Ive just bottled my pilsner grains beer. This beer fermenate for 2 weeks with 1.5OZ of oven toasted oaks from day 1. I tasted my beer to try and feel the oak taste, And i was surprised to find out that not even a slight taste of oak appear in the beer. I can fill the taste of the hops stronger than the oaks and i dont get what i did wrong. I toasted the oaks 150c for 10 minutes in my oven. I put 2/3 of it in a sanitze bag with a small weight that hold it in the bottom. I put a 1/3 spread on top of the batch floating. It seems that everything was right cant understand why i dont feel oaky taste when drink like wine. Could the bottle conditioning improve it that much?
Was the oak already toasted, and you just toasted a little more. 10 minutes at 105°C/300°F doesn't seem like enough time if the oak was previously untoasted. I've never added oak to a beer, but from what I've read it seems more common to add it when the initial, noticeably active fermentation has subsided. When adding oak, fruit, coconut, whatever, the beer is transferred to another (secondary) vessel. Or, if adding to the primary fermenting bucket/carboy, it's added after the bulk of the initial fermentation is complete. I doubt if time in the bottle will enhance the missing oak taste, but I could be wrong. Beyond the disappointment of not tasting oak, do you like the beer?
The only oaking that I've done was using chips from bourbon barrels, and the bourbon was the flavor that I was after, not the oak. Others in this forum who have aged a beer on plain oak will chime in here, and it will likely be useful for them to know if what you used was fresh oak or already toasted oak per what @riptorn asked above, and whether it was chips, cubes or some other form. Can we have a little more information? Also, here is a link to a search of this forum that asked for 'oak' in the thread's title, so some of these threads might give you some direction if you don't mind reading some old threads. https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/search/118811262/?q=oak&o=date&c[title_only]=1&c[node]=8
I’ve only added oak to beers when moving into secondary fermentation. So as stated in prior comments the beer was done fermenting. I wonder if the oak flavor and aroma blew out of your airlock during primary. I have used both chips and cubes, both pre toasted, in a variety of beers and been pleased with the results when adding only 1-2 oz to five gallons. I have soaked the oak in either bourbon or wine before adding and managed to get both the oak flavor and the soaked flavor to come through.
when i use oak, i make my own toasted oak sticks. if you started with dryed oak and toasted for 10 minuites it is not near long enough. usually 30+ minutes at your temp. different temps yeilds different tastes. when oaking i wait till i transfer the beer to the secondary and keep the oak in for no shorter than 2 weeks, usually 4+ weeks depending on how much oak taste i want. if you wee using prepared oak for brewing, i would recomend boiling the oak for 5 minutes to remove excess tannins, pour water down the drain then toss in the oak and taste after 1 week for starters. let it sit longer if you want more taste. depending on your tastes determines the lenght of time the beer sits on the oak. some breweries let their imperial stouts oak for a year or more. good luck
Personally, I like the less for longer is more approach to oak. I like to use medium or heavy toast American oak spirals from my LHBS and treat them as follows: Using work gloves, break the spirals into 1/3s. Place in a pot with cold water to more far more than cover, bring to a boil, boil for 10 minutes. Remove from pot, and place in three separate pint mason jars, 2/3 per jar, and fill with cheap but drinkable bourbon (I like Evan Williams black). Leave for at least a month, and let sit around until you use it. The remaining liquor can be used for cocktails, or beertails, or drank on the rocks, but after trying that out, you'll be glad you didn't add it to your beer. I've found that this gives me a wide leeway for timing on packaging, and the amount of oak I want, depending on time spent in secondary. As little as 2 weeks for a lighter beer, or up to a year on a more powerful beer. Of course, the bigger beers I've left in secondary for that long benefited from a bit of controlled oxidation, and I kept airlocks full. I've used other (pricier) whiskeys in this manner for special beers, but I kinda feel it doesn't matter so much. You get out of the wood what you want out of the wood, and if you want the flavor of a particular spirit in the finished beer, you should add that spirit at packaging, to taste. If you want a different wood character, get different wood. There's actually a wide variety available online if you do research. You'll have to do a lot of trial and error. If you're trying to emulate a particular beer aged in a certain barrel, look into what that barrel might have gone through before it ended up at the brewery. (Hint: that barrel, unless it was a bourbon barrel, was most likely spent before they filled it with beer, and the wood character is probably negligible, (i.e. most wine and non-bourbon or American rye spirit barrels, feel free to just add whatever at packaging to taste). I'm more than likely wrong about a lot of this, and might play around with it a bit, as I was able to get a bottle of decent navy-proof rum and apple brandy at cost from a bar that went out of business recently. But, I feel like I'm on the correct tract, so far as homebrewing is concerned.
Rum at least 114 proof. Enough that after you mix it with lime juice, a bit of sugar, and a touch of water, it won't go bad on a ship at sea for a few months, and you can dole out grog to the sailors to keep them just tipsy enough to be happy and not dealing with scurvy at a cup (2 gills) a day, and not have them falling off the ship if they stretch the ration throughout the day. Those that can't stretch it out make themselves known really quickly.
It definitely would, but I think 151 is technically overproof rum. The rum dudes have a lot of designations.
