I think I over Oaked my beer...

All -

I brewed a Christmas ale a few months ago. Well I got the brilliant idea to add some Oak chips I had to the secondary to give it that oak barrel aged flavor. Well the chips sat in the secondary, and the secondary sat in a back closet in my basement for the past couple months. Basically, I forgot about it. I kegged the beer last week, and while the flavor and beer turned out pretty good, it is seriously dominated by the oak taste. Anyone have any ideas of how to balance this out?

I thought about adding some spice and flavor to round out the oaky-bite. I tried adding a couple drops of vanilla extract to a pint and found it rounded out the flavor some; and thought maybe that and a little fresh ground nutmeg might do the trick. Anyone else have any ideas?

PS: I'm looking to serve this at our annual Ugly Christmas Sweater party in 1 1/2 weeks, so I don't have a ton of time.


Thanks

Blend it with another beer you have lying around.

The only cure I know of for over oaking is time. In a year, the oak will fade marvelously. I oaked a three gallon batch of AB clone in July of last year, and only with one ounce for two weeks, and it wasn't drinkable until December! But, when it mellowed it was fantastic.

If you have to have it ready this month, you could try adding gelatin to it. Gelatin can "strip" some of the tannins out. I don't think it would give you the results you want, though, and if it was me, I'd save the beer for six months and serve something else this time.

Thanks guys both are good ideas. I have a few other kegs on tap that I could mix with it to reduce the oaky flavor, or maybe I'll let it rest.

I would like to serve it for this party in a week, and as-is is a drinkable beer, but not the beer I envisioned. Luckily I racked it to a third fermenter about a month ago to remove the oak chips from the beer. This likely reduced the oakiness some, if I hadn't done this I'm sure it would have been even stronger.

The beer is drinkable, but it isn't what you'd call delicious.



....This site is awesome -- Everytime I have a question guys answer it immediately; not to mention how much a novice brewer like myself can learn just by reading other's postings. Thanks again fellas.

SantaClaus said:

....This site is awesome -- Everytime I have a question guys answer it immediately; not to mention how much a novice brewer like myself can learn just by reading other's postings. Thanks again fellas.

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Well, sometimes girls answer.

I'm just sayin'...............

I'm gonna go with Mrs. Yooper on this let it rest..forget about it for awhile then come back to it. Its gonna be awesome!

Yooper said:

Well, sometimes girls answer.

I'm just sayin'...............

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My apologies - I think using that term-age is a bad habit of mine. I really appreciate the suggestions; I think I'll just let this brew mellow for a while.

Cheers

SantaClaus said:

My apologies - I think using that term-age is a bad habit of mine. I really appreciate the suggestions; I think I'll just let this brew mellow for a while.

Cheers

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Meh, I don't really care. I use "guys" all the time, too. I just wanted to bust your, er, balls, a bit!

She SAID "balls"!!! BBhhhhhhahahahahahh!!!
Now that is the kinda girl I would love for my daughter to grow up to be.......good sense of humor! (and a ball buster too)

I really enjoy this blog site. And I too learn from all of these informative postings.