Question About Adding Oak to a Peach Lambic

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Clint04

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I have a Peach Lambic that I intend to bottle in February, but want to oak first. I think that Pinot Grigio soaked oak cubes would work well in a Peach Sour, but I had a couple of questions first:

- What type of oak do you recommend for a Fruit Lambic?

- How long should I soak the oak cubes in the wine?

- Should I add just the oak chips to the Lambic, discarding the (presumably) Tannic wine?

- How long do you think the Lambic would have to sit on the oak?

Thanks!
Clint
 
IMHO, an ounce of light toasted American or French Oak chips should do the trick. Add them to a grain bag with a sanitized stone at the bottom of the bag to weigh it down.

When I do my Scotch ales, I soak the chips for about a week in single malt scotch. I would probably use the same treatment with the wine. Boil the oak to sanitize for ten minutes and then let them soak in the wine in a covered jar at room temperature for about a week or so. Then, add them to the grain bag and sink them into the lambic.

For my Scotch ales, you'll see results within a few days. Mine get a week on an ounce of oak chips, which is just enough to give it a subtle whiskey oak note on the back of the tongue. The only way to do it right with your situation is to thief a little of the lambic every day and taste it. When it tastes just a little bit stronger than you'd like, that's the time to bottle it up. The oak flavor fades fast, so slightly over-oaking is just where you want to be with another two weeks to go priming in a keg or bottles.
 
Lambic usually doesn't have any oak charcter to it so my answer would be not to add any at all.

At first, we weren't going to add any oak, but it is pretty damn sour. We were thinking a little oak could balance out the sourness. But we also do intend to enter this in a couple competitions, so maybe oak isn't the way to go.
 
IMHO, an ounce of light toasted American or French Oak chips should do the trick. Add them to a grain bag with a sanitized stone at the bottom of the bag to weigh it down.

When I do my Scotch ales, I soak the chips for about a week in single malt scotch. I would probably use the same treatment with the wine. Boil the oak to sanitize for ten minutes and then let them soak in the wine in a covered jar at room temperature for about a week or so. Then, add them to the grain bag and sink them into the lambic.

For my Scotch ales, you'll see results within a few days. Mine get a week on an ounce of oak chips, which is just enough to give it a subtle whiskey oak note on the back of the tongue. The only way to do it right with your situation is to thief a little of the lambic every day and taste it. When it tastes just a little bit stronger than you'd like, that's the time to bottle it up. The oak flavor fades fast, so slightly over-oaking is just where you want to be with another two weeks to go priming in a keg or bottles.

Thanks!
 
Here's how I'd oak- take some chips, boil them for fifteen minutes, and then soak them in whatever wine you'd like. This way, it removes the astringency and woody tannins in oak that'd taste terrible. I think you're confusing oak and bourbon-and-oak aging, as oaking typically makes it more bitter, which is the one flavor that NEVER works in sours. Bourbon-oaking uses the sweet carmalization in bourbon to offset the wood IMO.

The advantage of using boiled chips is that is sterilizes the chips, removes the oak flavor, but allows the bugs in the beer to start chewing on the wood, so when you rack out, you can transfer the bugs on those chips to another beer if you like.
 
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