Rum soaked oak chips... add rum, chips, rum+chips?

I'm doing what I'm calling a pirate porter and part of the recipe calls for Pusser's Rum and oak chips. I soaked 1oz medium toasted oak chips in some rum for a little over a week, and that rum sure is tasty!

If you know anything about Pusser's, it's stored in oak barrels which is pretty unusual for a rum so it already has a bit of a woody flavor. My goal is to get both an oak flavor and a rum flavor to come through.

Now that I've taken the chips out of the rum it seems to me that they've lost all their oakiness. I popped one in my mouth and it just tastes like rum... should I even bother adding the chips to the beer? Logically I'm thinking that the rum has stripped all the oakiness out of the chips at this point so I don't need them, but will I be missing something by not actually adding them?

I plan on adding the oaked rum at bottling to taste then adding additional rum for more flavor if needed.

Any suggestions?

I've had the best luck using oak and spirits separately, to control the amount of flavor each imparts to the base beer.

I purchased some Oak Cubes that were soaked in Rum (used to add some Oak flavor to rum) from Austin Homebrew. Do these need to be steamed or sanitized? Any suggestions? Wasn't sure if they were considered sanitized b/c they soaked in Rum for a few months and then sealed in a bag?

Add the rum and the chips. The oak may have more flavors to give up, such as some vanilla.

Any word on what you ended up doing and how it turned out?

I'm planning on adding coconut and rum to a porter I started today. I have 2 lbs of coconut I plan on toasting and adding to the secondary along with the rum and maybe the oak cubes. I was thinking 16oz of rum on the oak cubes for 2 weeks or so then add the rum to the secondary but it sounds like you can't rum like you can bourbon.

Here are my notes:

1oz oak chips were soaked in pusser's rum in a jar, just enough to cover. After 2 weeks all the rum was drained and added at bottling and the chips were set aside. An extra splash of rum was added for good measure. 1lb fancy flaked coconut from whole foods was added to fermenter for a week. Taste before adding rum had a good coconut flavor, after adding rum, might have overdone it a little bit.

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Pusser's is an oak barrel aged rum so that contributed some to the oakiness. I didn't add the chips at all.

It turned out quite good, the coconut flavor was definitely there and the rum came through how I wanted it to, it wasn't too much. The oakiness was subtle. As it aged it lost the coconut and wasn't nearly as good so plan on drinking it fresh.

If I were to do it again I'd add more coconut.

Thanks a lot.

bovineblitz said:

After 2 weeks all the rum was drained and added at bottling and the chips were set aside. An extra splash of rum was added for good measure.

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Do you have a measurement on this? How much rum per bottle? Or did you just add it to the bottling bucket? I will be bottling 22 oz. Thanks!

Dome555 said:

AI was thinking 16oz of rum on the oak cubes for 2 weeks or so then add the rum to the secondary but it sounds like you can't rum like you can bourbon.

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My experience is that rum flavor comes thru less than bourbon. I have added both in similar amounts to the same beer, and the bourbon was very prominent, and the rum was barely detectable. I used spiced rum.

derekge said:

Do you have a measurement on this? How much rum per bottle? Or did you just add it to the bottling bucket? I will be bottling 22 oz. Thanks!

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Add the rum to the bottling bucket. It is a lot easier to be consistent between bottles. I generally use 10 ml per bottle (12 ozs). For 5 gallons, that would be 500 ml, or about 16 ozs.

Calder said:

Add the rum to the bottling bucket. It is a lot easier to be consistent between bottles. I generally use 10 ml per bottle (12 ozs). For 5 gallons, that would be 500 ml, or about 16 ozs.

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Thanks Calder - did the Rum flavor come through with those measurements? I'd like it to be a notch or two above "subtle".

derekge said:

Thanks Calder - did the Rum flavor come through with those measurements? I'd like it to be a notch or two above "subtle".

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At 500 ml per bottle, you are increasing the abv by about 1%, so be careful how much you add. It will also reduce the FG of the beer making it drier ane thinner to taste.

I knew the rum was there, but it was not obvious. Using Bourbon to the same amount, it has much more presence.

One way to find out is to try it in a beer. Take any beer (preferably one similar to the one you are brewing, but any would suffice if you realize the differences), and add 10 ml to it in the glass and see what effect it has. 10 ml is easy to measure out, it is 2 teaspoons full, or maybe you have one of those medicine cups that come with Nyquil and the like.