Oak Chips - anything special?

[AN_TKE]

I am planning on beginning (I say beginning because it is an 18+ month process) Duchesse de Burgougne tomorrow. The recipe calls for Oak chips to be added to the aging vessel to simulate the oak barrel cask. I know they sell the chips at the LHS store, but I am curious if anyone has had luck making their own. I have some oak laying around and I wonder if the chips you get in the nice little baggy at the store have anything special about them.

Have the store bought ones been sterilized or something? That's all I can think of: they are not going to add some nastys to the aging sour, where my oak could.

Anyone out there have experience in this?

Thanks.

 

[ArcaneXor]

You definitely don't want to throw something you picked up at Home Depot or Lowe's into your beer. The chips and (better suited for brewing) cubes you can buy are made from specific types of oak used in barrels, and are sometimes even cut from used/discarded wine or liquor barrels. They are also toasted to a certain level to produce certain flavor characteristics. Chips tend to be one-dimensional, whereas cubes produce more complex, refined flavors.

Be careful and taste frequently. Oak flavor doesn't really disappear once it's in the beer, and it can be quite overpowering. I have one batch that turned from fantastic to barely drinkable by leaving my beer on the cubes for too long.

Hope this helps a little bit!~

Cheers!

 

[AN_TKE]

I was thinking of using some white oak that I bought rough sawn for a stairway in my house from a specialty harwood distributer. The wood is pretty sweet, not the usual planed out red oak you may find at the depot.

That said, I just ordered a few oz. at northern brewer, based on your recommendation to be careful with this addative.

Thanks.

 

[Revvy]

Many of us on here have used these in beers quite often.

I just soak them in a mason jar full of more jack for two weeks to kill any buggies, then dump them bourbon and all into the secondary. And at 7 bucks for a huge bag, you get a lot of uses of them.

 

[AN_TKE]

Wow. That's bold - dumping the jack and all, I mean. But if it has good results, why not? Is this typical, adding a burbon or other spirit to the secondary?

Thanks for the suggestion revvy.

 

[Revvy]

Wow. That's bold - dumping the jack and all, I mean. But if it has good results, why not? Is this typical, adding a burbon or other spirit to the secondary?

Thanks for the suggestion revvy.

You tell me.

Thread Search for the word Bourbon in the title.

 

[malkore]

Its not uncommon

If you do the math you'll see that 3-4 ounces of 80 proof whiskey doesn't really change the ABV of 5 gallons of beer a terrible amount, and while it does add a little flavor, its not a ton.

That said, I've done a few wine kits that used oak chips, and they just have you open the bag and dump it into primary. Not sure if they did something at the factory to pre-sanitize or what. Of course these aren't the same as JD's oak chips from the grocery store which are gonna be used to smoke food and thus don't have to be food sanitary.