Coffee liqueur?

I'm so excited to post outside of the beginners' forum!!!! :cross:

My next baby is going to be an all grain stout (no, I haven't decided on the exact recipe yet). To get both a coffee AND oak flavor, I'm thinking about soaking 1-2 oz. of oak chips in 1-2 cups coffee liqueur (something like Starbucks at 40 proof) for maybe 7 of its 20-40 days in primary.

First, is 40 proof enough to sanitize the oak chips? And second, is this a stupid waste of 5 gallons of otherwise tasty beer?

Okay, thanks for any help. Back to my first beer...my crazy arse IPA.

I think it would be more of a waste of the coffee liqueur. You will get some coffee flavor in your beer out of it, but not a lot. It takes about 1/4 lb of coffee to get decent flavor into a 5 gallon batch. Check out this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/coffee-techniques-107296/

I wouldn't use that starbucks liqueur if it contains fats (milk, etc). You could instead soak the oak in a neutral spirit, say vodka. To get a nice coffee flavor, I prefer cold extraction (grinds in cool water, remove grinds and add liquid to primary).

Had a stout last week that was fermented on bourbon soaked oak chips. Gave a nice vanilla flavor. I'd soak the oak in something other than coffee liquer and just use coffee in the mash or boil. More bang for the buck.