My buddy PICKLES cut up a few bourbon aging barrels today for a local brewery for some advertising pieces. These were barrels they aged beers in - from either JD or some other KY distiller. He cut out some pieces to use in upcoming brews and vacuum sealed them. I have a barley wine i transferred to 2ndary today (~10.9abv) - my question is how much of this should I be putting in the secondary for a 5G batch? I am looking for a little more than subtle flavor - I want it noticeable, but not overpowering.
How much barrel wood to add to 2nd??
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i've got it sitting on 3 ounces at the moment. i took the barrel stripes and cut them down to the thickness where I could see the bouron had soaked into (roughly 1/2 the wood thickness). got a couple more ounces i may toss in, just see how it goes. :cross:
Brew-boy
Well-Known Member
I do not know how big your pieces are like JP has asked but, I aged a brown ale on 1oz of French oak cubes for 6 months. This beer has a big oak flavor and every one asks me if I added bourbon which I did not. JP wrote a very good article in BYO I think it was on using oak, you should read it.
about 4-5" long
I've got a bunch of BYO's around, but don't recall seeing the article. Do you happen to know the issue?
I had a hard time deciding on how much at add. I felt since it was barrel wood, approx 50% of what I put in wasn't truly being exposed to the oak, but the fired side. But at the same time, the sides from the oak sides are exposed to pure oak. Did you boil your oak cubes first? My plan is just to take a test sample every 2 weeks after about 2 months and keep it on until it reaches the level I am looking for.
4-5 inches long, I'd say one to two pieces. And even then that might be too much, so taste it often. But if the underside that was cut from the barrel hasn't been toasted, I'd hesitate to even use that, and I am not sure about re-toasting it, what that would do to the flavors already in the wood from the booze.
I would guess that the untoasted oak would give more piney flavors that might clash with the other flavors given by the wood, booze, and beer. Maybe cut a small section off and pop that into a smaller container of beer and taste it after a week, see what you think.
Brew-boy - thanks for the kind words! The article is "re-printed" on our website - http://morebeer.com/content/using_oak_in_beer
I hope it helps!
I would guess that the untoasted oak would give more piney flavors that might clash with the other flavors given by the wood, booze, and beer. Maybe cut a small section off and pop that into a smaller container of beer and taste it after a week, see what you think.
Brew-boy - thanks for the kind words! The article is "re-printed" on our website - http://morebeer.com/content/using_oak_in_beer
I hope it helps!
Brew-boy
Well-Known Member
Sorry JP I thought it was BYO but it was Zymurgy I see.
I'll have to read the article to see if i can gain any additional insight from it. thanks for the link guys! i'm currently killing a southern tier creme brulee, so not wanting to take anything to heart at this point (that's after a Pumpking, Breakfast Stout and a Third Coast Old Ale). I'll post back what I;m planning to do after reading the article tomorrow or this weekend.
I have 2 pieces about this size (approx 1 oz each) and two smaller ones approx half this size and approx 1/2 oz each. I did not want to toast the other side for fear of driving off any flavors from it. short of that, I did what I could do and trimmed the thickness down to about where I could see the bourbon had penetrated the oak.
The article is very cool, but at the risk of sounding like a dick, I am just going to say the article doesn't really discuss the type of wood I am using much, nor does it discuss quantities in depth. I am totally sure Jason has way more experience in oaking than i do, hence his article and knowledge on the subject. however, there are a lot of generalizations in the article, which is part of the reason I stopped getting BYO anymore ( i understand there is no relationship). I guess I was looking for a "I put xx amount of xx roast cubes prepared xx way in a xx style beer @ x.0xxsg and x.0xxfg for xx weeks and this is what my perceived results were...". I guess that's one thing I love and at the same time hate about homebrewing, there's always a range of acceptable solutions/answers or perception. Someone's always has to be right and someone always has to be wrong. I guess I see it that if you like it at your perception, I just need to adjust to get my perception to match yours to get the same results- that's all. At this point, I'm probably going to leave it on the 3oz it's currently on and start checking flavor in 6-8 weeks and go from there. Cheers
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