How to prepare wood chips for infusion of distillate. How to infuse moonshine on oak chips and how to cook it

oak chips(chips) is sticks or sticks with approximate dimensions of 1 cm by 1 cm by 5 cm. It is used to make tinctures from moonshine and vodka. Oak colors the liquid in noble brown color and gives the drink pronounced taste, depending on the degree of roasting chips. The price varies from 100 to 200 rubles per 100 grams (enough for about 30 liters of drink), but you can easily make it on your own.

We will tell the right technology making wood chips at home, share good recipe tincture and show in detail how best to best make it. Not all oak wood is suitable for making a drink, so you should also pay attention to its choice.

The consistency of oak chips can be different. The most versatile bars are 1 cm by 1 cm by 5 cm.

Yes, because it costs a penny and is sold in any more or less large settlement, and it will take more than one hour of your time to make it. The store offers oak chips of various roasts and different varieties , so you can quickly choose the product that you find the most pleasant in taste and color.

Even if you are very actively distributing moonshine, then for 1000 rubles you will buy so many wood chips that you won’t even think about it for several years. We do not advertise any store, but simply recommend that you do not waste your time and immediately buy a finished tree.

Buy several varieties at once to experiment and choose the option that suits you.

Various degrees of oak roasting.

Recipe for tincture on oak chips

To prepare a tincture of moonshine, you will need the ingredients in the following proportions:

Moonshine - 1 liter.
Oak chips - 2 grams.
Sugar - 20 grams.

Moonshine must be taken stronger, preferably 50–55% .

Oak will absorb some of the alcohol from the drink, as a result of which the fortress will be lower at the exit. This is especially noticeable in oak barrels, where the fortress can decrease by 30–40% of the initial one.

The container must be glass. Even food-grade plastic won't work for us.

Different shades of the finished tincture, depending on the variety and roasting of the tree.

Step-by-step instructions for preparing tincture on oak chips

Now let's take a look step by step instructions for the preparation of this very tincture:

We prepare moonshine with a strength of 50-55%.
We pour it into glass container, which will have a wide throat. Thanks to him, you can then safely get the tree out of the container.
Add oak chips at the rate of 2 grams per 1 liter.
Close the container tightly and put it in a dark, cool place for 2-3 months.
Check the color of your tincture periodically. If it starts to darken too much, then it makes sense to stop insisting so as not to overexpose the product. In the new batch, you will already know that less or more wood will need to be added.
At the end of the infusion, filter the moonshine through gauze to clear the drink of sediment and wooden particles.

I will place special emphasis on the high strength of the initial raw materials. This is necessary in order for the alcohol content finished product did not fall below 40 degrees.

If this happens, then the drink will have to be diluted, and this is absolutely not the kind of tincture that you can be proud of.

An interesting video was prepared by the guru of distillation and the author of the channel Moonshine Sanych. Konstantin fully considers the entire process of preparing tinctures from theory to tasting the finished product. His recipe is different from ours. The choice is yours.

How to make oak chips with your own hands

I will immediately note that the process is quite hemorrhoids, but it allows you to save some money and get a unique basis for making tinctures. It is best, of course, to use caucasian oak, but in our case we just find the most dry oak log and get to work.

We choose the driest and hardest oak log that you have. It is strongly not recommended to use raw, rotten or rotten wood.
We chop the tree into so-called chips with dimensions of 1 cm by 1 cm by 5 cm. These sticks will be our wood chips.
We carry out cleaning of the tree with the help of digestion. Pour sticks hot water, bring to a boil and cook for 15-20 minutes. Then we update the water and bring it to a boil again. We repeat the procedure 3-5 times until the water is as clean as possible.
We dry clean sticks in the oven or air grill. It will be enough for 30 minutes with a temperature of 150 degrees.
When the tree becomes dry, we roast it in the same oven. Raise the temperature to 250 degrees and start roasting. Depending on the duration of heating, you will get chips of different roasts. The gradation is as follows: 10 minutes - mild, 15 minutes - medium, 20–25 - strong.
Having brought the wood to the condition, turn off the oven, let the sticks cool down and you can start making the tincture.

During cooking, the pan will get very dirty, so immediately prepare for an intensive cleaning after this process. In the oven, it is better to put the tree on a special baking parchment so as not to spoil the baking sheet.

The whole production technology takes about 3-4 hours.

For clarity, we recommend watching the video from the author of the channel Distillery. The man fully shows the whole process from chopping a log to roasting wooden sticks, so after watching you should not have any questions.

Which oak chips are best and why?

Different types of wood have their own individual set of taste and color shades. In total, about 300 varieties of this tree are known.

They make excellent barrels for infusing drinks from Caucasian oak (the price is about 3 thousand for a 3-liter container).

Choose a variety. French oak is considered the best, but its price is prohibitively high. Caucasian is also considered very good, and its price is very affordable for the average moonshiner. IN last resort just take the first dry log in the yard, or at least not the cheapest sticks in a specialized store.
Choosing a roast. All distinguish three degrees - light, medium and strong. Each of them gives its own aroma and color, so it is best to conduct a tasting with each.

A well-prepared tree will absorb some of the harmful impurities and alcohol, so the drink at the exit will turn out to be softer and more palatable.

If the sticks are bad, then the wood, on the contrary, will release some harmful substances into the liquid, as a result of which the quality of the product and its taste will suffer greatly. Responsibly approach the manufacture and selection of oak chips.

For home improvement alcoholic beverages aromatic additives are used, as well as wood. Kegs are well made according to all the rules, but oak chips for moonshine are also suitable, especially if you don’t decide on a keg yet. Buying is not cheap.

Wanting to get alcohol at home, strongly reminiscent of cognac or brandy, they use oak chips. It has a valuable quality - to give even a less than ideal drink noble bitterness and peculiar aftertaste, thanks to the tannins contained in wood chips. In addition, this assistant in the case of successful imitation elite alcohol there are many advantages:

Cheapness and availability. Plenty of sites offer oak chips at a low price. The only drawback is that you do not know what raw materials were used for production.
Possibility to make your own, independently selecting the material and processing it in accordance with your desire.
You will get a drink of the desired flavor much faster than if you decide to pour it into a keg. But you can’t overdo the chips in alcohol, otherwise you can hopelessly spoil the taste. It will turn out a liquid supersaturated with tannins, popularly called plinth.

Where to get chips?

Options: write out via the Internet, buy in a specialized store or at a sawmill.

Carefully. When purchasing wood chips from wood processing plants, make sure that they are not treated with antiseptics against insects.

The best option is to make your own.

Barrels (and chips) of French origin are considered incomparable. But it's strange to go to France for an oak chock.

Connoisseurs say that beautiful oak wood is obtained from trees growing in the Caucasus, in the Crimea, in the Krasnodar Territory. It is highly appreciated by world winemakers, since the physico-chemical properties help to fully reveal the taste of alcohol during aging.

How to make your own oak chips?

Oh, how many disputes about which wood to choose for chips. Some insist that only the trunk of an old oak tree is needed. Others, on the contrary, argue that best wood chips- these are branches aged from 2 to 5 years.

Reference. Proper oak barrels are made from boards made from oak wood at least 40 years old.

Perhaps this is the answer. And if you still have branches, then try to insist moonshine on such chips for a short time so as not to turn it into polish. On old oak, aging is longer.

Preparation consists of several stages:

Regardless of what you choose - branches or a thick trunk, for future chips, you need to saw logs 7-10 cm long, and then chop wood chips 1-2 cm thick along the fibers.

Advice. A guideline for the thickness of the chips - they crawl into the neck of the bottle.

After that, fill the chips with water and soak for a day, changing the water three times during this time.
This is followed by soaking in soda for 8 hours (not everyone considers this stage necessary). For a bucket (10 l) of water take 2 spoons baking soda.
Rinse the wood chips thoroughly several times.
Pour cold water and boil after boiling for 40 minutes.
Lay out on a wire rack so that there is air access from all sides, and dry for a day.
The final stage is frying.

What affects the taste of alcohol?

It is a mistake to think that you can chop wood chips and throw them into a jar of moonshine. Special preparation is required, during which the chips are soaked, dried and fried. In addition to the natural tannins of wood and oak bark, which give a pleasant tart note to moonshine, all stages will affect the future taste and smell. homemade alcohol:

lightly toasted wood chips are used when you want to experience berry and vanilla notes. The color of the drink will be golden;
medium roast will give a caramel-almond flavor and cognac color;
with strong roasting, chocolate and smoked flavors are clearly felt. And the color becomes saturated - brown with a reddish tint.

Firing time and temperature

How to properly burn wood chips? The process takes 2 hours, and the temperature is set differently.

light roast - 120 ° C;
medium (it is also called Medium) - 160 ° C (for an oven with convection, 150 ° C is enough);
strong - 185 (180) ° С.

Attention. If you fry chips in the oven at home, carefully wrap them in portions in food foil, otherwise everything will be filled with smoke, and the hood will not save.

After preparation, the chips are stored in jars with lids so that the flavor does not disappear.

What moonshine to choose for insisting?

There are three main types of moonshine:

sugar;
from fruits, berries and grapes;
grain.

It would seem that the choice is obvious: to get a drink that resembles whiskey, take chips and grain moonshine. Suitable for brandy - grape distillate. Contained in grains and fruit moonshine substances sometimes enter into unexpected reactions with wood chips, from which the taste is unpredictable.

For the first experiments, it is better to take purified double-run sugar moonshine. When insisting on chips, its taste becomes softer, the moonshine taste disappears.

Advice. Experiment with grains and fruit and berry types of homemade alcohol in small volumes.

Take 50 g of chips per liter of such moonshine and check the result. If you like it, increase the volume.

Common Mistakes

Beginners sometimes make mistakes that can ruin alcohol instead of making it taste better.

At any degree of roasting, the wood should not be burnt. The maximum that can be, and even then only with the maximum exposure to temperature, is light blackened areas along the edges of the chips.
You can not insist moonshine on wood chips for too long. An excess of tannins will turn it into an unusable liquid. The minimum period is 2 months, but six months or a year is possible. Periodically try what happened in order to filter the infusion in time.
Lack of aeration affects the quality of the drink badly. When insisting once a week, open the jar for 20 minutes, or even better - use an aquarium pump.
An overabundance of herbs and spices, which are supposed to improve the taste, leads to the opposite result.
Don't use plastic! Only glass - it is inert, does not react with alcohol and does not emit toxins.
Raw (only felled log) - not the best option. It has an excess of tannins. Take pre-dried wood.

Proportions of moonshine and oak bark

Another method popular with distillers is the insistence of moonshine not on oak chips, but on bark.

However, if on three-liter jar moonshine requires about 150 g of wood chips, then less bark is needed. She is more "vigorous" and can quickly turn alcohol into a plinth.

Carefully! Do not insist alcohol on the bark for more than three weeks!

Here is a simple homemade brandy recipe for 3 liters of moonshine:

oak bark - 3 tablespoons (tablespoons);
1 tablespoon of dried herbs of oregano and St. John's wort;
a spoonful of honey;
buds 4-5 cloves;
a few peas of allspice (10 - maximum);
quite a bit of vanillin or vanilla sugar and ground coriander.

Moonshine infused with apple wood chips

Not only oak wood is popular, but also other types of trees. For example, in Italy, Calvados is aged in chestnut or mulberry (mulberry) barrels. Excellent samples of alcohol with a unique taste are obtained if you use chips of cherries, apple trees, pears, bird cherry.

Here is a simple recipe using apple wood chips. The preparation of chips is no different from oak. You will need:

3 liters of apple distillate;
150 g apple wood chips.

Keep up to 3 months. During this time, moonshine acquires a golden color and a fruity aroma.

One of the most better ways moonshine aging is considered to be its infusion in oak barrels. In a similar way, such a noble drink as whiskey is obtained. But what to do if it is hard to find a barrel, but there is no time for such a long exposure? One of the options that allows you to bring the taste closer to a drink obtained in oak barrels is this, the instruction allows you to cook it yourself. But you can also buy it in the store.

The properties of the drink will depend on the place where the tree grows. Despite the fact that vodka, cognac, whiskey and other alcohol are obtained from moonshine, the taste of all these drinks will differ depending on this factor. The most popular is oak, which grows in France, but it is used to make wine. The country has a classification by region of growth.

Oak chips for home brewing

Unfortunately, not everyone has the opportunity to order material abroad. In Russia, good wood can also be divided into three types by region, it is obtained in the following areas:

Khadyzhensky.
Afipsky.
Apsheron.

Valuable varieties of oak also grow in the Caucasus, Crimea, Tatarstan, Voronezh, Belarus and Ukraine.

Infusion can only be carried out on wood that has been obtained from trees grown in depleted soils and arid climates. Oak chips for moonshine, which are made in other conditions, will be too rich in tannins, which will negatively affect the quality of moonshine.

Why does oak change the quality of alcohol?

The effect of oak, which manifests itself when it is insisted, consists of several factors:

Wood chips act as an adsorbent due to the peculiarities of the wood structure. Wood capillaries absorb substances boiling at low temperatures. This includes impurities that cannot be completely removed during distillation. Therefore, a long-term tincture on oak chips or in a barrel gives better results than a product infused in another container.
The wood also contains various chemicals that make moonshine softer. They not only give it new taste and aroma, but also bind dangerous compounds. It is believed that tincture on oak bark has healing properties.

Many beginners are convinced that oak is oak, no matter what form it is used in, the effect will be the same, but it is not. If you are serious about making quality with my own hands, you need to learn that for this you can use three types of raw materials that give different results:

Moonshine infused with oak bark (also called bitter tincture) will have a slightly softened taste compared to original product. But the color of the drink will also change to reddish brown. And the tannin that is present there will give the tincture healing properties. However, if overexposed a little, it may taste too bitter.
Wood chips are more suitable for these purposes. It will ennoble the drink and bind harmful substances. It can be prepared both on your own and purchased at a pharmacy. Moonshine on oak chips, boiled and burned, will have an amber color and a slight oak aroma. Light notes of smoked meat, prunes and so on are also possible.
Aging in an oak barrel not only gives taste and aroma, but also allows you to make the drink much cleaner.

How to cook oak chips with your own hands?

As already mentioned, you can find oak chips in the store, but it is quite possible to make them on your own. To do this, we do the following:

We find a log of the right size in the forest and let it dry at room temperature. We remove the bark from the prepared raw materials, which can later be used to prepare healing tinctures.
We make chips, approximately 2x2x10 cm.
Next, the chips are placed in cold water, where they must be infused for 24 hours to separate excess oils. Every eight hours the water must be changed.
Now the wood is leached with a solution of baking soda: two spoons are taken per 10 liters of water. It is necessary to withstand at least six hours, after which the chips are washed with clean water and poured into a saucepan.
Wood chips are filled with water again and put on fire. Bring to a boil and boil for about 40-50 minutes.
Turn off the fire and wash the chips again. Next, you need to dry it at room temperature.
After that, the wood is kept in the oven for about two hours at a temperature of 150 degrees, such raw materials can be stored for a long time.

Before putting moonshine, you need to burn it. Depending on the degree of such burning, moonshine will have different aromas:

if you burn it a little, then the moonshine will smell of vanilla, fruit and slightly smoked meats;
with medium roasting, the drink will receive shades of caramel and almonds;
with strong - there will be noticeable chocolate and smoked flavors.

What type of moonshine is best?

To insist on oak chips, the following types of moonshine are chosen: sugar, grain, fruit. And of the latter, it is best to infuse chacha on oak chips, but this is a matter of taste. These three types are chosen due to the fact that during the infusion, chemical reactions occur between the substances, as a result of which the aroma, taste and other qualities of the drink may change. The use of oak chips with other substances can have unexpected consequences, including the presence of a large amount of harmful substances, a strong smell and a bitter taste.

Not only tannins change the taste when interacting with ethyl alcohol, but also parameters such as the characteristics of the tree itself and the time of infusion also affect its quality. Thanks to various manipulations, it is possible to obtain drinks with aromas of fruits, fresh flowers, chocolate, vanilla and others. If it suddenly turned out that the taste of the finished product does not suit you, you can add special additives. Typically, these flavors are sold in small bottles and are very concentrated liquids. The addition of a few drops may be enough to completely change the taste of the finished product.

How to insist moonshine on oak chips? Depending on the desire, chips can be different amount, but it is considered optimal 30-60 g per liter of moonshine 45-degree fortress. It is necessary to pour moonshine with wood chips into a glass or stainless steel container so that it is up to the neck. In this case, there will be less air.

The container is closed tightly with a lid and the moonshine is put to infuse for several months, depending on the result that they want to get. There are no rules about how long to insist. It depends on the type of oak, on the type of moonshine and many other factors.

The most common mistakes

What not to do when making wood chips:

Fry too long. It is recommended to practice first a small amount pieces of wood, so as not to spoil.
Damp wood cannot be used.
For the manufacture of oak chips and the infusion of moonshine, plastic containers cannot be used.
It is also not recommended to use too a large number of spices and condiments. It shouldn't be overdone.
If the recipe is not tested, then it is better to make a small amount in order to make sure that the result suits you.

Thus, it is necessary to use high-quality raw materials. If it is possible to order from abroad, great, if not, ordinary wood will do, it is important to follow the technology. Before you make oak chips, you first need to make a small batch and use a small amount of moonshine to infuse. This way you can be sure that you will be happy with the result.

Many people know that cognac is aged in oak barrels to give the drink its famous color and taste. Homemade alcohol can also be ennobled by applying folk recipes. One popular way to improve the quality of moonshine is to use oak chips. How is moonshine wood chips used?

What Not to Do

Oak chips for moonshine

Why is wood used in infusing alcohol? The tree acts as a natural cleaner. The biochemical substances present in wood draw poisonous impurities from alcohol, make it taste softer, and eliminate unpleasant odors.

Moonshine is infused for up to six months. How the drink turns out depends on individual wishes and the chosen recipe. What not to do:

Oak chips for moonshine are pre-fired with their own hands. You have to be careful not to burn the wood. Black pegs cannot be used. At the first experience, it is better to practice on a small amount of wood.
Raw material is not used. Chips must be absolutely dry, pre-fired.
Moonshine should not be infused in a plastic container.
All proportions indicated in the recipe must be exactly observed.
If an unverified recipe is used, do not insist on a large amount of the drink. It is better to try to infuse a little moonshine according to a new recipe to see how the drink will turn out.

Preparation of oak chips

To make oak chips, you need dry oak wood. The process of preparing oak chips:

Prick the oak pegs of the desired size. Standard peg sizes used in industrial production- 10x5x3 mm. You can independently split the tree into pegs with a thickness of not more than 2 mm. Split the wood in the direction of the grain.
Chipped chips need additional drying. You can lay them out outdoors in sunny weather, but this process will take long time especially if the weather is unstable. To facilitate the process, use a fruit and mushroom dryer.
Once the pegs are completely dry, start processing them.

Recipe for making homemade cognac

For cognac made from moonshine, at home you will need oak chips. On sale you can find ready-made material, but moonshine, which insisted on homemade pegs, is much more fragrant.

Put the following ingredients in the prepared container:

Fried pegs - 30 grams;
Carnation - 4-5 buds;
Coriander - 5-6 grains;
Allspice - 4 peas;
Vanilla, cumin - one pinch each.

Cognac can be made using oak chips

A popular recipe for homemade cognac:

Pour spices and pegs with moonshine, which has previously passed two distillations. It will take 2 liters of alcohol.
Close the container tightly with a lid or stopper. Put in a darkened room.
Shake the contents of the container twice a week.
Homemade cognac must be infused for at least 2-3 weeks. For getting noble drink should wait 4-5 months.
Taste the resulting drink. If it suits you completely, filter homemade cognac through cheesecloth or a special filter.

On a note! If you want to add a caramel flavor to homemade cognac, pour a little burnt sugar into the moonshine. After a week, filter the drink again.

How to prepare oak chips

Soak the pegs in cold water for a day. Water during this time is changed at least three times.
Dissolve a tablespoon of baking soda in water (5 liters). Soak the pegs for 6 hours in a soda solution.
Rinse the wood well under running water.
Pour the washed wood chips with water, leave to boil for 40-45 minutes.
Dry the pegs with a dryer, or put them in the sun.
Dry pegs roast in microwave oven or oven until chocolate brown.

Recipe for insisting on oak chips

You will need pegs and a 45-degree moonshine. Roasted wood chips are placed in a container with moonshine (20 grams of peg is needed for 1 liter of moonshine). It is preferable to use glass containers, but stainless steel is also suitable. Moonshine is infused for several months, after which the wood is removed and the liquid is filtered.

There are many recipes for making moonshine on oak pegs. You can try to make homemade rustic cognac.

Ingredients

Moonshine (3 liters), which has been distilled twice. The fortress should be 45 degrees;
Granulated sugar (2 tablespoons);
Oak pegs (5-6 pieces);
13-16 rose hips;
A few peas of black pepper;
1 teaspoon ground St. John's wort leaves.

For a milder taste, you can add a handful of white raisins, one pitted prunes, a vanilla pod.

Cooking

Make caramel syrup from sugar. The color of the syrup should be light golden.
Pour loose ingredients and wood chips into a glass container, fill with moonshine.
Add syrup, close the container with a lid.
After a week, remove the vanilla pod and prunes from the tincture.
Shake the contents constantly.
Infuse moonshine "Rustic style" for 14-30 days.
Pass the finished drink through several layers of gauze.

Infusion of moonshine on oak chips

Since moonshine is infused on oak pegs for a long time, you can put several containers at once using different recipes. As a result, you get several types of homemade tincture. Use moonshine is better from grape raw materials: the drink will taste like cognac, which was infused in a burnt oak barrel. Also, sugar, cereals, berries, fruits can be used as raw materials. Particular attention should be paid to the quality of the original raw materials. The final taste will depend on what products were used.

Moonshine must go through all stages of distillation and filtration. Only then can it be infused using oak chips, since moonshine should not contain toxic substances: methanol, formaldehyde, fusel oils. Only a high quality drink after infusion palatability will resemble expensive cognac or brandy.

Almost no one uses oak barrels to infuse homemade alcohol. This is an expensive pleasure that requires special care. It is much easier to use oak chips, which will give the alcohol the necessary color and original taste. Wood gives the drink such useful material like tannins, aromatic acids, phenolic compounds. They add savory, incomparable taste drink.

If you want a tincture with fruity notes, pour raisins into moonshine with oak chips. Using 3 liters of moonshine, you will need 20 grams of black or white raisins.

How to make homemade cognac from moonshine

From moonshine you can make a drink that will not be inferior in taste to real cognac. Since an oak barrel is expensive and takes up a lot of space, other folk recipes are used to make homemade cognac: walnuts, tea leaves, oak bark or wood chips.

Everyone can buy real French cognac! But they love good cognac many. The point is not only in the complex and lengthy cooking process, but also in the elementary inconveniences that are associated with obtaining house drink. Even if you are the ownermodern moonshine of a new generation , you simply may not have free space in your apartment to place an oak barrel.

The problem is solved quite simply if you have a pure distillate and a great desire to make cognac. It is necessary to insist the drink on oak bark, which you can buy at a pharmacy. But it is not so easy to find this product in modern outlets, and at a cost it is even higher than specialized ones. oak chips or chips for refining moonshine.

Homemade cognac is easy!

How do oak chips work? They imitate the aging of moonshine in a real barrel, namely, they repeat the process of soaking and firing a container made of valuable wood. Chips sold in, have high quality characteristics. They are able to endow the drink with a noble oak note, a unique aroma and astringency, which is so appreciated in real cognac!

Before proceeding with the production of a noble drink, it is necessary to choose a raw material or a base. There are no special restrictions here. Despite the fact that the original cognac is made from grape moonshine, you can also use fruit, grain and the simplest - sugar.

What is the color of the drink? This tree contains unique tannins that change color, aroma and taste. They are converted into an environmentally friendly dye under the influence of alcohol, namely - ethyl alcohol. Both bark and oak wood are of equal value. Below we present different recipes homemade cognac to make it easier for you to choose the right one.

To achieve spectacular notes of vanilla, fruit, chocolate or flowers, you should infuse moonshine on chips for a different amount of time. There are recipes, with strict adherence to which you can get the expected result. Only if there is no time to wait for a long time, it is worth usingflavor additiveson a natural basis. They can be used alone or in combination with oak chips. So, concentrates will give alcohol aroma and taste, and wood - the necessary rich shade.

Moonshine recipe on oak bark
This method of ennoblement is attractive for its simplicity. It will take a minimum of effort and time to radically change the aroma and color of the distillate. As a result, you will get, of course, not cognac, but a drink with a mild taste that will resemble a noble product. For 3 liters ready drink required:

Moonshine - 3 liters. It is advisable to take an already diluted product with a strength of about 45%.
Oak bark - 3 tbsp. l.
Allspice - 10 peas
Natural honey - 1 tbsp. l.
Carnation in buds - 5 pcs.
Oregano (dry grass) - 1 tbsp. l.
St. John's wort (dry) - 1 tbsp. l.
Vanillin - 1 gr. or on the tip of a knife

It is necessary to mix all the herbs and bark in a large container, it is advisable to choose glass that is neutral. At the next stage, everything is poured with moonshine and covered with a lid. Stir should be 1 time at the very beginning. Then the container will need to be shaken once every 4 days without opening. At room temperature, a distillate with such additives should be infused for about 15-16 days. After this period, the drink must be filtered. For this purpose, any homemade filter from special paper or cotton-gauze pads. At the next stage, moonshine on oak bark is bottled and corked. In this form, it can be stored for a long time. To improve the taste, it is recommended to drink the drink 10-14 days after filtration.

Herbs are needed for softening. If you don’t like some ingredients, you can exclude them, or even remove everything except moonshine, vanillin and oak bark. Even if you have access to oak, you should not harvest the bark yourself. Pharmaceutical products have already passed all the necessary cleaning and disinfection procedures, therefore they are the preferred option.

Recipe for moonshine on oak chips

qualityoak chipsare inexpensive, but effective tool for homemade cognac. Compared to bark, this product most accurately recreates a drink that is as close as possible in taste and aroma to cognac aged in real oak barrels. At the same time, there are some nuances. Infuse distillate in this case it takes longer, and before cooking, you also need to carefully prepare the chips. But the result is definitely worth it!

Oak chips preparation technology

At the first stage, excess tannins must be eliminated from them. To do this, the chips are soaked and then processed at elevated temperatures. It is necessary to take logs, remove the bark from them and chop them into poles, then into pegs. The optimal dimensions are: 10 cm in length and 2 cm in cross section. Cooked chips are soaked in cold water. It will be enough for 24 hours, during which the water should be changed three times.

After soaking, the chips are poured with a soda solution made from 5 liters of water and 1 tbsp. l. soda. Next, you need to leave the semi-finished products for 6 hours in this form. After that, the chips are thoroughly washed and placed in a large container. Water is added to it. All this must be boiled for about 50 minutes on the slowest fire. After that, well-washed wooden pegs are dried naturally for 1 day. The dry tree is laid out on a baking sheet and placed for 2 hours in the oven, heated to 150-160 ° C. As a result of this process, a characteristic brown color should appear. Toasted chips are stored in a dry, well-ventilated area. High humidity has a detrimental effect on oak chips. Gardeners often harvest cherry, apple or pear wood according to this recipe.

To whom the whole process seems too long and laborious, we offer an easier one - buy ready-made oak chips in the storeat an affordable price.

Infusion of oak chips in moonshine

This process is divided into 3 main steps:

Calculation of oak chips for a 3-liter jar

Everyone in the household has this container. And it is with such a small volume that it is worth starting experiments with oak chips. For a standard jar or bottle of the same capacity, 15cm bars are best suitedx 3 cm x 0.5 cm. As for the quantity, 9 pieces will be enough. It should be borne in mind that when using such a number of chips, the useful volume is reduced by 202.5 ml. Those. 2800 ml remains instead of 3000 ml. To get a decent aroma and color, you can take only 6 pieces, if necessary, increasing their number. So you can simultaneously infuse moonshine in four 3-liter jars and place 6,7,8,9 chips in them, respectively. So you can determine the exact number to get the drink that you like best in terms of flavor and aroma.

Grape brandy or chacha are best suited for making homemade cognac. Using such raw materials, you bring the taste, aroma and color of the drink as close as possible to those possessed by real French cognac. According to these recipes, it is best to age oak chips in moonshine for 6 months. But after 3 weeks, the drink softens significantly and acquires a specific taste, a dark shade. Therefore, if time is running out, or you are on the eve of a festive event, you can serve distillate on oak chips in 3-4 weeks. Do not be afraid to experiment, and you are guaranteed to find your own recipe for homemade fragrant cognac!