Oaked Porter?

[hatfieldenator]

Hi all,
I have an excellent robust porter recipe that has done very well for me lately(won a best of show recently and multiple 3rd-1st place spots in other contests) and I was wondering if I should try aging a batch on some oak? I have never tried a Porter that's been "oaked" before so I don't know if its something that would work or not. Anyone have any opinions?

I have a small oak barrel my wife bought me for christmas last year that I have yet to use. Its brand new so I wouldn't want to leave the beer in there for long I suppose.

 

[BeerLogic]

I do an oaked Baltic porter that is really, really good. I use 3 oz. of medium toast American oak cubes for a 5 gallon batch and get a pretty strong flavor in 4 weeks, so I imagine you wouldn't need to barrel it for long. If you let it mellow for another 8 weeks off the oak, either in bottles or in the keg, the oak flavors blend beautifully.

The first batch of that beer I did I used 9 oz. of oak cubes, which was way too much, but after mellowing in bottles for a year it turned into one of the best beers I've ever had.