"Graeme...in London" wrote in message
...

"Dirty Harry" wrote in message
news:YBMyc.702627$Pk3.53810@pd7tw1no...

"Dana Myers" wrote in message
. com...
Dirty Harry wrote:

"Dana Myers" wrote in message
...

My pal is moving from the Napa Valley and he offered me his stash
of barrel staves; it's mostly French oak and it's well-soaked with
mostly Zinfandel. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Yea barrel staves are awesome. I have 2 barrels that were full of
Jum
Beam
Burbon and wholy cow does that wood smell good!

I haven't cooked with bourbon barrels, just wine barrels,
and I can't say that I can detect an influence from the
wine stain in the wood. Do the bourbon barrels impart
a detectable flavor?

Thanks -
Dana


When I first took the barrel apart and the wood was still wet inside
the
smell was unbelievable. Now that they have been laying around the
bourbon
smell is almost gone but I think the wood has a slightly sweet smell
still.
I'm a relative BBQ noob so I have no idea how it compares to normal oak.
Going to smoke some ribs with it tonight :-)
Dirty Harry



DH,

I have been using two types of staves regularly to do my smoking. One is a
Glenmorangie (ex charred sherry cask) and the other is an Ardbeg Islay
single malt cask. When I first used them they were extremely potent with a
high alcohol content in the wood, but after 8 months the alcohol has
mostly
evaporated. I do not notice any flavour being imparted into either meat or
fish now, but there was up until a couple of months ago when they were
fresher. They still give off a wonderful whisky smell and are my 1st
choice
of smoking wood. There is little difference now to that of normal oak.

Graeme


Yea its also sounds better when you say " I smoked it with burboun soaked,
toasted white oak. LOL.

"Dirty Harry" wrote in message
news:qLOzc.764132$oR5.224597@pd7tw3no...

"Dana Myers" wrote in message
m...
Lewzephyr wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 01:50:52 GMT, I needed a babel fish to understand
"Dirty Harry" :

LOL, yea I got these barrels at 50 bucks a pop (Canadian) but then i
also
made 15L of 35% swish outta each of them frist. I think I got my
money's
worth...

Pardon, but what exactly is Swish?

Harry can fill in the details better than I can, but it is
the practice of taking a recently emptied whiskey barrel
and filling it with some water. There's still a fair bit
of alcohol left in the barrel and the water is used to
bring it out. You need to move the barrel around periodically
to maximize the process, hence the name 'swish'.

I've never done it myself, though.

Dana

Yea, they age it in the barrels at 90% so there is plenty O' booze left in
the wood. You can put about 10-15L of water into the barrels, put them in
the back yard and give em a kick every day(1/8 turn or so) for a month.
It
works with rum, whiskey, or any hard alcohol I guess. My barrels were
bourbon and I got 35% with 15L which is pretty good, 30% would be typical.
You can also do a second rinse and get about 4-5L of 25%...

P.S. the barrel has to remain sealed when it's shipped or all the booze will
evaporate in a day or so...The wood corks really seal good though, I
remember opening mine to take a whiff and there was a lot of pressure built
up in the barrel.

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 17:22:20 +0100, "Graeme...in London"
wrote:


"Dirty Harry" wrote in message
news:YBMyc.702627$Pk3.53810@pd7tw1no...

"Dana Myers" wrote in message
. com...
Dirty Harry wrote:

"Dana Myers" wrote in message
...

My pal is moving from the Napa Valley and he offered me his stash
of barrel staves; it's mostly French oak and it's well-soaked with
mostly Zinfandel. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Yea barrel staves are awesome. I have 2 barrels that were full of Jum
Beam
Burbon and wholy cow does that wood smell good!

I haven't cooked with bourbon barrels, just wine barrels,
and I can't say that I can detect an influence from the
wine stain in the wood. Do the bourbon barrels impart
a detectable flavor?

Thanks -
Dana


When I first took the barrel apart and the wood was still wet inside
the
smell was unbelievable. Now that they have been laying around the bourbon
smell is almost gone but I think the wood has a slightly sweet smell
still.
I'm a relative BBQ noob so I have no idea how it compares to normal oak.
Going to smoke some ribs with it tonight :-)
Dirty Harry



DH,

I have been using two types of staves regularly to do my smoking. One is a
Glenmorangie (ex charred sherry cask) and the other is an Ardbeg Islay
single malt cask. When I first used them they were extremely potent with a
high alcohol content in the wood, but after 8 months the alcohol has mostly
evaporated. I do not notice any flavour being imparted into either meat or
fish now, but there was up until a couple of months ago when they were
fresher. They still give off a wonderful whisky smell and are my 1st choice
of smoking wood. There is little difference now to that of normal oak.

Graeme

Perhaps you might contemplate keeping the staves sealed in a plastic
bag in oreder to 'extend their shel life, Graeme.

Harry