Oaking a Scotch Ale
I have a Scotch ale in primary right and its about time to rack it to secondary. I haven't taken a gravity reading yet but I estimate it's between 9 and 10%. For the sake of experimentation I'm thinking of splitting up the batch and oaking 2 portions of it. Three gallons will go unoaked and the other two gallons will go into two 1 gallon jugs - one with plain oak and one with scotch or whiskey infused oak.
So my questions to you guys are:
1. What do you think of my idea so far?
2. What kind of oak should I use? I'm thinking French medium toast. From what I understand French oak isn't as assertive as American and the medium toast will provide a vanilla, caramel oakniness.
3. Chips, cubes, spirals, etc? How much and how long? I know my LHBS stocks chips but I'm not sure which varieties. Of course taste is subjective and how much oak presence is of personal preference but I'm just looking for some guidelines.
4. Should I oak at the beginning of secondary or wait until the end when I'm closer to bottling?
FirePitBrew wrote:
1. What do you think of my idea so far?
2. What kind of oak should I use? I'm thinking French medium toast. From what I understand French oak isn't as assertive as American and the medium toast will provide a vanilla, caramel oakniness.
3. Chips, cubes, spirals, etc? How much and how long? I know my LHBS stocks chips but I'm not sure which varieties. Of course taste is subjective and how much oak presence is of personal preference but I'm just looking for some guidelines.
4. Should I oak at the beginning of secondary or wait until the end when I'm closer to bottling?
1. I love the idea
2. American oak seems to have more of a bite, more of a "whiskey harshness", I like the med toast french, I have a stone vertical clone on tap now I oaked with it. Yummy.
3. My best results have come from cubes, however I have an awesome RIS that I used chips on, and I used spirals once, in an old ale that is still conditioning, but early tastes are great. Spirals may be tough, because they are more for bigger batches, but you could always snap off an end of one if that is what is available. How much- I use 2 oz / 5 gallon, and cubes about a month, chips about 10 days, and the spiral was about 3-4 weeks.
What is tricky is you really need to go by taste to know for sure. I would start tasting about halfway till when you think it may be done, and check the intensity. It will mellow maybe 20% or so with aging, so depends on how long you are laying these down for. I usually try to get my intensity, then give it a few more days. It will seem really strong at first, but it will mellow.
4. Sum of all the others.
My experience with the oak is that it is really easy to overdo it. I usually use the spirals and use about 1-1.5 inches per gallon. I let it sit in the secondary for a week and then pull it. I am also doing a Scottish heavy right now right before i started writing this i was wondering if i should rack to secondary tonight or should i let it set for another day or so...... Since I'm wondering i guess I'll wait. Once it goes into secondary I'll put it in with about three inches of Oak on a string and let it set for about a week and then rack to a keg.
Good luck
Irondavy
Went to the brew shop tonight to pick up some stuff the owner had ordered for me and to chat him up about oak and see what he had. He didn't have it in stock so he's going to order me some medium toast French oak and he's going to let me know if he can get cubes or chips. I like the spirals idea but maybe I'll look into those when I'm oaking a entire 5 gallon batch.
How do you guys sanitize your oak?
I love the idea of trying oak a couple different ways.
I think chips would be better because its a little faster, for experimentation purposes. Taste the beer a little after a couple days and see how its progressing to not over oak.
I would just mildly steam your oak in a steamer over water for a 5 minutes or so to try and sanitize it.
I boil it in a cup or 2 of water, and dump everything in the secondary and rack onto it. The oak "liquor" that gets extracted during the boil gets quite stained, so I dont want to lose any of that.
+1 on steam
Thanks for the info guys. I'll keep ya posted once things get rolling.
would soaking the oak in bourbon or whiskey provide enough sanitation?
Grimace wrote:
would soaking the oak in bourbon or whiskey provide enough sanitation?
I was just listening to the Jamil Show on Wood Aged Beers last night and they state that the alcohol content in your average spirit (40%) wasn't strong enough. But how many times have you read a book or recipe that instructs you to soak spices in vodka to sanitize them?
In the podcast they suggested steaming them or adding boiled and cooled (~150 degrees) water to the oak and adding the oak as well as the water to the beer so you don't lose any flavor.