I have done some oak aging with oak chips in dark beers of mine with some favorable results. Lately, I have noticed that many of the stores around me are selling Jack Daniels wood smoking chips. The bags say that the chips are from oak barrels that have been used for aging at the Jack Daniels Distillery. I was wondering if anyone had tried using these chips to oak age homebrew and what the results were.
I haven't tried it, but I suppose with a quick cleaning / sanitizing routine they should be OK. I usually find that I need a bit of extra bourbon in there besides the chips to get enough flavor.
I use these chips but I soak them in bourbon for 4-8 weeks before adding the chips and the bourbon to a 5-gallon batch. (Or a half batch if I want to bottle half of the base beer first w/o the chips & bourbon. I fill a pint glass with the chips and then add the bourbon to cover the chips. So depending on whether I add this mixture to full or half batch determines how much flavor I get. The bourbon dominates the oak, so if you try this then you may want to add the chips w/o the bourbon. (The bourbon is usually 8-10 ounces of liquid that fits into the pint glass.) This process does not produce a comparable to a BCBS or KBS , but it satisfies me for the flavor that I get.
