Feaux-barrel aging

Hi everyone, fairly new to the forum. I was wondering if anybody had tips on feaux barrel aging a porter or stout using oak chips. How long did you soak the oak chips in the whiskey and how much whiskey was used? And then how long did the chips sit in the beer in the secondary. I know there are no hard and fast rules, but just wondering if anybody has played with this, and what they did to get good results. Thanks, this forum is truly remarkable.

 

Yes, plenty of people have done this with great results. There are a number of threads discussing this in great detail.

Generally, with chips, less is more - in quantity and time, it's possible to over-oak and nobody likes woodchip beer. For a typical 5g batch, 1-2oz max, for about a week (to taste). You can soak in whisky as long as you want, probably 2 weeks is typical, and probably ~1c of whisky.

 

Lots of people do this, and it's cool to experiment with what you soak the oak in (whisky, port, brandy, wine). For a first time I'd go with 2oz of medium toast french oak, soak them in what you want for 3 days, then put them into secondary for a week. After a week start to draw small samples to see if the oakiness is where you want it, and leave longer if needed.

It's "faux", bee-tee-dubbs.