Bourbon Oak Chips

[Ben-Harrison]

Hi Guys looking to add some bourbon oak chips to my stout kit or maybe my festival old suffolk strong ale, when is best to add these chips during fermentation and also how much do I use?

These are fine oak chips no bigger than a cornflake if that helps.

Thanks
Ben

 

[Redsnapper]

Hi,I recently made a Youngs American Oaked Rum Ale kit which turned out really well.It included oak chips which were much smaller than you mention,these are added to the dissolved malt extract prior to pitching.I used a muslin bag which fits over the end of my syphon to keep this out of my beer when racking to a second F.V. It came from a Festival kit but I just boil them and use each time I am racking as it helps to keep any hops out too.You will have one from your Old Suffolk Strong Ale kit.So don't throw it away,a really useful bit of kit.Haven't used it for dry hopping with a weight yet, but I bet it would work well for that as well.Hope my tuppence worth helps.My next is gonna be a Suffolk Strong Ale, a crackin pint!!:-P

 

[DoctorMick]

The when will depend on how strong you want the oak flavour to be, the longer it's in contact the stronger the flavour I believe. Putting them in at the start of fermenting should be fine tho, as mentioned that's what the Youngs kit instructs. As for quantities, I've been trying to find that out myself so I'd be interested to find out.

 

[Redsnapper]

I keep a brew diary but haven't taken a note of the quantity of oak chips that came with the Youngs kit :hmm:.But around 100g seems to ring a bell, but I can't be sure.Also to stick with your analogy they were about rice krispy sized.So maybe scrunch yours up a bit to give more surface area.I suppose it's trial and error depending on how strongly flavoured they are.Be interested to see how it turns out!!!
Cheers.

 

[Ben-Harrison]

I keep a brew diary but haven't taken a note of the quantity of oak chips that came with the Youngs kit :hmm:.But around 100g seems to ring a bell, but I can't be sure.Also to stick with your analogy they were about rice krispy sized.So maybe scrunch yours up a bit to give more surface area.I suppose it's trial and error depending on how strongly flavoured they are.Be interested to see how it turns out!!!
Cheers.

Cheers guys, so I started off the strong ale last night. I think I might put one of my sons big marbles into the mesh bag when dry hopping (after 5 days) and also include 100g of bourbon chips to the hop pellets in the same mesh bag.

Do you think this might help?

Thanks
Ben

 

[568ml]

Oh here is a dumb question, what kinda flavour would this give? I like whiskey and wonder what it would do to an IPA.

 

[Redsnapper]

Hi fella's,I think this will work fine and should impart a nice oak hint to this beer.The Old Suffolk is one of my favourite brews and the addition of "oak" would be interesting.I tend to dry hop mine by adding the hop pellets after about nine days as I don't like my beer too hoppy.The advantage of this is by then there should be a reasonable level of alcohol in your F.V. this environment lessening the chance of infection by introducing hops and oak chips.So I just chuck in the hop pellets on day nine and leave for five days till it's been going a fortnight.I don't see a problem with just chucking in your oak chips then,not in a bag just chuck em in and they will sink to the bottom.I make a habit of not poking my beers about, just leave it apart from dry hopping.As long as you rack the beer to a secondary using a syphon bag (provided) it should work out ok.The bag is designed to fit over your syphon to stop hops and dead yeast getting in to the secondary. Then I would leave it in the secondary for another week for any leftover yeast etc to drop out and you should have a nice clear beer for bottling etc after say 21 days.:thumb:
I hope this is useful,really keen to hear how it goes?