Adding oak chips to a Black IPA

[Bashley]

Hi all

It's the first time I'll be doing this. The recipe recommends adding oak chips to the 2nd FV for two days.
I have some pre-roasted chips that I purchased from a homebrew shop but I have no idea how to add them. In a hop sock weighed down with marbles? Should I soak them in starsan first? Also, I won't be going to 2nd FV - is that ok? Thanks for any help!

 

[-Bezza-]

Hi all

It's the first time I'll be doing this. The recipe recommends adding oak chips to the 2nd FV for two days.
I have some pre-roasted chips that I purchased from a homebrew shop but I have no idea how to add them. In a hop sock weighed down with marbles? Should I soak them in starsan first? Also, I won't be going to 2nd FV - is that ok? Thanks for any help!

Do you have chunky chips or something more akin to dust? There was a bag of oak dust in the Young's ORA kit I did and the stuff was a bit of a mess - I put it in a bag on the assumption that wood floats so wouldn't clear if just chucked in. Plenty of oak flavour in the final beer. I assumed that the oak was already sterile in the bag (proper sealed jobbie) so didn't do anything further (also being dust, not sure what I could do) - no infection in the beer.

 

[Bashley]

They're small chips - some the width of a matchstick I'd say. Yep, they're in a sealed bag.

 

[-Bezza-]

They're small chips - some the width of a matchstick I'd say. Yep, they're in a sealed bag.

Definitely more substantial than what came in the kit then - what I had was a bag of splinters at best!

You've got me wondering on the sanitising though. On the one hand, oak barrels have been used for years in brewing beer and wine, and I'm not sure how much sanitising will have gone on in the past. On the other hand, wood has loads of opportunities for nasties to lurk about and infect your nice batch of beer.

There are some sanitising tips at the bottom of this page: https://www.homebrewsupply.com/learn/use-oak-chips-homebrewing.html

Personally, toasting in the oven for a bit seem the most appealing to me, possibly having sprayed a few times with a small amount of water - I wouldn't want to soak in Starsan as that would presumably mean throwing away a good amount of the oak flavour...?

 

[Alside101]

Maybe soak in vodka then add the lot. Just a idea tho never done it like

 

[KVSV]

Maybe soak in vodka then add the lot. Just a idea tho never done it like

I came across a link recently (port66?) where they were soaking oak chips in different spirits, reporting good results

aha, here is the link:
http://www.port66.co.uk/pimpmybeer-spirit-additions/

plan to do it myself on one of my next brews

 

[Alside101]

I had planned to do something oaked since my first brew and still ant done it

 

[BeerCat]

Do you have chunky chips or something more akin to dust? There was a bag of oak dust in the Young's ORA kit I did and the stuff was a bit of a mess - I put it in a bag on the assumption that wood floats so wouldn't clear if just chucked in. Plenty of oak flavour in the final beer. I assumed that the oak was already sterile in the bag (proper sealed jobbie) so didn't do anything further (also being dust, not sure what I could do) - no infection in the beer.

As a matter of interest how many grams was the bag? I have used the youngs powder a few times. 10g for a dj full of red wine was lovely but the same added to a RIS has ruined it. Tastes like drinking a liquified table leg.

 

[-Bezza-]

As a matter of interest how many grams was the bag? I have used the youngs powder a few times. 10g for a dj full of red wine was lovely but the same added to a RIS has ruined it. Tastes like drinking a liquified table leg.

I don't know actually. Don't think it said on the pack and I didn't weigh them. The pack was maybe 4 or 5 times the size of the yeast so would have been more than 10g I would have thought. I left them in for 5 days and you can definitely taste the oak quite strongly, although set off by the sweetness of the beer so it's not over-bearing. I need to drink another bottle - I had carbonation issues with the PB so wasn't quite getting the full experience. Have since bottled and carbed again but haven't tasted a new bottle. Some were saying they didn't like it - might be the oakiness, might be the sweetness, might be because of the lack of carbonation.