Need some help deciding when/how to add oak

So I'm doing an Amber Ale and I want a bit of oak flavor in the background to round it out, nothing too overpowering. I think I've decided on using about 0.75 oz of French Oak chips. I will probably let this ferment in primary for 3-4 weeks, then keg and condition for 2-3 weeks. I have never done a secondary, but have the space to do so if need be. So, should I add the oak to the primary and if so, when should I add it? Or, should I rack to a secondary after 3 weeks and add the oak in there? Also, I've seen a few posts talking about sanitizing the oak chips. Is this necessary?

Rack it onto the chips in secondary. You need to "sanitize" them though. Ususally oak chips are sanitized using bourbon or whiskey, however you won't want that flavor in your Amber I wouldn't imagine.

Either way, you definately want them in the secondary.......how you sanitize them, I am not sure without using bourbon......

Yeah, I don't really want those flavors in there. I've heard of boiling them for 10 minutes before adding them, I'm just not sure if that will take away from any of the flavors? Maybe soak them in starsan??

When I used oak chips, I would simply boil some water (in a tea kettle) and pour that over the amount of chips I was going to use. I would have already sanitized the jar, and would put the lid on the boiling water (with the chips in there)... I then let it cool to room temp before pitching it all in... Even 3/4oz can be very noticeable in a brew.

For when to add them, wait until it's otherwise ready to keg before adding the oak. Then give a taste test after about 2 weeks and decide if it needs more time or not. I went 4 and 5-1/2 weeks in two different brews with oak chips... I've also used 1.5oz oak cubes in another brew (a wee heavy) which sat on them for just over a month.

Depending on the toast level, you'll get different things from the oak... I've been using medium toast so far. The chips are/were French, but the cubes are Hungarian. That also impacts what you get from the oak.

You can add the oak in primary, if you want, or rack to another vessel. More of a personal preference/choice than anything else. So far, I have racked before adding oak, just to make sure I had less things competing with the wood for flavor and such. But, I also let brews sit on the yeast for 4-8 weeks before doing any racking.

Make sure the brew is otherwise finished before you add the oak. If you wouldn't otherwise bottle/keg the batch, don't add the oak. Depending on how much you want, from the oak, will determine how long you leave them in... One thing to keep in mind, chips are more one dimensional for flavor. Where cubes are much more rounded. Spirals and staves are even closer to using actual barrels. Also remember that what the oak gives the brew will change over time. I've had this happen with the old ale I added oak to. It started off as having this nice smokey wood type flavor to it. After about two months in bottles, that has changed to a more vanilla flavor.

Thanks for the tips. I think I'll plan on doing the secondary and add the oak to that. Just to clarify, are you pitching the chips and small amount of water, or just the chips. Also, have you noticed any difference in the amounts used versus the time? For example using less chips for a longer period of time versus a larger amount of chips for a shorter period of time? Not sure if you are familiar with the beer, but I am shooting for the oak profile similar to Firestone's DBA which is very much a background flavor.

I was going to start a new topic but this thread appears to be along the same lines. I've been planning a brew day with my friends for a while and they wanted to make something with the bourbon barrel flavor so I started soaking some oak chips (1oz) with makers mark (~2oz liquid). We originally were planning on brewing last month but it has been pushed back until tomorrow. The oak has been soaking for like 8 weeks already and I figure by the time I actually add it to the beer it will be soaking for 10 weeks by then. I'm unsure if I will just add the soaked chips or if I should just add the liquid. I'm afraid if I only add the chips that a lot of the goodness will get tossed because they have been soaking soo long there is probably a lot of good delcious french oak goodness in there. I'll probably do some combo of both but any help would be appreciated!

I just found a nice article about using oak in beer. It answered a lot of my own questions and it has some info that you might find useful as well.

http://morebeer.com/content/using_oak_in_beer

Oooo very informative, thank you. I think ill start by racking into a keg on the chips and after a month or so if I want more bourbon barrel-ness then i'll add some of the liquid that I soaked the chips in.

Thanks again for the help on this one. I just taped the keg and it tastes great! By far the best beer I have made yet and I made this one from scratch so it's just that much more awesome! Really nice malt profile with a good bitterness to back it up. I'm really enjoying the hint of the chocolate malt and oak in the background.

How long was the oak in your beer?

I had it on the oak for 10 days. If I brew this again I might either bump up the amount or the length I have it in secondary just a bit. It's a nice subtle background flavor but I could also see enjoying this beer with the oak a bit more forward.

What about adding to boiling wort like a hop addition? Last 5 mins or so .

Everything I have read advises against adding them to the boil. If you rack to secondary after fermentation is complete you can control the strength of the oak flavor by racking off of the oak when you reach the desired level. If you add it to the boil you loose that control since you can't really do a taste test and adjust.

I boiled enough to cover oak chips .5 oz for about a 2 gal batch.For an amber ale.Put it in primary after the second week for the last week about 5-7 days.I added them pretty wet i did dump some of the water, you could also steam them then add the last week. But this amount gave me the perfect oak note, but is starting to vanish more over time.Still it made me love my beer even more once i had this nice mellow vanilla taste. I made a few beers with vannilla bean but think it was on the shlelf a while or something and actually was like licorice and the beers didnt have a vanilla taste at all which is weird. I just think they were old or of poor quality vanilla beans though.