I soaked 4oz of medium toast French oak chips in 5 jiggers of Beam's Black in an airtight container in the fridge while my dark ale recipe was fermenting. The chips soaked up 2/3's of the bourbon in that time.
I poured all through a hop sack into secondary,tied off the sack,& dropped it in. Racked the dark ale on top of it for 8 days. The oaked bourbon was fairly strong at that point,& took 9 weeks & 6 days in the bottles to mellow out.
So I'd say use maybe 2oz of chips with 2 or 3 jiggers of bourbon to put it more on the back. That way,the ale can shine through more.
