best way to sanitize wood chips

[STLExpat]

Anybody have suggestions on this? I thought I saw someone mention steaming them but I can't find the thread. I'm thinking about making a mead racked over mesquite chips and using mesquite honey as well.

 

[TyTanium]

Sounds interesting.

Steam works great...have a veggie steamer?

Otherwise soaking in a neutral spirit like vodka works well, though the spirit will extract some of the flavor from the wood. You could add the vodka as well.

Or you could just not worry about it...dry wood isn't exactly a bacteria haven. You could probably just toss 'em in.

 

[LuiInIdaho]

I was just listening to an older episode on Basic Brewing Radio (May 10 2007 episode) where Dan Carey of New Glaris Brewing was talking about using oak in the secondary for oak aging. He suggested that you just put the oak in the secondary without any type of sanitation. But at this point it is already beer and is. It as prone to infection.

Hope this helps. Mark

 

[Revvy]

How to sanitize really is determined by when you want to use them. If you know on brew day you want to oak it in secondary, and are palnning to secondary it after two weeks or a month, then soaking them in a mason jar with jack for 2-4 weeks is perfect. The booze should kill all the critters off.

If I suddenly wake up and decide that I might want to oak some beer I wasn't planning on before. Then I steam them, and while they are hot and the pores are open I drop them in a jar of jack and let them sit for an hour or two to absorb, then drop the whole shebang in.

 

[audger]

in the oven at 250-300 degrees for an hour or two wont cause any charring and will positively kill bugs that alcohol, espeicailly at 40% or lower concentrations, just wont.

 

[CrackyMcZap]

If you want paranoid levels of sterility, an hour in the pressure cooker at 15 PSI will kill everything dead.