Dick Adams wrote:

Paul E. Lehmann wrote:

I recently have tried one of the "Oak Spirals".

https://www.thebarrelmill.com/faq.html

An interesting website. Thanks, Paul.

It seems to be doing a VERY good job (French
oak). I am using one of the spirals that is
suppose to be good for three gallons of wine
but I am using
it in a 15 gallon demijohn. I am using another
one in a spent 10 gallon barrel. It seems to be
imparting enough oak for me. The thing about
the spirals is that they will impart the oak
very
fast as they say in their advertisement. For
the barrel, I screwed a stainless steel hook
into the bottom of the silicon bung and used a
thin piece of stainless steel wire to attach
the spiral to
the hook on the bung. This way, I can remove
the spiral anytime I want.

Thanks for this information. The price seems in
line with oak chips. It appears that one needs
to Quality Assurance Test ever few weeks to
decide when the oak flavoring is right.

Dick

Yep, one of the advantages - need for more quality
control

It is also possible to attach a small stainless
steel wire to one end of the spiral and thread
the other end up through an airlock. This way
you don't have to fish it out of the carboy.

Stainless Infusion tubes are also made but they
are a bit pricey (about $50 but a one time
expense) and they are too large in diameter to
fit into a small barrel or carboy - I have tried
this approach also. I believe they will fit into
the opening of a demijohn.

Of course if you have a large enough diameter bung
hole (my 30 gallon barrel does) you could put the
spiral into the infusion tube. That way you would
not have to fool with adding a hook to the bottom
of the bung and hang the spiral with a stainless
wire. Infusion tubes are too long for 30 gallon
or smaller barrels but you can cut off the excess
length with a hack saw.