Non-oak wood & extract methods

Okay! I'm a guitar builder and I wood lover. Wood is often present in my cooking, and my beers, but all we see is oak.

Part 1- non-oak woods

Who tried what?

Aromatic woods i can think of:
Maple
Cedar
Walnut
Hickory
Cherry
Applewood
Etc...

All wood are toxic to a point, but some are more than others. Dust from wal ut, by example is very bad, and many people have allergic reaction when breathing the dust. What about when it's infused in a liquid? Would be great to learn more about it.

Part 2 - extract methods

Wood chips in secondary or barrel aging seem to be the prefered way, but it have to implies big abv beers because wood sanitation aint easy. It's hard to flavor a 4% abv beer with chips without infecting it.

The next time, I will try something new and would like to have some hints a out my idea. That's pretty simple: buy a 26oz of 94% ethanol, then infuse wood in it (green, dry or roasted). I could create different extract this way and be safe on the sanitation side. Would do you think? I might try it with nuts and spices too.

Thanks!

People soak chips in booze for sanitation all the time. You might also steam/boil the chips or toast them in the oven for sanitation.

There was a word doc floating around out there called "Got wood" that listed flavor profiles of a bunch of non-oak woods:

Alder – limited feedback but not positive
Apple – a little sour and raw with some pecan or sweet nuttiness
Beech – after cooking the bejeesus out of these chips, they are no longer buoyant or possess any flavor; they are utilized to allow more surface area for the yeast during fermentations to accelerate diacetyl and acetaldehyde reduction
Cedar -
• Aromatic Cedar (aka Juniper, Eastern Red Cedar) – sweet, smooth, aromatic, interesting character
• Spanish Cedar (aka Cedrela, Cedro, Cigar Box Cedar) – sweet, smooth, aromatic, interesting character
• Traditional Cedar – very strong cedar characteristics come through; can be bitter and tannic
Cherry – great vanilla scent and flavor with some raw wood character
Hickory – rich wood flavor with some evergreen and floral notes; too much can present a harsh paint thinner character
Maple – very mild with a clean finish
Mesquite – dark, rich wood flavors possibly with some pine and molasses
Nutwood – buttery, rich, with some mild sweetness and smokiness
Olive – raw wood with vanilla, sweetness, and evergreen notes
Palo Santo – slight molasses, charcoal, roastiness, and smokiness
Spruce – adds a fragrant pine character
Wormwood – the principal ingredient in Absinthe; use at your own risk

I am assuming (which is like guessing, except that the pitch of one's voice doesn't go up at the end of the sentence) almost any wood you can barbecue/smoke with would be fine to soak with and would lend similar characteristics. Since French Canada is not generally considered part of the barbecue belt, I would say that these woods would include much of what Ty mentioned, as well as many fruit woods.

That's great info! On the flavors, I think my way will be to experiment.

My question is more about the technique... I know many people do it with whisky or something like that, I've done it in the past, but i'm wondering if I can get a more neutral extraction from 94% ethanol?

I bet it would, but who wants neutral when you can have bourbon!?!

Bourbon isn't bourbon until it hits charred white oak. What goes into the barrels is basically Everclear. So the 94% ethanol idea sounds...um, sound. Judging how that would integrate into a particular beer is the tricky part. You'll also get very different results with raw wood vs. charred or oven toasted. If you conduct an experiment, I would be fascinated with the results.

tennesseean_87 said:

I bet it would, but who wants neutral when you can have bourbon!?!

Click to expand...

Bourbon is all about oak. The thread is about NON-oak.

kingwood-kid said:

Bourbon isn't bourbon until it hits charred white oak. What goes into the barrels is basically Everclear. So the 94% ethanol idea sounds...um, sound. Judging how that would integrate into a particular beer is the tricky part. You'll also get very different results with raw wood vs. charred or oven toasted. If you conduct an experiment, I would be fascinated with the results.

Click to expand...

Yhea that's the point, I want the full flavor of the wood (raw and toasted) whitout anything else.

Now, the tricky part as said would be to doze it in the beer. I also guess that I could not just ''taste'' the extract... since 94% is pretty f-ing intense! Maybe I could cut it down to 40 ou 60% so it stays a bacterias killer but become more managable to taste or things like that...

I should imagine a vodka soaking would work well, without adding significant non-wood flavor...

Good thread, very tempting! When grilling or smoking, we (meaning wife and I) tend to much more generally prefer the fruit woods (whereas by myself I'm all for hickory or mesquite)...

The flavor extraction from wood is fairly solvent-dependent, so that the flavors you pull out using 96% ethanol won't be the same as what you'd get using 4%. Same general characteristics, but the 'harshness' can vary pretty drastically, as well as the relative concentration of aromatic compounds.

If you're looking to know what flavors a 6% beer will extract, it's best to use a 6% beer. However, if sanitation is your objective, the highest proof alcohol should be employed, or as was suggested above, a heat-based sterilization technique like steaming/pressure cooker.

Also, simply oaking grain neutral alcohol gives you mediocre oaky alcohol... The fusels from the tails cut of the distillate play a huge role in developing whiskey / whisky character. I do get that the poster above was simplifying in jest though...

Oh, and I've had at least one non-oaked whiskey, a maple-aged Canadian whisky from Collingwood distillery, and the maple added a smooth, slightly woody taste with a noticeable cherry / light stone fruit aroma.

One thing to consider as well - toasting levels greatly affect the flavors you'll pull out, so for the other aromatic woods, were you planning on charring / toasting before use?

Well i'm planing both rae and toasted/chared, and maybe even green wood.

Maybe pure alcool will get out too much undesirable things from the wood, hmm...

Of course i could oven-sterilize and put in the beer, which i will probably try, but the point was also to find a technique to create "extract" that i could apply for nuts and spices, too...