Using oak chips/cubes...

Only you will know whether the 4-6 weeks second soaking is the proper length of time. Let us know how it turns out.

Your Impy Stout plan with coconut and chocolate coffee sounds good too. I hope you get a finished flavor that is as good as what it sounds. Again, let us know how it turns out, and be prepared to share that recipe if it's a 'keeper.'

 

I plan on doing the exact same thing (rasberry Lambic w oak cubes medium toast). Please let me know your plan/how it turns out..

 

Every where i hear say to soak no more than 3 weeks. I plan to do soak in a wine bottle, would you still recommend several months?

 

I read no less than 3 months for wine on wood. I'm thinking about aging my imperial stout on medium toast oak cubes and can't decide how long to go either... taste tests every week I guess.

 

Dealing with wood, is pretty much all to your taste, and includes a random "done" time.

I've since moved to dealing with barrels, and really like the smaller 5-10 gallon spirit barrels. I get way more out of them than the cubes, literally, and figuratively!

Cubes work good though, if you can't find a barrel. I think using them in sours in small amounts, works out well, as making a whole "new" barrel sour just sucks when you can run a few beers through them.

I've done 2-3 months on cubes, and have recently done a big stout that taste really like BCBS, that took only 1 month in a small barrel.

The crap from the cubes however, I will never just dump in the beer without tasting it. Usually it's not what you are going for when you want to imitate a barrel aged beer.

 

explain how wineries or distilleries flavour their products? Like, Pappy van Winkel comes in different ages. that's all aged on wood. Wine? aged for months, if not years. Lambics? 3-4 years. Rum? up to 20 years.
not sure what you're reading.

 

The surface area:liquid ratio on cubes (and especially chips) is much different than that of a barrel.

 

Wouldn't the char on the inside of the barrel tend to isolate the beer/wine/spirits from direct contact with the wood? Maybe that creates a process-lengthening to cause the need for additional barrel time. Just a guess.

 

The real answer was provided by @thewrongone above: it is a surface area issue.

If you homebrew with cubes/chips the needed contact time is much less because the cubes/chips provide a much larger surface area.

If homebrewers want to use barrels then smaller barrels (e.g., 5 gallons) require less time then lager barrels (e.g., 55 gallons) due to the same surface area issue.

I have never read or heard that the charring aspect effects contact time.

Cheers!

 

I have used oak cubes of all kinds and toast levels over the past few years and have found that less is more and more time is better on the home brew scale. That is, less actual oak in the beer and more time soaking the oak in wine and spirits before use. I keep mason jars full of oak cubes soaking in bourbon for a few months before using them to extract the harsh tannins and to sterilize them deep into the wood. If using wine, fill the jar up near the lip to reduce head space. Acetobacter loves to turn the wine into vinegar! Contact time with the beer depends on the desired effect, but within a month I typically notice significant change with aged oak. New oak is noticeable almost overnight and should be avoided.

 

Re-using oak barrels happens all the time, so I don't know why one wouldn't reuse cubes as long as sanitation was done right. Barrels that age Bourbon County Brand Stout are subsequently used for the Bourbon County Barleywine at Goose Island. Sour beer brewers definitely reuse oak barrels that produce good beer. In fact, Russian River used to distribute chunks of their used oak barrels to homebrewers to innoculate beer with their wild microbes. I think that a good rinse, boil, and re-soak would do the cubes some good as long as it you only do it once or twice to avoid the chance of unwanted things like wild yeast and bacteria (if you don't want those in your beer!).

 

the amount of char apparently does affect surface contact. think it's like 6 months for heavy char. but is anyone really using heavy char?

 

I really don't know. I have homebrewed with what was classified as medium toast. You have more knowledge here than I do.

Cheers!

 

I think it's probably that you need to look at this comparison on the basis of gallons of beer per total surface area. A 50-gallon barrel vs. some oak cubes in 5 gallons may allow more surface space to the 5 gallons.

 

It is surface area to beer quantity that makes the difference. A typical homebrew amount is 5 gallons. A typical barrel is 55 gallons.

Cheers!

 

What you are doing sounds interesting. I have only used chips, and they are limited. They impart a 1-dimension flavor and they tend to release this flavor pretty quickly. Toasted cubes are supposedly better because over time you get flavor from both the toasted exterior and the less toasted interior of the cubes. Listen to the brewing network podcast by Shea Comfort for an interesting discussion of oak - http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The-Sunday-Session/The-Sunday-Session-11-23-08-Shea-Comfort. The oak part occurs in the second half of the shoe, IIRC. It's an old show, but it is still some of the best info on oaking that I have seen or heard (not that I ever really put it to use).