I was thinking or trying to lightly spice one of my amber ales with bourbon. My impression about how to go about this is to soak some cubes of white oak in bourbon for a few days and then drop these in the ferementer for the secondary ferment. Any advice on this?
If your goal is to flavor the beer with bourbon then why not just add bourbon to the beer, why bother with the oak cubes?
I tried that once and it did not come out well at all. I have seen several posts about first infusing oak cubes with bourbon to provide the same effect as an oak cask. I get how to infuse the oak with bourbon but not how many cubes to toss into the beer and for how long.
Certainly doable. It's a tough one though. It's a fine line between an aged in bourbon barrel flavor and a hot alcohol mess. An amber leave very little wiggle room. If you do it, use oak cubes, soak in bourbon, toss the bourbon and put the oak cubes into the secondary let them sit in secondary for a week then package when you think the taste is where you want it. I'd use only a 1/2 oz of oak which looks like nothing but for a 5 gallon batch will impart a good amount of oak flavor as well as the bourbon absorbed into it.
Sounds like a plan. That would be about 2-3 3/4 " cubes then. I'll give it a try, I want a very light bourbon flavor. You were exactly right about my first attempt. I could have just dumped Everclear in and had the same result.
Just buy bourbon barrel chips, soak in bourbon to sanitize and add them to your beer, aging until it hits the right amount of flavor and pull out. Use an oz at most, so you have a longer incubation period and less of a chance of over oaking. I've done RIS that I've put on chips for 24 hrs and pulled, so don't be afraid to remove the chips when it hits the sweet spot. FYI cubes will take longer to impart flavor and also to soak up any bourbon.
I love the idea of oak sock in bourbon, that's something i am gonna try some time. From testing with oak chips few times, i am certain it will intensify flavors, the bourbon will sanitize the chips and will add the aging effects too. if you can please write your recipe and the result too. thanks
I would be careful trying to BB an amber. IMO, the flavors or bourbon do not do well with high hopping rates. If your amber is the more malt forward types, then give it a try. If it's more hoppy, then I personally wouldn't. In any case, it might be worth while to rack a gallon off after primary is done, try oak / bourbon-ing, and see how it goes before trying a full sized batch. IMO, a brown ale would go better with the bourbon than an amber.
I think that there might be a symbiotic relationship with oak and bourbon, but basically I do agree with you. I did an experiment where I soaked an oz of oak chips in bourbon for two months. I then put them in a corney with some of the bourbon that the chips were soaking in. I let that sit for a month and I got a ice oak flavor. In fact I left them in the corney and added in straight fresh bourbon to taste. I'm not sure if this is the best method, but while I was more lengthy in time it seemed more controllable. Basically I'm thinking that a small amount of actual oak flavor makes you think bourbon and the actual bourbon confirms that. With this combination you might be adding less strong alcohol.
I recently did a breakfast stout, that I put on coffee/cocoa nibs/bourbon barrel chips soaked in bourbon. I get the vanilla flavor with the wood, and then the bourbon. I got more oak flavor than bourbon, so I added another 3 oz to the keg and mixed it in. Taste about right. Ended up being close to 8 oz of bourbon, plus around another 2 I soaked the coffee beans and cocoa nibs in for a 5 gal batch. I wanted a bit more bourbon flavor in there, and it's really mellow.
I agree about the risk in the hops and not mixing with oka and bourbon very well. The recipe I am trying it with I cut the hops used in half from what the recipe usually uses. I like the suggestion to pull of a gallon and use that separately rather than potentially destroy the whole batch. I've been setting up for kegging and have 15 corny kegs I got from a restaurant going out of business (only paid $200 for 15 kegs, an ice block and two CO2 regulators), I'll split the batch in secondary between two of these kegs.
