Bought a bag of oak chips from LHBS, they have no scent?

I really figured they would have a heavy wood scent to them, but there's close to no smell from these chips. I have a stout that I am wanting to oak to get some vanilla flavors added in. I'm thinking of using 1 oz of the chips for a 5 gallon batch. The chips do not specify the type of oak (i.e. light, medium, dark). Anyway, this is my first time using them and wonder if I am missing something here or if they will work just fine...

I built cabinets for three years. Freshly cut oak had a smell to it, but once it had cured for a bit, oak typically had very little smell to it at all. I wouldn't worry about it.

Yeah,not much aroma when the resins have dried. If the bag doesn't medium or dark toast,then they might not be toasted at all.

I think I got the same chips as you did. Doesnt even say light toast or anything. I loved em.Made me a great amber with them.Very nice vannilla tones as well. You may notice a smell if you boil them in a little water,I think I even sampled the water.You should get a nice vannilla quality out of them. I think I used .5 oz for a 1.5 gal batch for about 5 days.Turned out perfect, I did age the beer and it did fade out some,but at first I was like holy crap this is good and wanted to oak everything but of course I didnt.
How long are you going to oak them?

Nice. Yeah, that's what I'm going for, just want some slight vanilla flavor. I'm planning on oaking it for a week.

So, just an update. I went ahead and boiled about 3/4-1 oz of oak chips in about a cup of water for about 10 minutes. I think I should have strained the oak chips though, but instead I went ahead and tossed the chips and the water into the secondary and racked on top of it and let it sit for about a week. I'm getting some nice vanilla tones and definite wood flavor, but I'm also getting a lot of astringency. I think by boiling the chips I extracted a lot of tannins from the wood and dumping the water in with the chips in the secondary added the tannins into the beer.

Could be. Try boiling some water next time,then take it off the heat,add the chips,& cover/steep for a while. Then add the chips & liquid. Steeping is a softer sort of heat than boiling.