Using a oak tincture.

I made a brown porter and want to add oak to it. Currently I have 2 oz of oak chips soaking in vodka. During bottling I plan to filter out the chips and add the oak flavored vodka to taste. Does anyone see any issues in doing this? I searched this website and Google and wasn't able to find any helpful information. Most people just add oak to the entire batch after fermentation. I wasn't sure how much oak to use, so was thinking the tincture was a good idea. Now, not so sure...

Tincture is nice because you don't have to do the whole batch if you don't want to. 2oz should be plenty.

If you do want to do the whole batch, I would keep the tincture for bottling, but add the oak chips to the carboy a week or so before bottling...then, when you bottle, you can add your tincture to boost the oakiness to desired level, but you're not starting from scratch. Just gives you more options. With just the tincture alone, it'd be much easier to over-oak it.

I'm thinking that is not the best idea...but, I have never oaked something that way before, I filter out the hard-a and add the oak. I would taste the vodka and see if it has the oak flavor I was looking for or if it is just a bunch of harsh tannins.

I didn't think about tannin extraction... I will taste it before adding it to the batch.

Bensiff said:

I'm thinking that is not the best idea...but, I have never oaked something that way before, I filter out the hard-a and add the oak. I would taste the vodka and see if it has the oak flavor I was looking for or if it is just a bunch of harsh tannins.

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+1 to this...the assumption that you were making was the vodka soak was a. doing anything, and b. that you were pulling out the things from the oak that you wanted.