Oaking a Flanders Red

[Jenno]

Hi All,

So I've had a carboy sitting around for a while that I've had earmarked to start brewing some long term sours in and with my second child due in a few weeks I thought it would be cool to brew a Flanders Red and ferment with the WYeast Roeselare blend and serve up on her first birthday. As it happens a recent BYO issue had style profile from Gordon Strong on Flanders Red with a recipe. All looks good but my question is about oaking, the recipe suggests pitching an oak spiral at the start of fermentation but I'm a little worried this might be too long? To complicate the issue I can't get spirals but can get staves or cubes and I'm thinking that the staves might be a better substitute.

Now my questions are:
1. Is putting the oak in for 12 months too long or would the flavour peak then diminish over that time?
2. Would it be better to use staves or cubes?

Cheers
Jenno

 

[Jenno]

Anybody??

 

[strange-steve]

Jamil recommends oak cubes (28g) added at the beginning of fermentation and left there till bottling time. Personally I would be more conservative with the amount but I don't really like a lot of oak flavour.

 

[Jenno]

Cheers sounds like a good starting point - do you think that would hold if staves were used instead of cubes(have read that having more end grain with cubes might not be the best)