Oaking Cysers?

I have a cyser in primary right now which should end up at around 14.5 abv and I was considering racking onto medium french oak cubes in the secondary for a few months. Anyone done anything like this? Opions? Experiences? I was thinking of adding a bit of sugar at bottling to get a natural fermentation as well.

Does anyone know if champagne sees oak?

I don't know if champagne does, but chardonay does. It'd test it out (or at least oak 1 gallon of it).

Champagne could be made in a barrels as a primary. Secondary fermentation takes place in the bottle. You can rack your cyser onto whatever you want. It's your stuff. Personally, I'm not fond of oak flavors in my wine.

will_cbe said:

Personally, I'm not fond of oak flavors in my wine.

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DEEP dark Red's are good on Oak! But Man I mean REALLLLY DEEP DARK RED's!

I think after my Apfelwein on oak experiment, I'd just skip it.

I think it is a personal taste thing. Some do and some don't. To figure out if you prefer oak try a gallon of your batch on oak to compare to the rest without. Then you will know for the future.

Chardonnay is usually oaked pretty strongly, so that is a good example of the flavors that oak provides as the grape is pretty mild otherwise.

Craig

Rhinofly: It all depends on how much you like the flavours oaking imparts. Like CBBaron said. "chardonnay is oaked pretty heavily", and I can't stand chardonnay. I did use some oak in a cyser once though, but only a bit. I used the french oak infusion spirals & left them in for about 3 weeks, I thought that added plenty of oak flavour. The oak did add some depth to the cyser & while it's not bad as is, I think it is going to need another year of aging before it's really good... Though to be clear here, the oak isn't causing extended aging, this cyser would've needed more aging even if I had not oaked it. High ABV stuff made with honey takes a long time to turn out well. Hope you find some of this info useful. Regards, GF.

There are some posts on Northern Brewer about oaking cysers, and they're actually all gung-ho in favor of it. I am currently wrestling with the idea of oaking my 5 gal of 12% ABV honeyed cotes de blanc. I don't want to do anything stupid, though.

oh hell, just buy yourself a nice new oak barrel from some Burgundian cooperage, it only cost about a 1000$...

seriously tho, i second what ccbaron said and only try a gallon at first....

keep us posted on the results