Adding rum and oak cubes after primary

[nhindian]

Hey guys, I'm brewing a pumpkin ale and it will be reaching 3 weeks of primary this Wednesday. The night I brewed it, I filled a Ball jar with 16oz of Bacardi Oakheart and 2oz of American oak cubes. When I go to add it, should I throw it in a muslin bag so I can remove the oak if needed, or just let it float wherever? I want it to be done by Halloween hopefully so it'd probably be aging for about a month.

Also, I'm not planning on racking to secondary... would this be a mistake?

Finally, I may decide to add a little more pumpkin pie spice after tasting my gravity samples... is there anything special I have to do to sanitize it before adding or just dump it in?

Thanks!

 

[TrainSafe]

If you go the muslin bag route, you may want to add a few sanitized marbles to the bag. That will help it sink so they don't stay dry and float on top. When they flat, you don't get as much flavor from them.

 

[unionrdr]

A whole pint is a bit much to soak 2oz of oak in. A couple of jiggers would do. I soak a couple onces in 3-5 jiggers of bourbon in an airtight container in the fridge during primary. Then pour all through a sanitized hop sack into secondary & rack the beer onto it.

 

[bobeer]

Ive never used a bag for oak chips. It might be a good idea though because they always clog my auto- siphon.
I've never used a 2ndary before either so you should be fine there.
I've added just the spice from the shaker and I've made a little tea before too when adding more spice to beer. Either one worked fine although making the tea will insure a better mixture in the beer and it will sanitize it too. Just make sure you chill it before you rack your beer on top of it or dump it in.