French oak chip too long

So I soaked 4 oz of French oak chips in a pint of E&J vsop for about 6 months, taking in/out of freezer and varying the temp as much as I could. Did not pre boil chips.

Made a Beautiful Belgian golden strong (10 gallons) and kegged half and aged half on the 4 on of oak chips for 1 month. When I added oak, I threw it all in the secondary. When I first tasted the oaked beer, it taste like a liquified 2x4 mixed with brandy and maybe a hint of beer in the background.

The un oaked beer taste amazing but the oaked beer still taste like sawdust 3 months later.

Question is, should I continue to age at room temp (which is what it has been at 72ish f ) or should I put it in my keezer? I'm hoping that it will eventually age out.

Any input would be great.

Thanks

I did a Russian Imperial Stout with 4 oz of oak chips. I left them in secondary for only 2 weeks for a total aging of about 2 months. When bottling I described the beer as drinking a tree. After bottle conditioning for 3 weeks it had a strong oak flavor. A year later it is still strong. They are great though.

I think that aging either way would help. This one might be great with a year of more aging. I would suggest bottling this one so that you don't tie up space in your keezer for a year or three +.

Just let the over-oaked beer sit and make another batch of the same beer.
When the new beer is ready, do some blending trials to see how much of the oaked beer you need to get the taste profile you want.

Chips usually only take days to impart taste and tend to make a harsher flavor, Cubes will take weeks to months and be smother in flavor. I had a golden ale on French Oak cubes in the serving keg that was great for months 1-2, month 3 the tannin aftertaste started and by month 4 it became undrinkable. Whereas Barrels will take 3-12 months depending upon size of the barrel (surface area to volume ratio).

The thing about spirits that have already been aged in wood is that the development of flavor is at it's finest when it's finally diluted to strength and bottled. Soaking new wood in those spirits doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense as opposed to just adding the spirit to the beer for flavor. Unless you're doing your own aging of cask-strength raw spirit and using THAT wood, just add the juice, rather than trying to re-invent the fruit.

Thanks for all the replies.

If I'm understanding all the responses right...

First, only use oak if I only want oak flavor. Cubes tend to give a more rounded flavor than chips. Guessing this has to do with different degrees of toast since the cube is much thicker than the chips. Also seems like I used WAY too many chips in the first place.

Second, since I already screwed the pooch here my options are wait ( possibly a year or more )or blend . I kinda like the wait idea since I have a few other recipients in the pipeline right now and since I already kegged the beer and I'm not short on kegs at the moment.

Third, if all I want is the brandy flavor, I should just go ahead and blend brandy. Seems like I may give this a whirl next time since it seems like I can have more precise tuning.

I'm really looking for the Carmel and vanilla flavors that I taste in commercial barrel aged beers. Is adding the finished spirit going to give me these flavors without aging on oak?

Thanks again fellow brewers.

nice little article originally posted in Zymurgy

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/using-oak-in-beer