Cjtabares

Recipes 

I am brewing a imperial chocolate coffee stout and an optional ingredient is 1oz french oak chips for the last week of the secondary fermentation. What will this do for the beer? Would you use it?

If it helps the other ingredients are:
5 lbs light dried malt etract
3 lbs wheat dried malt etact
2 lbs chocolate malt
1 lb roasted barley
1 lb dextrine (Carapils)
1 lb caraMunich III
1 lb Special B
4 oz Kent Golding Hop Pellets
1 oz Galena Pellets
WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast
1 vanilla bean
8 oz backing chocolate
8 oz Cocoa powder

If you need anymore info let me know

Suthrncomfrt1884

Recipes 

Forget it. 1oz of oak chips isn't going to be noticeable in a big stout like this. I typically use 4-5oz. in a 5 gallon batch of lighter beer to give me a nice oaky flavor. Even with 4-5oz's, I think you'll have a hard time tasting it over all the other flavors.

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speter

Recipes 

French oak gives tannins, which I fear would be lost here. American oak gives vanilla flavors, but you would need much more.

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Oast House Brewing

Cjtabares

Recipes 

Ok thanks

SankePankey

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I've never put oak chips in anything, but I'm a wine geek, so I know a lot about oak barrels. I think the last part of what you said goes against what I know, so if you'd elaborate, I'd like to know.

French (and/or Hungarian) Oak is very tightly grained oak that leaches sap and such much less readily than American Oak. French Oak gives off more nutmeg and papery/fine type tannins as you mentioned, while American Oak is more pine-y, vanilla and 'generous'. The flavors are much more pronounced for the same amount of time in the oak, as far as I'm concerned. I can't imagine a white burgundy tasting anywhere near elegant after the same amount of time in American barrels.

The part I don't get is... I would think that you would have to use more French Oak than American Oak to extract the flavors you want. Can you esplain me somesing?

speter

Recipes 

Sorry. I meant that he would need to use more than an ounce to impart flavor, not that you'd need more of American vs. French oak.

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Oast House Brewing

SankePankey

Recipes 

Oh, duh. Got it.

bknifefight

Recipes 

That recipe has A LOT of specialty grains in it.

Cjtabares

Recipes 

It was A kit I bought from a site, I did not create it myself but it sounded interesting and fun to brew. I just hope it comes out good. I was thinking I would use a darker roast for the coffee, I find that the darker roasts of coffee are less acidice, would this help the beer?

Looks like I left the coffee out of the ingredence. It calls for 1/4 lb of ground coffee to be cold brewed in 1/2 gal of water for 48 hours. Then to add this to the beer right before bottling. How fine or corse should the ground coffee be?

Suthrncomfrt1884

Recipes 

I typically buy pre-ground coffee from a good brand. I use cameron's 90% of the time, which is nice since they sell it in 3.75oz. bags.

__________________
He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven.

Another HERMS rig...