Really Struggling with Pseudo BA Stout

[Hwk-I-St8]

After reading countless posts and recipes, along with the comments about how long to leave a RIS on oak, I'm thoroughly confused.

Some say 2-3 weeks at most or the oak is overpowering, others say they've left it on oak for 3-4 months and it's fantastic. I know the typical BA stouts you buy is generally in a barrel for months, so I don't understand the 2-3 weeks.

Is this a matter of the quality of the oak? Is it chips vs cubes? Is there a bell curve, where it gets intense after a few weeks, then mellows and hits another (perhaps better) sweet spot after a few months?

Any thoughts on this?

 

[day_trippr]

When you think of the possibilities there's an overwhelmingly large set of variables to consider wrt the oak.
Not surprising there's an equally broad take on "time"...

Cheers!

 

[pdxal]

In general, smaller pieces of oak leech out flavors faster.
The only way to tell how long to keep the beer on oak is to taste occasionally and bottle when perfect, or to guess. A couple of weeks usually works for me.

 

[DurtyChemist]

My oak spirals said 6 weeks extracted all the oak flavor. Honestly I'd just take small samples of what you have going and when it's where you want it you can stop the aging process.

 

[Braufessor]

Some areas where I have found success in regard to big RIS type beers and adding Oak/Coffee/Etc:

*I really prefer the beer to finish with a high OG 1.030 + at the very least and more like 1.040+ - I find the high FG offsets/balances some of the sharpness of flavors from Oak/Coffee/Etc.

*Keep ferment temp under control - big beers get very hot through their own activity and throw bad flavors and hot alcohol flavors if not controlled.

*I ferment the beer out as normal in a fermenter. I then use a CO2 purged Corny keg for secondary.

*I will let the beer secondary for whatever amount of time I want and then I jump the beer to other kegs (purged with CO2) to introduce additions. For instance.... I will add a charred oak spiral to a keg and jump the RIS into this other keg . (This keeps everything closed transfer - no/low Oxygen).

*Oak - I really like the charred oak as opposed to plain oak. I think regular plain oak gives a "wood" flavor as opposed to charred oak giving a complimentary roast flavor. Also, a bit of sweet bourbon soak blends well too. I will use a couple ounces of cubes or a half or full spiral. I soak them in bourbon for a few days. I drain off most of the bourbon before adding cubes.

*I put a screen over the dip tube in the "addition keg"

*The other nice thing about the keg additions..... it is easy to take small sample to see where the beer is at. So, I will let the beer sit on the charred oak for 2-3 weeks for sure - then, take small sample. I will revisit it now and again over 1-2-3 months. At whatever point I think it is where I want it..... I jump it to a new keg for other additions or carbonation, serving, etc.

*The RIS I make also has coffee.... so, my time line looks something like this:
0-3 weeks = Primary Ferment
3- 12 weeks = Secondary in Keg
12-24 weeks = Jump into keg with charred oak
@ 24 weeks (or perhaps sooner if sample says so) = Jump into keg with 2-4 ounces of cracked coffee beans
12-24 hours later = jump to serving keg for carbonation. (The coffee only takes a VERY short time to impart flavor).

The reason a "typical" RIS is aged on oak so long....... They are 55 gallon barrels which makes for a tremendous difference in surface area compared to a 5 gallon batch. The speed of flavor uptake is way faster in 5 gallons.