Single bottle barrel aging?

I would think that leaving for a few months, you have a chance of over oaking it. You can get a noticeable oak flavor from an ounce of cubes (maybe 20 cubes or so) in a 5 gallon batch for a few weeks.

 

that might be interesting to try until you think it is carbonated maybe 2 wks or have a few bottles and open one every week up to 6 weeks?

 

I would recommend taking about a gallon of the beer and putting it in a secondary (1 gallon glass jug) with a small amount of oak in it and take a tiny taste every day or two until it hits where you want it then bottle it like the rest of the batch.

Edit: Let it sit a few days before the first taste and judge from there... dont want to be oxidizing the beer too much.

 

Yeah if you are planning on holding on to bottles I agree -I did a split batch about 3 gallons each of barleywine and after 3 weeks it was nearing the too oaky realm. A 1 gallon portion with an ounce would probably get there quicker. I used 3 oz in a 3 gallon split.

 

TheMadFermentationist did something similar adding one bourbon soaked oak cube to a 12 ounce bottle of beer. The tasting notes articule said it aged for 7 months. The review said the oak really came through, but that one cube in a 12oz bottle was too much. Since the beer in question was a HotD Dave clone, the tannins helped tame some of the sweetness. (http://www.themadfermentationist.com/search?q=oak+cube).

I say go for it (in a 750ml bottle).

 

I've added cubes to bottles many times. Just try it out on a commercial beer first, if you're worried. To me, 1 cube in a 750 will be fine. You may want 2. I've added as many as 4 to a bottle of Stone IRS, and after a couple weeks it was pretty damn good. I just used straight med toast American oak cubes (no treatment), and it tasted like it was aged in a bourbon barrel. I've also thrown single cubes into homebrews at bottling (12 oz), and 1 cube can be a bit much, but if you store it in the fridge after the conditioning period, it will be pretty mellow.

You can also throw the cubes in boiling water for a minute or two to sanitize and remove tannins.