Guinness Extra Stout on Bourbon Oak

I recently purchased a couple pounds of bourbon aged oak chunks from the charcoal store website, and I've been itching to try it in something, but my recent brews aren't really conducive to oak aging. I have, however, been consuming mass quantities of Guinness Extra Stout mainly for the bottles (super easily cleanable), but also because it's a fine brew. Today I decided to do an experiment to simulate the beer as if it were aged on bourbon oak.

I baked a piece of bourbon (about 1" X 2" X 3") oak at 225 for about 20 minutes or so to get rid of anything that might've been hanging out on the outside. I'm not too concerned about any microorganisms since I'm drinking the beer right now.

Here I have a large pils glass, a guinness glass, and a small juice glass for control.


I put the (now somewhat cooled) oak chunk into the large glass and pour most of the guinness over it, and refrigerate for 10 min while the oak does it's thang. The chunk made the beer pour very frothy into the big glass. The rest of the guinness goes into the small glass to compare.


By the end of the pour you can see small bits of the oak chunk floating through the head


Results in the next post w/ more pics.

RESULTS:



At first glance, the guinness pours much more subtly (understandable given it was sitting uncovered for 10 min)

When swirled, it gives off some very nice cherry aromas, some cabernet or shiraz spicyness is in there too.
The oak is Definitely pleasant & very noticeable. At first, the beer seems much smoother, it lost some of it's roasty sharpness, there's kind of a milk chocolatey quality about it. There are some charcoaly notes to it, some vanilla, some woodsy flavoring too. There's a nice toasted wood character on the finish that lasts.

Compared to the control cup, it's a totally different beer. Almost like a casked smoother Guinness.
I would definitely recommend this experiment to anyone interested

Wow, now I want to make a stout with some Oak Chips. I liked the extra stout I just thought it had abit to much bite from the roasted grains, so I stuck with the standard Guinness(yes less flavourful and weaker I know) for now. I alos like standard guinness because the plastic lables take all of 5 seconds to remove and they recap easily with my butterfly capper. God im only on my second brew and I already have a growing list of recipes I can't wait to brew.

Welcome to the addiction.
I would say go for a nice oaked stout now and by winter when it has aged enough it will be cool out and pleasant to drink.
I made a very tasty oaked bourbon porter that took awhile to age right.