So im making a pumpkin porter, i plan on adding some rum soaked woodchips. When exactly do I do this, and for about how long?
Don't waste time with chips, get cubes instead. Chips will result in beer that tastes like wood once the initial rum flavor fades. Best approach, boil cubes in water to sterilize and extract tannins, add to mason jar full of rum for a week or two, toss out liquid and add cubes to beer. Sticking the cubes in rum off the bat will most likely sanitize them (40% ABV of rum is good enough to kill most bacteria; effect of alcohol at sub 70% on bacteriocidal activity is strain dependent). Edit. How many pumpkin beers did you make? I thought the last thread was about a pumpkin milk stout with cranberries or something.
Put em in the secondary or in the keg. Let them rest for at least 2 weeks before tasting. I tend to age on oak at cellar temperature or lower. I also tend to age the oak on the spirit for a long time before using. (I have ten year old bourbon oak cubes for instance.)
wow. Thats impressive and sounds awesome. Do you notice a difference in a beer with chips that were say, soaked for a year, opposed to chips that have ten years on them???
Cubes and yeah.. I notice that the bourbon flavor becomes less obnoxious, less obvious spirit oriented. Vanilla flavors drop, woody flavors remain, but more the coconut is apparent.
