I know there's a couple winemakers in the BBI community so I figure I'd take a stab and ask...Making my first batch of wine ever, 6 gallons of Cab. I've had the oak infusion spirals in the glass carboy for about 7 weeks, just tested and I don't taste a hint of oak (they say keep it in there 6-8 weeks). Do I need to re-rack the wine to get the oak flavor to mix throughout? Using the baster, I pulled an once of wine off the top to taste, so is the flavor sitting at the bottom with the oak spirals?
That's pretty weird, cuz usually oak infusion sticks or whatever (chips, dust, etc) floats.
I use them to supplement older barrels, and typically use more than oak manufacturer calculates as the "equal to 100% new oak barrel flavor." Bullshit, their recommendations (at least the company I work with) for dosage and time of maceration are meaningless to me. By trial and error, I find myself using as much as 2.5 times their recommended "100% new oak barrel" dosage.
Do you think the oak flavor is at the bottom or at least not at the top where I sampled?
Is it ok to rack the wine or stir it up to get the flavor to circulate?