oak chips!

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benpen

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Hey does anyone know the best place to get some oak chips. I'm planning a red ale and i want to soak some chips in bourbon. Are the oak chips the same chips used for grilling etc. Also when is the best time to add them for flavor, primary, secondary?????

Thanks,

Ben:mug:
 
Hey does anyone know the best place to get some oak chips. I'm planning a red ale and i want to soak some chips in bourbon. Are the oak chips the same chips used for grilling etc. Also when is the best time to add them for flavor, primary, secondary?????

Any brew supply which carries winemaking stuff should have them. You probably want French or Hungarian oak, not American which is rough, and not very much. They will be lightly toasted. You can add them to the secondary or to the keg if you keg. It only takes a few weeks to get the flavor out of them.
 
I ordered my oak from Austin Homebrew. Consider getting the cubes, which are said to provide a deeper, more complex flavor, but which may take a little longer to impart it. I added 1.5 ounces of American Oak to a beer recently, but I chose American because I was also adding bourbon and I want the oak and bourbon to be pretty prominent in the flavor profile.
 
If you're feeling daring( and cheap like me)steam some Jack Daniels Bourbon Barrel Chips ($6.99 for 1 lb) in the BBQ aisle at your local grocer.

EdWort and BierMuncher both liked my Impy Amber Rye that I oaked with these
 
i canceled my mead and now have 1oz light american chips sitting on my hand.

would this go well in an english bitter?

Well, you can oak anything, as long as you like the oak flavor, but I'd save it for a heftier beer, maybe a nice robust porter for the winter or something like that. Of course, if you like oak, you'll probably like an oaked bitter.
 
Last January, I put 1 oz oak chips in a couple of shots of Jamesons, and let it sit for a couple of days. Apparently, the flavour extraction is very fast from chips as mentioned above. I brewed up the original French recipe for Killian's that Papazian wrote in Microbrewed Adventures, as a BIG Irish beer for St Paddy's (6.5% ABV). It was amazing, although a bit aggressive. Now, what, six months later (I'm on the 2nd keg) it just keeps surprising me, it has softened and is quite delightful. More for sipping after dinner though, definitely not a sessional!
Cheers
In any event, I'm agreeing with the "heftier beer" comment.
 
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