Advice on using JD oak chips. How long to condition?

How long will the oak chips be in the beer and how many oz of chips will you be adding?

 

I suggest soaking your oak chips in bourbon (I go around 4 oz oak cubes in a pint mason jar filled to the brim with bourbon...you'll also have to top off the tincture once the oak soaks up some of the bourbon) for a month or so and then adding this into the secondary. I add the entire tincture of oak and bourbon into the secondary and let it ride for around 2 weeks-month, depending on how much oak you want, at that point and then I keg. You can drink the beer while its young, but the oak will mellow and integrate better with age as well.

I've actually stopped "oaking" entire batches and just add drops of a bourbon oak tincture to individual pints to taste...it takes me too long to finish an oaked batch by itself, so this way I have my options. I do the same thing for other beers like sours, stouts or even IPAs and add red or white wine or rum soaked oaked tincture, peanut butter tincture, Mexican Cake tincture, hazelnut tincture, habanero tincture, etc.

 

I made a winter warmer last year for Christmas. I did about a handful of JD chips soaked in a mason jar with additional JD for a week. Then added to the secondary for two weeks. Bottled around Dec 1 and drank over the holidays. I would say the oak was a little overwhelming at the time. (We did a family homebrew competition with winter warmer being the "style" and had blind tastings. Most who didn't know that there was oak chips in there, didn't care for it. They changed their tune a little after we told them).

I still have some left, so will likely give one a taste this weekend now that its been cellared a little under a year.

I'd go with something like Dr.Mindbender mentions. Oak a portion of your batch. Have some without and some with. Then taste the oaked ones every so often and see how long it gets to be what you like. This way if the oak is too strong you have some un-oaked to share around the holidays.

In hindsight, I would have done this with my batch and probably used the un-oaked version as my official submission.

(This year's competition is Specialty IPA, and I wont be using oak).

 

With chips you need to be careful not to use too much or have too much contact time. With all the surface area you get BIG OAK QUICK. I prefer 5 gallon barrels, then oak cubes and then spirals or chips.

This is what I do when using chips, spirals, staves or cubes:

1) Soak oak in a cheap whiskey for about a week and then discard the cheap schwill whiskey (This will remove some harsh tanin) then use some good whiskey and soak for another 2-3 weeks.

2) Empty the entire contents into your beer.

3) Wait 2 weeks, try a sample and age for additional time tasting every few days until you get the flavor you want out of it.

4) Make sure and bottle or keg condition for a bit longer than regular as well. I find that beer matured on oak needs a bit of time in bottle or keg to reach its potential.

Another helpful hint- LESS IS MORE. You can always age a bit longer on less oak and get a good oak character- if you add too much oak you cannot remove that flavor if it gets overdone.

Another way to do it is to oak 1/2 of your beer and blend later to your liking.

Another method of leeching tanins from the oak prior to soaking/utilizing them is to simmer them in a bit of water for a few hours. It is faster than waiting a few weeks; I'm not sure which way I prefer- I've leeched with spirit more often, but recently I am liking the ease of simmering the tanin out.

 

I agree with the BIG OAK part. My method has been to fill a pint glass with the chips, then add the bourbon. In the past I've allowed this mixture to sit at room temp anywhere from 4 to 6 weeks with plastic wrap covering the glass except for a small opening to allow condensation to escape rather than sticking to the underside of the plastic wrap. In the meantime, I've brewed my beer and finished primary fermentation. I then add the liquid into the bottling bucket. When I use this procedure again, I think I'll allow the chips to be in the bourbon for only two weeks to see what effect the shorter time period will have for providing oak flavor.

 

I would recommend doing a first/short period soak and tossing the liquid; then soaking again and using both liquid and oak. Take samples and let it get to where you want it.

You'll get a more rounded/less harsh oak flavor by removing some of the tanins- this allows for a better balance of lignins/vanillins, hemicellulose/wood sugars, oak lactones and tanin.

I think you will like the results better from this method. And you would enjoy the results from using a 5 gallon or larger barrel much more. You just cant get the same flavors and mouth-feel out of chips/spirals/cubes/staves as you can from an actual barrel aging. Bigger barrels are better, less surface area of beer/wood in contact with each other allowing desirable reactions to occur over longer periods of time resulting in a much greater finished flavor and end product..