Hi Michael I've used these but as any oak influence you must taste the wine often. Make notes as you do it. Try 4 weekly intervals and mix the wine occasionally to get all the wine to make contact This is exactly how the professionals do it it's not a secret. Cheers Phillip

It all depends how much oak flavor you’re looking for. 3-6 weeks should be enough. Tasting weekly until you get the right effect.

I make dry red wines and age in 6 gal carboys. Typically I keep the oak in for 7 to 10 months. I don't think it over oaks but I have no way of knowing the minimum time.

You can use them a couple of times. You need to keep them sterile. In between uses I keep mine in the freezer.

It depends on how long you leave the oak additive in the wine the first time they are used. I don't like a lot of oak in my wine so I usually just use one oak spiral or stick for 5 gallons or 2 ounces of cubes (68 cubes) per 5 gallons of wine. The manufacturers of various oak products - cubes beans staves chips spirals powder often mention how long it takes for them to give up everything they have. If you leave the oak in for less than the life of the oak product yes you can reuse them; however the second time you use them it will take longer for the wine to extract whatever oak flavor remains. I often put a handful of oak in my fermentation vat (creates a chemical reaction) which gives me more complexity better color etc. I do reuse those since they have not been in the wine for a very long time.

It depends. It you use fewer sticks for a longer time ie 6-10 months then no. if you use more for a shorter time 1-2 months then yes.

I have introduced Winestix during malolactic fermentation and transferred to the aging tank. I would not reuse winestix beyond that. By the time they are removed from the aging tank they are pretty much spent.

I use them once to flavor wine then after drying use them to add flavor in my BBQ grilling.

I never have but you could. There will be diminishing returns (less flavour and aroma every time you use it). Also you would have to use it on a similar type wine. You couldn’t go from a Syrah to a Chardonnay. And thirdly it would be best to go straight from one wine to the next as contamination bacteria and storage would be a concern.

I’ve had the same question. After a few years you can acquire a pretty sizable stash of sticks so I gave reusing the sticks a try. I ended up with more wine than new sticks. The sticks get pretty full of gunk so I cleaned them up with a wire wheel then re-charred them using a gas torch. I used them at rate of two where I would have normally only used only one (cowboy logic). When all was said and done I still buy new sticks every year. I prefere to know what I’m getting versus guessing that my efforts were going to work.plus it is a fair amount of work to get the sticks reworked. Hope this helps.

I clean and store wine stick for reuse and am on the third season. Similar to the reuse of oak barrels is my thinking. Oak cleaning instructions per Jeff Cox in "vine to wine".

not recommended; one season's use only

I do not reuse them. First there is concern for bacterial contamination. Second they have given already given up much of the available oak flavor in the first use. I rinse and dry the used oak stix and give them to a friend for use in his barbeque smoker.

No. These Stix will last about three.months in a carboy. After that there is very little aditional flavor added.