Bourbon Barrel simulation

Ok, so one of my favorite beers is Parabola, by FW.

I am planning on brewing a big chocolaty stout, but was hoping to add the bourbon barrel notes.

How would I go about this, short of pouring bourbon into the fermentation vessel?

soak oak cubes/chips in bourbon, add it all to secondary. taste every few days until you get the desired oak character. you can add more bourbon if you don't get enough flavor from the soaked oak.

Ok, this was another solution I had thought of. How long do I need to soak the chips to impart the flavor?

I used 3/8" oak dowels, cut to 6" long, soaked them in Maker's Mark for 2 weeks (all the bourbon had evaporated).

On bottling day, I dropped a stick into half of my bottles (Belgian Triple). This let me have a good comparison of with/without the oak to see if it helped or hurt the flavor of the beer...Plus, it was a cool novelty for friends to have a stick floating in the bottle.

After doing this, I can say that I had fantastic results and would absolutely do it again! Since there was more surface area of the oak per volume, it was able to impart a greater amount of flavor into the brew than if I had tried oaking the secondary. I also found that as I continued to drink the beer, the flavors became more pronounced and mature over time and after a year of bottle conditioning with the oak, I had quite a flavor profile.

I'd go this route...plus, a 3' stick of 3/8" oak runs less than $2.00 at the hardware stores.

Enough to completely submerge the oak. Top it off with more bourbon if they soak up enough to no longer be submerged.

WoodHokie4 said:

I used 3/8" oak dowels, cut to 6" long, soaked them in Maker's Mark for 2 weeks (all the bourbon had evaporated).

On bottling day, I dropped a stick into half of my bottles (Belgian Triple). This let me have a good comparison of with/without the oak to see if it helped or hurt the flavor of the beer...Plus, it was a cool novelty for friends to have a stick floating in the bottle.

After doing this, I can say that I had fantastic results and would absolutely do it again! Since there was more surface area of the oak per volume, it was able to impart a greater amount of flavor into the brew than if I had tried oaking the secondary. I also found that as I continued to drink the beer, the flavors became more pronounced and mature over time and after a year of bottle conditioning with the oak, I had quite a flavor profile.

I'd go this route...plus, a 3' stick of 3/8" oak runs less than $2.00 at the hardware stores.

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That is an interesting idea, adding it to the bottles directly so you can taste some with and some without. My only concern would be, it could possibly get over oaked, since the oak is in the bottle. Once it hit the perfect oakness, you would probably want to drink them all before it got too much.

Also, you had good results with oak from the hardware store? Did you toast it yourself? Was it an oak flavor or a bourbon flavor?

bknifefight said:

That is an interesting idea, adding it to the bottles directly so you can taste some with and some without. My only concern would be, it could possibly get over oaked, since the oak is in the bottle. Once it hit the perfect oakness, you would probably want to drink them all before it got too much.

Also, you had good results with oak from the hardware store? Did you toast it yourself? Was it an oak flavor or a bourbon flavor?

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Yep, I just bought standard oak dowels from HomeDepot and used them as they were. I opted not to toast them so that I didn't over-do the flavors. Keeping in mind that the bourbon has already taken these flavors on from its own charred barrel, the un-charred oak will give off plenty of tannins without being over-powerful. This is probably what saved it from being over oaked. I imagine that if I had toasted the oak, it would be at peak much sooner.

Also, it had a slight hint of bourbon flavor, but the tannins in the oak gave it a smooth woody flavor that worked well with the dark beer.

I use the medium toast oak cubes. I weigh out two ounces for 5 gallons and soak them in 8 ounces of bourbon for a week. I just throw those in the secondary and wait. It usually takes about two weeks or so and it is ready to keg. I have done this with an irish red and a couple different stouts.

you really only need to soak the chips long enough for the alcohol to kill all the bugs in them (a day or two?). as long as you toss the rest of the bourbon in with them, you'll get the flavor from it. this is why you can use a minimal amount for the oak and add more bourbon if needed.

Thank you all for your responses, there enough info here I believe for me to make a decision.

DOA

*there is

I haven't figured out the edit function yet

Ok, the brew shop had medium toast American and French oak, so I bought each, and the bourbon is now soaking into them as I type this.

I don't know how much oak runs at brew stores, but as a wood scientist, i don't know that there is any significant difference in oak you buy at brew stores, hobby shops, or hardware stores...its virtually all the same. I suppose that , like hops, grapes, and other plants grown in certain soils in certain places, you will get different minerals deposited from where ever the tree grew. But overall, oak is oak and you could save yourself a few $$ and go with smoking chips, dowels, or scraps from hobby shops....or even scraps from someone's firewood pile. Hope your brew turns out well!

Nah, I spent 2.50$ on the wood, I am not yet so financially strapped that I am worried about that.

WoodHokie4 said:

I don't know how much oak runs at brew stores, but as a wood scientist, i don't know that there is any significant difference in oak you buy at brew stores, hobby shops, or hardware stores...its virtually all the same. I suppose that , like hops, grapes, and other plants grown in certain soils in certain places, you will get different minerals deposited from where ever the tree grew. But overall, oak is oak and you could save yourself a few $$ and go with smoking chips, dowels, or scraps from hobby shops....or even scraps from someone's firewood pile. Hope your brew turns out well!

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There are distinct flavor notes for the different kinds of oak. First you will have the variety, which comes in French, Hungarian or American. Although they are all oak trees, I have read that each has a different flavor profile. I have not done any side by side comparisons myself, just read about it.

Next comes the toasting, and this is where the difference lies in the oak for brewing and the oak from the hardware store. If you can toast it yourself (or choose not to like a poster in this thread did), then you are good to use whatever oak. Otherwise, the different toast levels make differences as well.

If you want the bourbon barrel flavor you will need to use a toasted oak to bring out the carmel flavor of the wood. Otherwise you will just get an oak type flavor. Just go to Farmhouse and buy some of the toasted oak spirals.
Be careful about using a chunk of oak dowel from a big box store; much of that is not white oak (which is what you want to use), it's various imported hardwoods with an oaklike grain. Nasty stuff.

bknifefight said:

There are distinct flavor notes for the different kinds of oak. First you will have the variety, which comes in French, Hungarian or American. Although they are all oak trees, I have read that each has a different flavor profile. I have not done any side by side comparisons myself, just read about it.

Next comes the toasting, and this is where the difference lies in the oak for brewing and the oak from the hardware store. If you can toast it yourself (or choose not to like a poster in this thread did), then you are good to use whatever oak. Otherwise, the different toast levels make differences as well.

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I'm sure that the species imparts its own level of flavors and the locations of the original tree impart certain minerals into the wood, but I'm not sold that each type of oak imparts a noticeable difference. There is a list as long as my arm of all the varieties in the Quercus family, but it would be impossible to say which tree imparts which flavor, as even experts in Wood Anatomy can not accurately identify specific oak species and classify only into Red and White categories. Toasting probably does make the biggest difference, as you are caramelizing the lignin and cellulose.

A lot of their "Hardwood" dowels are made of butternut or ash. Ash would be a pretty similar wood, but you wouldn't get the same benefits. Oak is easy to identify by the "Flame" patterns on the end grain, coupled with the large vessel elements. And no, they don't stock White Oak, but White Oak is only necessary in barrels because of the characteristic presence of Tyloses, a crystalline structure that forms in the vessel elements of the wood essentially making a water-tight seal. In Red Oak, you have no Tyloses, so barrels would not be sealed tight and would likely leak. For the purposes of dropping the oak into beer to flavor, the open vessels prove beneficial to allow the beer to flow through the wood and contact more surface area.

I also don't think I would classify anything at the big box stores as "Nasty Stuff"...just probably not what you'd want to use in this particular application.

I like the science aspect of what you are saying, though I don't perfectly understand it. However, the brew shop owner stated that some of the wood you would get at the hardware store would be poisonous in the beer, any merit to that?

drinkerofales said:

I like the science aspect of what you are saying, though I don't perfectly understand it. However, the brew shop owner stated that some of the wood you would get at the hardware store would be poisonous in the beer, any merit to that?

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Yes, but it depends on what you get. If you put cherry, walnut, or cedar, for example, in your beer, they have chemical extractives in them that will leach out and be poisonous. After all, their purpose is to protect the tree from insect and fungal attack. I don't know that the local big-box hardware stores sell these (maybe cedar deck boards, but thats rare). The standards there are pine, oak, maple, and poplar.....with some mixed variety hardwoods with a generic label of "hardwood". Oak and maple at this store are no different from anywhere else in the world and would be great in your beer. I would probably stay away from poplar and pine...mostly because they would impart negative flavors and the resin canals from pine have been known to drip and would probably get fermented by the yeast into who knows what...

drinkerofales said:

Ok, this was another solution I had thought of. How long do I need to soak the chips to impart the flavor?

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I used about 4 oz of medium toasted oak chips and soaked it in bourbon for 21 days and then added the chips to secondary along with 2 vanilla beans for a 21 day secondary in my last stout and it is still the best beer I've ever made. I'm saving the last 6 pack for a special occasion! Must brew again!

Is there a special process for sanitizing the vanilla bean?

Cut it open, scrape the inside, chop the remaining pieces and then add ALL of that to some vodka for a little while (30 minutes is plenty). The vodka is just like hand sanitizer (only it tastes better) and kills the bugs. Dump the whole concoction into your beer, since some of the flavor will have extracted into the vodka.