Looking for advice on Spirit soaked oak chips

[Dgallo]

Looking for some advice from those who have used liquor soaked oak chips to age their imperial stouts.

I have two Imperial milk stouts that I make quite well one with coffee and one with coconut and nibs. My goal is to use the coconut and nibs as the base beer and use 2/3 to 1/2 of the amount of coffee to blend the best of both worlds. This should work no problem,but I was thinking of going one step further...I want to liquor soak some oak chips to add even more complexity.

Looking for advice from folks who have done this before to an 8.5-10% abv milk or RIS Stout. What I’m really looking for is your experience; how much oak chips, what kind of liquor you used and how much, how long it was aged on the soaked chips and what your final impression of that beer was?

I’m thinking of a vanilla spiced rum like Captain would work well for what I’m looking to pull off but also open to suggestions on what you think will work well with the complexity of this beer.

As always, thanks in advance

 

[kh54s10]

I would do oak or coconut and nibs but not both together, my opinion is that there will be too much going on. I did a RIS with 4 ounces of oak chips soaked in Jim Beam. It was aged in primary for about a month. It tasted like liquid wood at bottling and took about 6 months to mellow. Still too much wood.

 

[Dgallo]

I would do oak or coconut and nibs but not both together, my opinion is that there will be too much going on. I did a RIS with 4 ounces of oak chips soaked in Jim Beam. It was aged in primary for about a month. It tasted like liquid wood at bottling and took about 6 months to mellow. Still too much wood.

Would you say that the chips needed more aging or use less oak in general?

 

[kh54s10]

Would you say that the chips needed more aging or use less oak in general?

Too much oak! It mellowed but the oak was the dominant flavor to the end - almost 2 years.

 

[Dgallo]

Too much oak! It mellowed but the oak was the dominant flavor to the end - almost 2 years.

Wonder if I’d fair better by just boosting the body more and than adding some rum to taste at kegging

 

[davidabcd]

I did four ounces of light oak spirals in whiskey for two weeks. I also added 12oz of bourbon to them a day or two before and much was soaked up. I was cautioned against adding so much whiskey but I found it went well perfectly with the RIS that was nearly 12% ABV.
The only issue, possibly, is that whiskey could have affected the ability of the bottles to carbonate. They did eventually but it took a over three months.

 

[Dgallo]

I did four ounces of light oak spirals in whiskey for two weeks. I also added 12oz of bourbon to them a day or two before and much was soaked up. I was cautioned against adding so much whiskey but I found it went well perfectly with the RIS that was nearly 12% ABV.
The only issue, possibly, is that whiskey could have affected the ability of the bottles to carbonate. They did eventually but it took a over three months.

How long did you age the spirals in the whiskey before adding it? And did you add the spirals to the beer or did you add the whiskey as a tincture? If it was the former, how long did your u let the beer sit on the chips

 

[davidabcd]

How long did you age the spirals in the whiskey before adding i

Just two or three days though next time I'm going to give it six or seven.

 

[applescrap]

Why the soak? See puritan laws require breweries to never add liquor to liquor. They have to add it through oak. You do not. To me they are separate ingredients and should be treated that way. One ingredient is alcohol, the other is oak. While unimpressive chips are one of the best ways to add wood flavor. The amount I use is in my book and I dont have it on me dang it, but its not much. I want to say its one oz for subtle and 2 for pronounced. I will have to look up exact amounts as I have answered this question before. Iirc they are heated in oven to sanitize. Haha, they dont age, they release 100 percent of flavor in a couple weeks i want to say.

Now for the liquor. You have a lot of options here. Both in type, and amount. For amount you could measure exact amounts in a glass to taste then calculate how much you need for full batch. Its added at kegging or whenever I guess. I could never decide on amounts as sometimes I want a LOT and other times, a little. Also I like to switch it up. So what I do is splash it as i go. That way i can have some without, some with a little, and some with a lot. It wont take much so dont be rambo on it. Also by splashing you can experiment with all types of alcohols in it. I got the idea from the great micheal tonsemeyer and he has friends over for tastings where he splashes beers with all kinds of different flavors. See you are a homebrewer and this is your beer. You can and should according to him (and me) do whatever you damn well please with it. The bif business puritan laws dont apply to you. If you want to add it all at once calculate from a glass.

The general word here is just get the cheapest whisky and dump it in. I hate that advise, despite the mainstream, and so does tonsemeyer. Use the best stuff you can afford, within reason, i think it matters.

For the soak look up the kbs recipe form the brewers at founders. They released the recipe and I have it but when i got my new phone my recipes are on a card, im devastated. I see the aha wont release the recipe for free any more and want you to be a member to access, but either someone can help you access or you can find it. I want to say its 2 oz chips soaked for two weeks. Cubes and spirals are different. Spirals iirc are for long term aging and release slowly. Since I have no patience or extra kegs, I dont age and use chips. Btw feel free to splah your other one two, or all your beers for that matter. I love red wine in beers like an abbey. Best of luck and hope this helps.

Looking for some advice from those who have used liquor soaked oak chips to age their imperial stouts.

I have two Imperial milk stouts that I make quite well one with coffee and one with coconut and nibs. My goal is to use the coconut and nibs as the base beer and use 2/3 to 1/2 of the amount of coffee to blend the best of both worlds. This should work no problem,but I was thinking of going one step further...I want to liquor soak some oak chips to add even more complexity.

Looking for advice from folks who have done this before to an 8.5-10% abv milk or RIS Stout. What I’m really looking for is your experience; how much oak chips, what kind of liquor you used and how much, how long it was aged on the soaked chips and what your final impression of that beer was?

I’m thinking of a vanilla spiced rum like Captain would work well for what I’m looking to pull off but also open to suggestions on what you think will work well with the complexity of this beer.

As always, thanks in advance

 

[applescrap]

Would you say that the chips needed more aging or use less oak in general?

As I said in my post chips release most if not all of their flavor in a week or two (or however long). You could taste and rack off chips when ready I suppose.

 

[applescrap]

Send some to me and I will taste test for you sounds delicious!

 

[jrgtr42]

There's no one answer for every situation (it could be argued that no one answer works in more than one situation.
The first is what you're hoping to add - just a hint of wood, or do you want to seem as you're chewing on a tree?
Do you want bourbon / whiskey? Rum? Gin? Wine? Port? I can keep going...
Depends also on how your wood is. I used powdered oak once upon a time - and per the instructions (hey, it was my second ever brew; before I discovered this place, and hadn't realized that those instructions are to be used a general guide at best)
I will never use that again - a few years later when I moved I still had some of that left and it hadn't faded - so I dumped it.
I've used chips, cubes and spirals - each takes it's own use.
I think I like the cubes best. I keep a couple jars soaking at most times - one in rum one in bourbon at the moment.
Taste every few days to see when you get the wood effect you're looking for, then if you need more booze, you can add that as well.

 

[couchsending]

Cubes... never chips.

1.5-2oz in 5 gallons and it doesn’t take long.

This is by far the best resource for info on Oak I’ve ever run across. I feel like I post this a few times a year. The first half of the podcast is on using wine yeast in beer and it’s equally as fascinating.

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/post1888/

There is nothing about soaking in spirits I don’t think. But it’s still pretty valuable info on oak on the Homebrew scale.

 

[Tyler B]

Lots of factors to consider as others have said. What type of oak (American, French, etc), charing (light, dark, etc), size/shape (chips, cubes, etc).

I agree that it might be best to consider the liquor and wood as separate ingredients. I soaked some dark charred chips in whiskey for over a year. I have poured off/decanted and refreshed the liquor a few times and the liquor still tastes like tanins. I poured a tiny bit of the liquor in a single beer to test and by the time you could taste the wood, you could also taste the tanins.

I don't think I'll be adding chips anytime soon... When the time comes, I'll probably try lighter French spirals, soak in choice liquor to extract tanins, and then put just the spirals in the beer. I'd use cubes, but I don't have those. Probably for a very short time. I think subtle is probably best here.

 

[applescrap]

Why no chips?

Ok doing my own research I see the cubes are reported to have more depth of flavor. They are also reported to take 1 to 3 months or so to impart said flavor. The chips will release flavor in two weeks. So how long one wants to age plays a role in which to choose, but still curious, why "never" chips? Zainasheff and palmer state in brewing classic styles that less wood aged longer produces a pleasing character vs more wood quicker. And they also reccomend as do I, wildly, to add the bourbon or alcohol after aging ymmv.

Cubes... never chips.

1.5-2oz in 5 gallons and it doesn’t take long.

This is by far the best resource for info on Oak I’ve ever run across. I feel like I post this a few times a year. The first half of the podcast is on using wine yeast in beer and it’s equally as fascinating.

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/post1888/

There is nothing about soaking in spirits I don’t think. But it’s still pretty valuable info on oak on the Homebrew scale.

 

[Tyler B]

Hopefully I didn't mislead you. I'm avoiding chips because the only ones I have are of the dark charred variety with too much (too many?) tannins. The spirals that I have are a lighter wood. So, that's what I'll be using.

If I used chips, I'd probably opt for the lightest ones I could find, add them in the smallest amount recommended, taste daily, then pull out as soon as I taste the wood. See how that ages.

I suppose there is nothing wrong with chips, it's probably just really easy to over do it.

Personally, I'd soak chips in liquor, as described in my previous post.

 

[kh54s10]

I don't know the chemistry, but I would think that the major flavor in oak, chips, cubes, spirals all come from the tannins that are in the wood. If you get rid of that you would have something bland and dusty tasting. Nothing with much flavor would be left.

Oak in wine, as far as I know, is to add tannins.

 

[jhnmdahl]

I split some white oak into sticks about 6" long by maybe 3/4"-1" around, and charred them black with a torch to get a similar surface as the inside of a typical Bourbon barrel. I then gently cleaned the sticks with water so there wasn't loose ash, and soaked them in Maker's Mark for a couple weeks before adding them to the primary fermenter (what ended up being between weeks 3-5). Although the timing is somewhat abbreviated, this is as close to the actual barrel aging process as I could come up with given my time constraints.

Some have theorized that the oak aging process benefits from going through seasons, i.e., the warming and cooling moves liquor into and out of the oak, helping both infuse the charred oak barrels with Bourbon flavor and extract the desired flavor from the charred oak barrels. I'm not quite willing to age my Russian Imperial somewhere it goes through seasons, but I did leave charred oak sticks in a sealed bottle with Bourbon in the garage, and I'll see if it makes a difference in next year's batch. People also speculate that the bit of oxygen that makes it in through a barrel also influences the final beer, but again I'm not keen on oxygenating my finished beer unless it's just before primary fermentation.

I don't think I'm likely to use chips with a ton of surface area, especially that aren't charred, as it feels like a pretty different process than traditional charred Bourbon barrel aging.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Why the soak? See puritan laws require breweries to never add liquor to liquor. They have to add it through oak. You do not. To me they are separate ingredients and should be treated that way.

+1

I'm a big fan of adding ingredients separately to control to the flavor.

 

[Oldskewl]

My experience has been to use chips if you want the oak flavor quicker. Usually only 1 -2 weeks. For cubes you can soak for 1-3 months or even longer. 2.5 - 3 oz per 5 gallon batch is the rule of thumb. Different oaks impart different flavors. I brewed an English Barleywine yesterday and am planning to soak on 2.5 oz of medium toast French oak cubes for about 2 months.

 

[Tyler B]

I don't know the chemistry, but I would think that the major flavor in oak, chips, cubes, spirals all come from the tannins that are in the wood. If you get rid of that you would have something bland and dusty tasting. Nothing with much flavor would be left.

Oak in wine, as far as I know, is to add tannins.

I could definitely be wrong in calling it tannins, but I got a very unpleasant flavor that came out of my chips that seems to lessen each time I decant and replace the liquor. Again, my experience could be due to the dark char of my chips.

I've tasted several beers brewed by friends with chips and they tend to be more towards the unpleasant taste and further away from barrel aged taste. Not necessarily bad, just not quite as smooth, well-rounded, or seamless blend of flavors.

Also, think of tea... You get nice tea flavor up to a point, then you get unpleasant, bitter, tannin taste.

 

[applescrap]

To op, based on tyler b's experience I would caution you from tasting the soaking liquor. I have been circling this thinking for a while but I think i have it nailed down now. By tasting the soaking liquor you perhaps tasted something unusual or unpleasant. But if dumped in, you might not have really tasted it. Once i taste something off like that, i can taste a drop in 5 gallons. For example, I drank from a coffee pot once that hadn't been clean and had mildew or whatever. Made me barf. Now, if there is even the slightest of that i can taste it with outrageous fidelity. Yes, i wouldnt taste the liquor for fear of something like this. I would pour it in something to sample.

I could definitely be wrong in calling it tannins, but I got a very unpleasant flavor that came out of my chips that seems to lessen each time I decant and replace the liquor. Again, my experience could be due to the dark char of my chips.

I've tasted several beers brewed by friends with chips and they tend to be more towards the unpleasant taste and further away from barrel aged taste. Not necessarily bad, just not quite as smooth, well-rounded, or seamless blend of flavors.

Also, think of tea... You get nice tea flavor up to a point, then you get unpleasant, bitter, tannin taste.

 

[mashpaddled]

Chips are all surface area which means you get a lot of extraction of soluble tannins and char to the extent the chips are toasted/charred. While this will give you quick oak character it won't give you what most people seek in oak flavor. If your goal is to capture that vanilla/spice character in barrel aged beers then you need to go with a thicker oak product for a longer period of time.

 

[RPh_Guy]

What's the most vanilla-like oak products you guys have used?

 

[kh54s10]

I used only medium oak chips and can't say that I got any vanilla from them.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

A topic I am interested in. Based on my very limited experience I would definitely suggest boiling cubes before using them. I made some tinctures with Medium Toast Hungarian Oak Cubes soaked in some inexpensive Irish Whiskey. The first try was like like sucking on a piece of wood. With the second try I boiled the cubes for 10 minutes in a small pot before adding them to the Whiskey and that turned out much better. I added that to taste at bottling time, but now that I have tasted the bottles I which I had added more.

Honestly I felt that I got the best "Oak Barrel" flavor with just adding the whiskey. I picked up a bottle of Tullamore Dew blended whiskey. It already has a bit of a barrel flavor to it and I feel like adding Oak Cubes to this whiskey just doubles up on the wood flavors. I am curious what the best <$25 whiskey/whisky/bourbon would be to flavor a stout.

I have it on my agenda to try something like 2 oz of boiled oak cubes for 2 months in the fermenter. I could then add Bourbon or Whiskey at packaging time if desired.

 

[Dave Sarber]

I have 2 thoughts on this. I've used cubes soaked in vodka for 2 weeks in an RIS, and got no detectable flavor difference compared to no cubes. I aged another batch of RIS in a 5 gallon bourbon cask for 4 days and got amazing flavor. But, and this may not be connected at all, the cask aged RIS has a carbonation problem, as in way too much head, as in just about impossible to pour more than half a glass. Still experimenting, but I'm going to use the cask on the next batch.

This is after letting the foam subside a bit.

EDIT: The batch before this one, same recipe, no chips or cask aging, was incredibly flat. ??? Still playing with this, when I get room in my fermenting chamber, I'll start another batch. I like to keep RIS in stock!

 

[Tyler B]

Interesting... A lot of variables at play there between the cubes, cask, vodka, bourbon, contact time. Who knows.

How did you determine beer volume for priming sugar? Did you account for volume of RIS that was lost due to absorption in the cask?

From what I can gather, a bourbon cask seems to almost unanimously give the best flavor. Anyone have experience to suggest otherwise?

 

[Dave Sarber]

I keep the casks soaking in water while not in use, and didn't notice any loss of volume due to absorption (racked to big mouth bubbler before bottling, with graduations). Used same 5 ounces corn sugar in all batches for priming. Need to figure out what's going on here, as it's a real problem to pour this last batch. The pics above are after letting it sit for about 5 minutes for the foam to dissipate, just about impossible to pour more than half a glass without waiting. And yes, I sterilize the casks with 185° water before use, so I don't think it's anything bacterial going on. I think the next batch I will rinse the inside of the cask with bourbon to replenish the flavor.