Anyone use vanilla or wood chips?

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GregKelley

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My porter will be done in my primary fermenter Sunday or Monday. I was thinking of adding some wood chips and/or vanilla in the secondary. For those that have done this, I have some questions. Please keep in mind that this is a 5 gallon batch.

1. do you prefer vanilla beans or vanilla extract? How much of either and how long do you let the beans sit?

2. where do you get wood chips and what should I be looking for? Again, how much and how long?

I know I can get vanilla beans or extract anywhere. With wood chips, could I use something like the oak chips that they sell for bbqs and grills?

Thanks!
 
GregKelley said:
My porter will be done in my primary fermenter Sunday or Monday. I was thinking of adding some wood chips and/or vanilla in the secondary. For those that have done this, I have some questions. Please keep in mind that this is a 5 gallon batch.

1. do you prefer vanilla beans or vanilla extract? How much of either and how long do you let the beans sit?

2. where do you get wood chips and what should I be looking for? Again, how much and how long?

I know I can get vanilla beans or extract anywhere. With wood chips, could I use something like the oak chips that they sell for bbqs and grills?

Thanks!
I have an Oak Aged Bourbon Porter aging in a keg. Brewed 01/01/07 and kegged last July.
1. Beans. Slit down the middle, scrape the innards out then chop up into ¼" pieces. Put all of it in your favorite booze and let sit for 3-10 days. Use vodka if you don't want to add flavor to your beer. The stronger your beer is in flavor, the more beans you'll need. 1-3 each I imagine.
2. Any place will do. Wood chips are wood chips no matter where you get them.

Good luck,
Wild
 
  1. Like wild said, slit the beans down the middle and soak them in distilled spirits for a week. With a porter, I'd suggest using bourbon; it'll add a nice flavor. You can use about 1/2 cup or so; any more than 1 cup will lend a distinct bourbon flavor. I used 2 cups on my winter warmer and it is VERY bourbony. Also soak the oak chips in the booze. If I were you, though, I'd use extract unless you have a source for cheap vanilla beans. If you really want discernable vanilla flavor, you'll need at LEAST 2 whole beans; that'll run you at least $20. That's more than some of my beers cost total! You can do what I did and use 1 bean, then supplement with (natural) extract. Stay away from the imitation; it's derived from wood.
  2. No, wood is NOT "just wood". If red wine was aged in, say, cedar or birch, it'd have a MUCH different character. What you want are toasted oak chips/cubes from a homebrew supplier. You can usually choose the level of toast on the chips/cubes. Believe me, the last thing you want is cedar or mesquite in your beer! Go with oak chips/cubes, and use about an ounce. You can go with 1.5 oz or even 2oz if you want a lot of oak character, but seeing as how this is your first time, go light (1oz). You can always add more if it's not enough.
 
Next time I oak a beer, I'm going to use these:

OakCubes.jpg


French medium-toast cubes generally seem to be the most popular. I've used the chips, too, but they kinda got lost in the fairly hoppy beer I made. Probably my best beer, though!
 
Evan! said:
No, wood is NOT "just wood". If red wine was aged in, say, cedar or birch, it'd have a MUCH different character.
What was meant was wood chips are wood chips. Oak is still oak whether you get it from your back yard or from the BBQ place down the street and was the only wood mentioned in this thread.
I've used both chips and cubes and found that the cubes seemed to be permeated to a lesser extent over the course of a week.

Wild
 
Thanks everyone for the responses. If I use vanilla extract, how much do I use? I'm assuming I don't need to soak the extract in bourbon, right?
 
wild said:
What was meant was wood chips are wood chips. Oak is still oak whether you get it from your back yard or from the BBQ place down the street and was the only wood mentioned in this thread.
I've used both chips and cubes and found that the cubes seemed to be permeated to a lesser extent over the course of a week.

Wild

Again, I have to respectfully disagree. The oak chips/cubes, or the barrels used by winemakers for that matter, are "toasted" using fire in a very exacting process. This brings out specific characteristics that would be much, much different if the wood was unfired and raw. Try it out for yourself. Go out in your backyard and find an oak tree. Cut off a limb and cut it up into small cubes. Then get a bag of toasted oak cubes from a homebrew supply show. Make a 5 gallon batch of beer, then split it in half into two carboys. Age one with the toasted oak, and the other with the raw oak, and see how different they are.

There's even considerable attention paid, in the wine world, to where the oak comes from and what species it is.
 
GregKelley said:
Thanks everyone for the responses. If I use vanilla extract, how much do I use? I'm assuming I don't need to soak the extract in bourbon, right?

You can just add it at bottling time, to taste.
 
Evan! said:
Again, I have to respectfully disagree. The oak chips/cubes, or the barrels used by winemakers for that matter, are "toasted" using fire in a very exacting process. This brings out specific characteristics that would be much, much different if the wood was unfired and raw. Try it out for yourself. Go out in your backyard and find an oak tree. Cut off a limb and cut it up into small cubes. Then get a bag of toasted oak cubes from a homebrew supply show. Make a 5 gallon batch of beer, then split it in half into two carboys. Age one with the toasted oak, and the other with the raw oak, and see how different they are.

There's even considerable attention paid, in the wine world, to where the oak comes from and what species it is.
So there's a difference between the oak chips in my backyard and the oak chips from BBQ Galore.

My Oak Aged Bourbon Porter used 2 oz. medium toasted French oak chips and 4 oz. medium American oak chips. I do understand the differences of tasted chips. I was speaking of local oak.

Wild
 
At $35 for a bag of roasted oak cubes my LHBS told me "dude, you're making beer, get the $.80 bag of chips and roast them yourself." So that's what I did. I'll let you know in about 4 months how it worked out. :D
 
Evan! said:
Again, I have to respectfully disagree. The oak chips/cubes, or the barrels used by winemakers for that matter, are "toasted" using fire in a very exacting process. ... Try it out for yourself. Go out in your backyard and find an oak tree. Cut off a limb and cut it up into small cubes. Then get a bag of toasted oak cubes from a homebrew supply show. Make a 5 gallon batch of beer, then split it in half into two carboys. Age one with the toasted oak, and the other with the raw oak, and see how different they are.

The oak chips I bought from my LHBS for aging beer, aren't toasted all all. I use them in my IPA's all the time and they are great ... In fact, I've found that the more toasted the chips are, the more "burnt" flavor that's imparted in into the beer.

Besides, you're experiment wouldn't exactly be "equitable" since there is a HUGE difference between using green chips and using dried/aged chips.
 
there used to be an episode of basic brewing radio where they talked about the $1 oak barrel.

basically this involved using an oak dowel large enough and long enough to fit into the mouth of your carboy and reach the bottom of your carboy. the one i am using i found at lowes where the staircase components are. you might be able to find it cheaper but it cost me $7.

go through the process of soaking it in water and then toasting in your oven or with a butane torch to get rid of most of the oaky (sp?) flavor.

once that is completed, should take at least a day or 2, i believe you want it to sit in the water for at least 24 hours. then stick it in the mouth of your carboy after fermentation has completed, preferably in your secondary for aging. ensure that where it meets the mouth is wrapped with teflon tape. you want to make sure that it goes as far down to the bottom of your carboy as possible.

i have only used this on one recipe so far and it turned out well, however that was the first time i had brewed that so i have no reference. using oak chips is not the same as an oak barrel as there is no way for oxygen to get into the carboy for the yeast. if you are going to use oak chips you are just adding flavor and not truly "aging in oak".

the best part, its reusable.
 
wild said:
So there's a difference between the oak chips in my backyard and the oak chips from BBQ Galore.

My Oak Aged Bourbon Porter used 2 oz. medium toasted French oak chips and 4 oz. medium American oak chips. I do understand the differences of tasted chips. I was speaking of local oak.

Wild

I get what you're saying, but I wouldn't tell someone who is new to oaking to go out and cut some wood from a tree in his backyard and dump it in his beer.
 
jbreiding said:
there used to be an episode of basic brewing radio where they talked about the $1 oak barrel.

basically this involved using an oak dowel large enough and long enough to fit into the mouth of your carboy and reach the bottom of your carboy. the one i am using i found at lowes where the staircase components are. you might be able to find it cheaper but it cost me $7.

go through the process of soaking it in water and then toasting in your oven or with a butane torch to get rid of most of the oaky (sp?) flavor.

once that is completed, should take at least a day or 2, i believe you want it to sit in the water for at least 24 hours. then stick it in the mouth of your carboy after fermentation has completed, preferably in your secondary for aging. ensure that where it meets the mouth is wrapped with teflon tape. you want to make sure that it goes as far down to the bottom of your carboy as possible.

i have only used this on one recipe so far and it turned out well, however that was the first time i had brewed that so i have no reference. using oak chips is not the same as an oak barrel as there is no way for oxygen to get into the carboy for the yeast. if you are going to use oak chips you are just adding flavor and not truly "aging in oak".

the best part, its reusable.

This sounds interesting, can you expand on it a little bit? Are you leaving the secondary open to the air, or is there an airlock on it?

Anyone else tried this?
 
FSR402 said:
At $35 for a bag of roasted oak cubes my LHBS told me "dude, you're making beer, get the $.80 bag of chips and roast them yourself." So that's what I did. I'll let you know in about 4 months how it worked out. :D

How did you roast them?
 
I get bags of toasted oak chips for several dollars from OHBS's. If your LHBS is selling oak chips or cubes for $35, I'd love to know how big that bag is.

See here.
$3.75 for 2.5oz of oak cubes. Given that a 5-gallon batch rarely needs more than 1.5oz, I can't see what you're talking about. Either he only has huge bags of oak cubes that almost nobody needs, or he's marking up his products by nearly 1000%.
 
DSean said:
This sounds interesting, can you expand on it a little bit? Are you leaving the secondary open to the air, or is there an airlock on it?

Anyone else tried this?


there is no airlock, and by wrapping where the dowel meets the mouth of the carboy in teflon tape it should not be left to open air. there shouldnt be a need for an airlock either given that fermentation should be well over by now.

oxygen will permeate to the residual yeast through the oak itself which is one of the main reasons to age in an oak barrel.
 
DSean said:
This sounds interesting, ...
Yeah, it does. I'd like to do something akin to this soon. I was going to toast my own oak cubes or chips and soak them in bourbon. But his new twist has me thinking!
 
I used the pure vanilla extract in my porter and bought an 8oz bottle. After 5oz I really couldn't detect much so I ended up putting the whole 8oz in. It's bottle carbing right now so I'm not sure exactly how it'll taste but it seems to take a lot more vanilla in the darker beers to come through.
 
Evan! said:
I get bags of toasted oak chips for several dollars from OHBS's. If your LHBS is selling oak chips or cubes for $35, I'd love to know how big that bag is.

See here.
$3.75 for 2.5oz of oak cubes. Given that a 5-gallon batch rarely needs more than 1.5oz, I can't see what you're talking about. Either he only has huge bags of oak cubes that almost nobody needs, or he's marking up his products by nearly 1000%.
It was like a one to one and a half pound bag.
 
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