Aging beer with oak instead of barrels
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manticle
Standing up for the Aussie Bottler
I would call it oaking rather than aging but yes.
Works great with brett beers. Any other beer - make sure you go the whole hog on steaming and toasting those chips. I'd like to try Tony's method of adding to the no chill cube.
Works great with brett beers. Any other beer - make sure you go the whole hog on steaming and toasting those chips. I'd like to try Tony's method of adding to the no chill cube.
Yob
Hop to it
What like chips? Staves etc?
Yeah, of course, just nowhere near as nice or aesthetic
Yeah, of course, just nowhere near as nice or aesthetic
Yob
Hop to it
Got a link to that man? Don't believe I've read that onemanticle said:
keifer33
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Think it was this one - http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/66550-no-chill-cube-oaking/
Danscraftbeer
Well-Known Member
I've added them to kegs. Works nice at around 1g per litre. I have baked them in foil in the oven and in to keg in a hop bag. Or for this Smokey Oak Stout I made I put the bag of chips into a 200ml canning jar with 1/2 water and 1/2 Jack Daniels. Pressure cooked it and cooled it and added all to the kegged beer. Somewhat simulating being stored in a whisky barrel. That worked really well. It was a subtle background flavour.
timmi9191
Well-Known Member
Has anyone ever seen wine barrel chips?
I want to do a shiraz barrel aged stout, but dont want a whole wine barrel
I want to do a shiraz barrel aged stout, but dont want a whole wine barrel
barls
causer of chaos and mayhem
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take your chips and soak in shiraz then add.
although i find chips are a bit one dimensional in flavour and over oak really quickly.
the bigger the piece the more rounded the flavour and the longer the exposure time can be.
although i find chips are a bit one dimensional in flavour and over oak really quickly.
the bigger the piece the more rounded the flavour and the longer the exposure time can be.
droid
somewhere on the slippery slope with a beer in han
<edit> to get another opinion and broaden your horizon's you could PM grainer - i'm pretty sure he used oak chips for his award winning RIS
TheWiggman
Haters' gonna hate
Interesting that this has come up, I've got a bourbon stout lined up for ageing for the next brew. By memory the recipe is pale, brown and roasted barley with 400ml of bourbon to 23l beer added prior to bottling to reach about 7%. The only problem is I only plan to do 12 litres so I'm not going to be cubing. Maybe...
Ferment as per normal, ~10 days.
Toast 25g oak chips and soak in bourbon
Rack to secondary, add oak chips + booze and leave for a week.
Bulk prime, add bourbon when priming, bottle
Leave for at least 6 months before sampling
I'm getting thirsty thinking about this, better distract myself with work...
Ferment as per normal, ~10 days.
Toast 25g oak chips and soak in bourbon
Rack to secondary, add oak chips + booze and leave for a week.
Bulk prime, add bourbon when priming, bottle
Leave for at least 6 months before sampling
I'm getting thirsty thinking about this, better distract myself with work...
Cortez The Killer
HeCameDancingAcrossTheWater
I've had a lot of success with oak dominoes from http://www.stilldragon.com.au/oak-dominoes/
The IBU's had an oak based brew comp that was a lot of fun.
I've added them to secondary and straight to the keg - beers end up delicious.
No good in the primary as the yeast will coat them and limit extraction.
From my understanding the cut of the domino reduces the amount of end grain as compared to chips or cubes thereby reducing harshness etc.
My usual dosage is 2 - 4 dominoes per 20L. From memory each one weighs 30-50g. Most of the time I don't bother taking them out of the keg so the beer takes on more oak as time goes on.
I can't say that I would regard anything I've used them in as being over oaked though.
If anyone got a Hungarian oak domino bulk buy up I'd be in on that after sampling Barl's beers
Cheers
The IBU's had an oak based brew comp that was a lot of fun.
I've added them to secondary and straight to the keg - beers end up delicious.
No good in the primary as the yeast will coat them and limit extraction.
From my understanding the cut of the domino reduces the amount of end grain as compared to chips or cubes thereby reducing harshness etc.
My usual dosage is 2 - 4 dominoes per 20L. From memory each one weighs 30-50g. Most of the time I don't bother taking them out of the keg so the beer takes on more oak as time goes on.
I can't say that I would regard anything I've used them in as being over oaked though.
If anyone got a Hungarian oak domino bulk buy up I'd be in on that after sampling Barl's beers
Cheers
drsmurto
Well-Known Member
I regularly 'oak' my beers and have used a few different methods. My favourite is the 100L ex-Yalumba octaves i the shed which are due to be refilled next weekend with a RIS and an imperial rauchbier as part of the local group of brewers. Last year we did a Pliny and as RIS, both of which I put on tap. The Pliny got drained and was a great twist on the original, the RIS is getting very low and is lush. Putting a beer in a barrel also allows for slow oxidation as a barrel is not air tight. So the end result is different to adding oak to a beer in a keg. I add a lager yeast to the barrels to help with the conditioning and to knock a few more points off to try and dry the beers out a bit. Once I am happy the SG is stable I add 5g/100L barrel of potassium metabisulfite as an insurance policy against wild yeast or any of the brett/lacto/pedio getting in as they are near impossible to remove after. The barrels also get professionally washed inbetween uses and stored with a concentrated sulfite holding solution.
I've also used oak in kegs, similar to Cortex I often use the dominoes from Punkin but I also have a large supply of french oak staves leftover from winemaking I did a few years ago. These were full length staves (~1m in length) that were in 200L fermenters of wine. They were thoroughly cleaned after use and then sawn in to 3cm lengths. Before using oak staves or dominoes I always sterilise them by putting them in the oven ~ 120-140C for 20 mins till the house smells like a winery barrel room. Add immediately to the keg from the oven and rack beer on to them. I wouldn't boil them in water as you will strip oak character doing this (taste the water after).
The next step is to rack all the whiskys I have on oak and use the oak in a beer to add an extra dimension.
Can you over oak a beer? Yes. I was squeezed for time and wanted to get an oaked beer in to a comp but only had 1 week in a keg. So i used the equivalent of 50 dominoes in a 19L keg. After a few weeks the oak really started to become dominant. It went a period of 6 months where i wasn't happy with it but once it had been there for closer to a year it seemed to mellow out, still very oaky but it seemed more balanced. I happily drank it over the course of another year.
An oaked RIS is probably my favourite style of beer and I try to keep one on tap all year round. Although the Imperial Rauchbier smells amazing in the fermenter, used Gladfield Manuka Smoked malt rather than the usual Best Smoked malt. Can't wait to taste how the oak blends with the smoke.
Unfortunately Yalumba no longer sell the barrels or I would probably grab a few more.
I've also used oak in kegs, similar to Cortex I often use the dominoes from Punkin but I also have a large supply of french oak staves leftover from winemaking I did a few years ago. These were full length staves (~1m in length) that were in 200L fermenters of wine. They were thoroughly cleaned after use and then sawn in to 3cm lengths. Before using oak staves or dominoes I always sterilise them by putting them in the oven ~ 120-140C for 20 mins till the house smells like a winery barrel room. Add immediately to the keg from the oven and rack beer on to them. I wouldn't boil them in water as you will strip oak character doing this (taste the water after).
The next step is to rack all the whiskys I have on oak and use the oak in a beer to add an extra dimension.
Can you over oak a beer? Yes. I was squeezed for time and wanted to get an oaked beer in to a comp but only had 1 week in a keg. So i used the equivalent of 50 dominoes in a 19L keg. After a few weeks the oak really started to become dominant. It went a period of 6 months where i wasn't happy with it but once it had been there for closer to a year it seemed to mellow out, still very oaky but it seemed more balanced. I happily drank it over the course of another year.
An oaked RIS is probably my favourite style of beer and I try to keep one on tap all year round. Although the Imperial Rauchbier smells amazing in the fermenter, used Gladfield Manuka Smoked malt rather than the usual Best Smoked malt. Can't wait to taste how the oak blends with the smoke.
Unfortunately Yalumba no longer sell the barrels or I would probably grab a few more.
GalBrew
Well-Known Member
These are very nice bits of oak compared to the chips that are more readily available. I am using some French oak dominos in a Shiraz that I am making, the smell amazing out of the bag. The good thing too is you can leave them in for long periods without getting the unpleasant flavours that leech out very quickly from chips.Cortez The Killer said:
Danscraftbeer
Well-Known Member
I slow carbonated it in the kegerater with the bag of whisky oak chips for at least a week then taste tested it over maybe a month. When it became really impressive in blended flavour I bottled the entire keg and left in the garage fridge and enjoyed it here and there over a few months to a year. After aging in bottles it did mellow on the flavors including the Whisky Oak character. I also put some in the cupboard to let sit at room temperature to see if it gets better or worse. It didn't get worse. It was all good to the very last.Xander said:
Edit: after checking notes.
