how many oak chips to add?

[TAPPAR]

I have a plum and strawberry cider, getting close to bottling them and want to give them a noticeable oak flavor. I was planning on bottling them in Grolsch bottles with oak chips that I bought from the brew store. My question is about how many/much I should put in each bottle. Any suggestions?

 

[johnny5000]

Are you dead-set on oaking in individual bottles?
My understanding is that it's best to oak something in a secondary and taste it every few days until it tastes like what you want, then take it off the oak and bottle it.

 

[TAPPAR]

Not dead set but at this point the SG is were I want it at, don't really want them to ferment out much (any) more. My plan was to get them into bottles to carb them up tonight then bottle pasteurize when they are ready.

 

[m_stodd]

I would suggest soaking the oak in vodka for about a day (guessing), then if the vodka has taken up some good oak flavor, drop it into a bottle until it tastes good while counting the drops. Put this same number of drops into the other bottles.

This will give you the control you want, and also make sure that whatever put in the bottle is sanitized.