Just wondering if anyone out there has had any success with a lower gravity (1.050 OG or less) wood aged beer. I'm considering pulling a gallon from an American Amber that I recently brewed and aging it on oak cubes. OG is 1.048. If anyone has done this successfully, I'd love to hear what you did (cubes vs. chips, length of time on wood, etc.). Thanks!
A couple years ago I brewed an Oaked Mild. Damn good beer. 5 gal. batch. OG 1.034, 3 oz. medium toast cubes in the keg for ~ 2 months. Can you purge your secondary with CO2?
Very cool! I am able to purge with CO2 and most certainly will. Don't want to give this baby a chance to oxidize. How did you sanitize your cubes? Did you use any spirits?
No spirits. I didn't want any bourbon/whiskey flavors in the finished beer. Instead, I just steamed them for a few minutes, bagged them, and threw them in the keg. In hindsight, I probably could have soaked them in vodka. That would have killed off any undesirables without adding much additional flavor to the beer.
I've oaked a <1.050 helles a couple times. Since the style is so delicate, and I didn't want to over-oak, I put a spiral in the keg and pulled a sample every day until it was just where I wanted it. I think it only took about 3-4 days with the helles but YMMV with an amber. I would think 1-2 weeks with this method would be good.
