Question on Oak Wood Chips

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baseballstar4

baseballstar4

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I am looking for advice on the use of oak chips during secondary fermentation. I have read/seen many different opinions on this topic and can't decide on what to do. Bake vs. Boil the chips? Amount of chips to use in the secondary? I am more than likely going to brew an ESB and thought of soaking the chips in a Bourbon for a week or 2 before adding them to the secondary. Any help would be appreciated.
 
I've only oaked once. That being said, I boiled the chips, then tossed them in the primary after fermentation was complete.

If you soak the chips in bourbon, I would leave them out to dry before adding them. I'm not sure how you would do this without inviting bacteria, but it is possible that the bourbon absorbed by the oak would fight this. Hopefully someone else can chime in with more knowledge than I have. Good luck.
 
baseballstar4 said:
I am looking for advice on the use of oak chips during secondary fermentation. I have read/seen many different opinions on this topic and can't decide on what to do. Bake vs. Boil the chips? Amount of chips to use in the secondary? I am more than likely going to brew an ESB and thought of soaking the chips in a Bourbon for a week or 2 before adding them to the secondary. Any help would be appreciated.
Click to expand...

you can bake them if your wanting more of a charred taste, no need to boil them.

If your talking about a 5 gallon batch then you usually dont need more than a hand full for 2 - 4 weeks


-bn
 
To sanitize mine I soaked them in Jack Daniels for about a week...since they were the Jack Daniels Bourbon barrel smoking chips anyway..It was excellent.

Though in the future I may dry toast a bit of them before sanitizing them.
 
I just kegged a batch I had oaked. I use 20z of medium toast french oak chips in 5 G for 2 weeks. It's been off the oak and in the keg for 2 weeks this saturday. It's tastes like wood. But it was a simple Marris Otter SMaSH. I boiled some water, let it cool, the soaked the chips in the water. I did this based on another thread that suggested saturating the chips before adding to your beer cause they absorb a lot of liquid. If they're not saturated with water first they'll absorb your precious beer. So the chips themselves were not sanitized, just the water they soaked in.
 
IrregularPulse said:
I just kegged a batch I had oaked. I use 20z of medium toast french oak chips in 5 G for 2 weeks. It's been off the oak and in the keg for 2 weeks this saturday. It's tastes like wood. But it was a simple Marris Otter SMaSH. I boiled some water, let it cool, the soaked the chips in the water. I did this based on another thread that suggested saturating the chips before adding to your beer cause they absorb a lot of liquid. If they're not saturated with water first they'll absorb your precious beer. So the chips themselves were not sanitized, just the water they soaked in.
Click to expand...

The "woodiness" does fade back with time...like hops...Mine lost the woody bite after about 6 weeks in a bottle...
 
I read to steam the chips in a veggie steamer for 20 minutes before adding them to the secondary fermenter...
 
mageerc said:
I read to steam the chips in a veggie steamer for 20 minutes before adding them to the secondary fermenter...
Click to expand...

Yeah that's one of the ways to do it. If mine didn't have some jack soaked in from being made from the barrels, then I would have gone that route...but I didn't want the steam to volatilize any of it....
 
Revvy said:
Mine were...but not toasted enough...more like a light toast...I'd be interested in a medium sometime.
Click to expand...

Oh right. I forgot you were using the chips that are from the cut up Jack barrels. I can see how they aren't toasted enough. People using them to smoke meat probably don't want charred up chips.
 
IrregularPulse said:
I just kegged a batch I had oaked. I use 20z of medium toast french oak chips in 5 G for 2 weeks. It's been off the oak and in the keg for 2 weeks this saturday. It's tastes like wood. But it was a simple Marris Otter SMaSH. I boiled some water, let it cool, the soaked the chips in the water. I did this based on another thread that suggested saturating the chips before adding to your beer cause they absorb a lot of liquid. If they're not saturated with water first they'll absorb your precious beer. So the chips themselves were not sanitized, just the water they soaked in.
Click to expand...

I'm planning on doing something similar (2oz for 2 weeks) only mine are American light toast, I'm soaking them in bourbon, and I'm adding them to a 6.9% porter. I think the strong flavors of the porter will handle the woodiness better than your smash. It'll have plenty of time to mature before I tap it anyway.
 
Do you think that the hoppiness in a ESB and the woodiness will cooperate? PLanning on brewing this within the month, secondary for 2-3weeks, bottle aging for 3 months.
 
baseballstar4 said:
Do you think that the hoppiness in a ESB and the woodiness will cooperate? PLanning on brewing this within the month, secondary for 2-3weeks, bottle aging for 3 months.
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Me personally??? I think it would kill it..ESB's are pretty mild..they're meant to be...TO me the oak would totally overrule any of the understated complexity of the malts...I would tend to oak higher grav, fuller bodied beers, like browns, I've had some Ipa's that were oaked, stouts, porters, old ales, barleywines..things like that...

But that's me...you could be on to greatness maybe...Or you may have to sit on it for 6 months till the oak mellows out.

I googled "Oaked ESB" and a quick glance didn't net me any commercial examples..so I can't say I've ever seen or heard of oaked ESB's..but I only looked briefly. I could be wrong.
 
One other thing I haven't thought of...the chips float right? Do you all usually just let them float, or put them in a hop bag and weight it?
 
Coastarine said:
One other thing I haven't thought of...the chips float right? Do you all usually just let them float, or put them in a hop bag and weight it?
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I floated mine...and a lot of them became "beerterlogged" and sunk to the bottom...some stayed afloat...but alot fell like anything else does in beer, hops, krauzen etc.
 
Thanks Revvy. The main idea came for this beer as a "celebration" or "victory" beer. I am a season ticket holder to the Browns and tailgate every home game. I was looking to have a victory or celebration type beer after the game by chance that they won. Have pondered doing an oak aged type beer.
 
baseballstar4 said:
Thanks Revvy. The main idea came for this beer as a "celebration" or "victory" beer. I am a season ticket holder to the Browns and tailgate every home game. I was looking to have a victory or celebration type beer after the game by chance that they won. Have pondered doing an oak aged type beer.
Click to expand...

Make it for later in the season and brew something somewhat strong...

Have you tried arrogant bastard by stone??

They have an oaked one that they have that is the shizzel...there's a couple clone recipes on here....

You really want to leave a window for the oak to mellow a bit just in case...

But you know...in honor of the Browns...you COULD do an oaked brown ale...

Take a look at the brown ale in my recipe pulldown...I oaked it and it was awesome...I've got some bottles set aside til the summer for a couple contests...I WAS going to enter it in Longshot this year..but I didn't realized that they need 4 bottles..I really want to enter it in a couple of local contests where I figure i realy have a chance at placing more...

It's one of those recipes I've been tweeking..so I figure by next years longshot I might enter it..

:mug:
 
Revvy said:
Make it for later in the season and brew something somewhat strong...

Have you tried arrogant bastard by stone??

They have an oaked one that they have that is the shizzel...there's a couple clone recipes on here....

You really want to leave a window for the oak to mellow a bit just in case...

But you know...in honor of the Browns...you COULD do an oaked brown ale...

Take a look at the brown ale in my recipe pulldown...I oaked it and it was awesome...I've got some bottles set aside til the summer for a couple contests...I WAS going to enter it in Longshot this year..but I didn't realized that they need 4 bottles..I really want to enter it in a couple of local contests where I figure i realy have a chance at placing more...

It's one of those recipes I've been tweeking..so I figure by next years longshot I might enter it..

:mug:
Click to expand...

How long have you let some of your brews mature? Is there a time frame that is to long to where the beer will go bad?
 
baseballstar4 said:
How long have you let some of your brews mature? Is there a time frame that is to long to where the beer will go bad?
Click to expand...

It depends on the style and how they are stored...In the Dec 07 Zymurgy Charlie Papazian reviewed bottles of homebrew going back to the first AHC competition that he had stored, and none of them went bad, some had not held up but most of them he felt were awesome...We're talking over 20 years worth of beers.

It's going to really depend on the style and the recipe...Barleywines may not even come into their own for years and if properly stored may be good for decades.

A hefe on the other hand should be drunk really young..

I've tasted year old bottles of beer, and none of them had gone downhill either.

My Belgins strong dark ale I'm not even going to open a bottle of it for at least 2 more months...But am planning to see how some are to give as gifts at Christmas...
 
Coastarine said:
I'm planning on doing something similar (2oz for 2 weeks) only mine are American light toast, I'm soaking them in bourbon, and I'm adding them to a 6.9% porter. I think the strong flavors of the porter will handle the woodiness better than your smash. It'll have plenty of time to mature before I tap it anyway.
Click to expand...

I definiteyl agree with adding oak to something robust. I added them to my SMaSh because A) it was my first 10G batch and I wanted to get 2 seperate beers out of it, and B) I wanted to try oaking.
I've learned:
Don't oak a light Pale Ale. I hope to be able to drink it some day :)
 
IrregularPulse said:
I definiteyl agree with adding oak to something robust. I added them to my SMaSh because A) it was my first 10G batch and I wanted to get 2 seperate beers out of it, and B) I wanted to try oaking.
I've learned:
Don't oak a light Pale Ale. I hope to be able to drink it some day :)
Click to expand...

Hehe. Age it a year or 10, and you might be pleasantly surprised. ;)
 
llazy_llama said:
Hehe. Age it a year or 10, and you might be pleasantly surprised. ;)
Click to expand...

Oh I've learned my lessons with dumping and the agonizing pain of the What If's for the next year. I will NEVER dump a batch again. It'll either get drank when it eventually get's drinkable or it will empty itself over time with taste tests.
I'll probably pull this out of the kegerator and try again in a couple months.
*OT* Beer already chilled and carbed in keezer. OKay to pull it out, vent excess and let warm back up, or should I leave thepressure that's ion the keg in it and let it warm back up? I know it's ok to pull it back out to age more, just don't knwo if I should vent ecxess pressure and let go back to flat.
 
I leave the pressure. Partly because it will make sure the keg is sealed and partly because the extremely CO2 rich environment might hold off anything from growing.
 
k thanks for teh tip. I'll probably take it out tonight. I took the tap handle ff the other night so nobody would accidently draw a pint. I don't want them getting the idea that THAT'S the kind of beer I produce on a normal basis.
 
I'm soaking mine in bourbon and going to rack my Brown Ale onto it in the secondary. Here's a good question for your guys. I read somewhere that you are supposed to occasionaly rock the fermenter to move the chips a little...anyone think that is a bad idea?
 
imaguitargod said:
I'm soaking mine in bourbon and going to rack my Brown Ale onto it in the secondary. Here's a good question for your guys. I read somewhere that you are supposed to occasionaly rock the fermenter to move the chips a little...anyone think that is a bad idea?
Click to expand...

Sounds reasonable to me.
 
I recently did an English IPA with french oak chips... 1oz for 5 days. After 4 weeks in the bottle, it still tastes WAY too oaky for me. My wife likes it, and a buddy thought it was good, but if I do it again, I'm going to cut it back even further... maybe just 2 or 3 days to give it a hint of flavor. As it is now, it tastes like oak chips, not IPA.

Hoping a few more weeks will help it mellow.
 
I've got the oak spirals (French Oak) and it says to use 1 spiral per 3 gallons so I'm using 1.5 spirals. I was thinking 2 weeks in the secondary but I'm going to keep tasting the beer as it sits to make sure it doesn't get tooooo oak filled.
 
I just needed to post somewhere that I just racked my porter onto 2oz of light toast american oak chips soaked in bourbon for 2 weeks :ban: Also, being bourbon-logged, the oak sank.
 
Coastarine said:
I just needed to post somewhere that I just racked my porter onto 2oz of light toast american oak chips soaked in bourbon for 2 weeks :ban: Also, being bourbon-logged, the oak sank.
Click to expand...

How long are you planning on leaving it on the oak?
 
My oak spirals sank as well b/c they were soaked in boubon too! I just tried it yesturday after having them soak for 5 days and there was a suble bourbon/oak taste to it. I too will be tasting every 3 days but I'm thinking it needs a total of two weeks.
 
Tasted a sample today (tuesday, after racking on to the wood on sat).

When I was soaking the 2oz oak chips I had them in just enough makers mark to cover them (6oz). When I added the chips, I added all of the bourbon too. At this point the bourbon flavor is a little stronger than I would have liked. Even still, I absolutely LOVE it. At this point I am going to leave it longer because I don't think the bourbon flavor will get stronger (any bourbon that is in there should already be integrated) but I do hope the oak shines through a bit more, and I expect it will, but I can taste it and it is gooood.

An interesting note is that when I racked/added the oak, the chips had become softer, almost spongy and pliable, so I think the bourbon really worked on them. They had soaked for something like 18 days, and next time I would probably reduce that to 7 days. Also, at this point I'd say next time I would drain off the excess bourbon (into a glass :D) and just add the chips. On the other hand, I may find that serving this beer at 50 (as opposed to 72) may tone down the bourbon. Time will tell.
 
Coastarine said:
Tasted a sample today (tuesday, after racking on to the wood on sat).

When I was soaking the 2oz oak chips I had them in just enough makers mark to cover them (6oz). When I added the chips, I added all of the bourbon too. At this point the bourbon flavor is a little stronger than I would have liked. Even still, I absolutely LOVE it. At this point I am going to leave it longer because I don't think the bourbon flavor will get stronger (any bourbon that is in there should already be integrated) but I do hope the oak shines through a bit more, and I expect it will, but I can taste it and it is gooood.

An interesting note is that when I racked/added the oak, the chips had become softer, almost spongy and pliable, so I think the bourbon really worked on them. They had soaked for something like 18 days, and next time I would probably reduce that to 7 days. Also, at this point I'd say next time I would drain off the excess bourbon (into a glass :D) and just add the chips. On the other hand, I may find that serving this beer at 50 (as opposed to 72) may tone down the bourbon. Time will tell.
Click to expand...

Don't get too cocky with the time on the oak...the bourbon will fade right away, and then the oak will come through Uber strong for awhile...The good thing is that if you get it too oaky, it too will fade with time...
 

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