days
• Cloves and star anise, 2 to 4 days, tasting daily from day 2
• Dried fruit and citrus peel, 4 to 7 days
• Fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme, 1 to 2 days, because past that they go medicinal on you

How to taste it properly

Tasting a spirit neat at full strength tells you almost nothing, because the alcohol burn sits on top of everything else, so pull a small sample out with a syringe or a clean spoon and cut it back with water in the glass until it's roughly half strength. That's when the oak and the spice actually turn up, and it's also how you'll catch the tannin arriving before it's a problem.

Taste at the same time of day if you can manage it. Your palate first thing in the morning and your palate after tea are basically two different instruments.

Pull it early rather than late

This is the bit that saves batches. Flavour carries on developing for a week or two after you've strained everything out, so a batch that tastes slightly under on the day you pull it will usually land right, and a batch that tastes perfect the day you pull it will be slightly over by the time anybody drinks it. Strain it when it's a touch shy and let the bottle finish the job.

If you've already gone too far

It's fixable more often than people think, and blending is the fix. Keep some of your unflavoured base spirit back, then add it to the over-oaked batch a bit at a time until the grip comes off. Taste as you go. Yes it drops the strength a little, and no, that isn't a disaster. The other thing worth a go is carbon, because running the batch through a carbon filter pulls some of the harshness out with the tannin. Try it on a small amount first.

Adding sugar to cover it doesn't work. All you get is something bitter and sweet at the same time.

Strain it properly or you'll regret it in a fortnight

Anything left floating carries on extracting, and fine sediment turns the bottle cloudy a month down the track when you've long since forgotten about it. A coffee filter or a couple of layers of cloth gets most of it out. A proper filter setup with paper and carbon gets the rest, and it's the difference between a bottle that looks like you meant it and one that looks like an accident.

One thing worth saying plainly

Owning a still is legal here and we sell the gear, but actually distilling spirits at home needs an excise manufacturer licence from the ATO and most people haven't got one, so if that's you then what you're doing is flavouring a base spirit you've bought. That's completely legal, and it's what this whole article assumes anyway.

What you'd want for this

• Still Spirits Oak Cask 50ml. Oak character in drops rather than in chips, so it's easier to control.
• Still Spirits Cedar Oak Profile 50ml. A drier oak note, good when the sweet oak is already there.
• Still Spirits Z Filter Paper 5pk. For getting the fine sediment out after you've strained it.
• Still Spirits Universal Z Carbon. What you run a harsh or over-oaked batch through.

Did you know we also keep bourbon barrel chips, Sam Willard's oak soakers, Still Spirits Mellow Oak, 5 litre Italian demijohns and 1125ml spirit bottles in the shop. They aren't all on the website, so give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.

The rest of it is in our homebrew range, and if you'd rather talk it through with something than read about it, Brewhilder is our homebrew helper and it'll walk you through what suits your setup.

Read next

• How to store and age a spirit you made at home
• Still Spirits Oak Cask, what it does and how to use it
• Still Spirits Mellow Oak, what it does and how to use it

I'm still the one who leaves things in a day too long and then blends my way back out of it, so take the timings as a nudge and trust your own mouth over my numbers.

Cheers,

Candeece

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