Hope everyone had a fantastic New Years holiday! Ours sure came in with a bang (weather wise). A good 18" fell over New Years Eve into New Years day. I saw a snow plow get stuck...not something you see everyday!
Now to the seasoning of wood topic, it definitely doesn't have anything to do w/adding a little salt and pepper, but it does have relation to the beverages that age inside a finished barrel, i.e. wine, spirits, etc.. Just like a fine wine or whiskey has to age and mature before it can meet your wine bar or liquor cabinet, so does white oak need to take a time out before it can be ready to be made into a barrel.
Typically white oak stave blanks (rough sawn) are stacked into staggered piles to allow both water and air the ability to reach through the entire pile. 12 to 48 moths is the typical aging time (48mos. being on the extreme side). During that time, some say that the rain or precipitation leeches out excess tannic acid, while others say it's the different temperatures in the freeze/thaw cycle that help to mellow out the "greenness" (I might have made that word up?) or harsh acidic tendencies in the wood.
Some stave suppliers or cooperage's go so far as to sprinkle collected rain water on their piles of white oak, and some places like Australia, irrigation systems are used because of the excessivley dry climate.
Overall the main reason to age/season white oak is to allow the harsher chemical compounds found in the wood to leech or mellow out while leaving the more desirable compounds like vanillan. If it was not aged or seasoned properly, your end product might taste like a resinous rubber tire!
All of the wood used in our barrels are aged for a minimum of 18 months.
Wishing a great weekend to all and hoping that it doesn't feel like the -20below windchill it happens to be here!
Talk soon,
~ Heidi
