Guys I’m brewing a Scottish Ale- 10 Gal. I’ll keg 5 gal as is and I want to age the other 5 gal with some oak chips I’ve never done that before. I’ve have 4oz of chips and I am looking for the taste to be slightly noticeable but not overpowering What do you think of soaking 1 oz in vodka for 10 days and adding it to the before before bottling or keying? Any guidance and advises are welcome Cheers Matt
Boil them in water first, this pulls out some of the harshness from oak. Then let them dry. Then soak in your spirit. Vodka would not be my first choice though, unless you want no other flavor besides oak. I would go with bourbon, that is the norm. Then add the oak to your beer, but not the vodka (or whatever spirit you use). People are going to tell you oak cubes are better, and they’re right. But don’t let that hold you back from trying the chips for yourself. Good luck!
Also, you’ll want to leave oak in for a couple weeks. Keep trying it till it’s where you want, and then keg/bottle.
I just did my first oaked beer as well, I used a presoak in alcohol to pull out the tannins and then soaked in whiskey. Mine was for a porter and I used spirals so a little bit different. But I digress, your question. I took the approach of putting more in and taking them out early so that the oak flavor wasn't exhausted from the addition. What is the toast level of the chips that you are using and what type of oak (American, French, Etc) is it? These will all work differently and some are more aggressive than others, I think that this will play into recommendations. Chips will pull out flavor quickly, so I'm not sure if there is a benefit to aging really long. Do you plan to pull the chips out at all? If so you want go a little stronger than you want because it will mellow. If you over oak, just let it age a bit longer, that was my thought process. Maybe over simplified, but it worked for me.
I have not had the best of luck with using wood chips, so I'm not going to give advice. However, your question comes up frequently so here is a link to a search that I did of this forum on this topic so that you can get many opinions. https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...q=wood+chips&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=8 Happy reading.
Why Vodka? Do you just want a blast of heat? Since it's a Scottish Ale. Why not something in that theme?
Lot of good advice but I'll add I would go with 2 oz tops for 5 gallons and carefully (sanitary manner) sample every 2-3 days. Oak chips extract quickly. This is in light of your desire to have a subtle taste. I've had beers over-oaked in a short period of time by failing to sample frequently with chips.
