oak aging

[Thomas]

Im interested in aging half of my Simco double IPA on some oak to give it a more complex flavor. Can anyone with more experience them me give me some pointers? i.e. when to oak (secondary vs. keg), how much oak (cubes vs. staves) how to prepare the oak .  .  .

[Richard]

+1

Planning a Triple-IPA w/Oak.

[TomFogarty]

One thing to remember about oak ageing is that (depending on the length of time you intend to age) it's more about surface area of the wood itself. If you were to use chips as opposed to cubes, you will need far less given that they have a much greater surface area.

Also, it takes some time for the liquid to be absorbed by the wood. Chips will become saturated quite readily (jumping back to the surface area:volume ratio); whereas, cubes will take much longer. They tend to float on the surface of the beer for up to several weeks, in my experience, and don't offer much character. I think it may be better, both for the sake of the tannins and obtaining a greater flavour, to boil cubes for about 10 minutes before adding to the beer. This will allow for extraction of harsh tannins ans absorption of the liquid into the pores of the wood, and in turn lead to a greater pressure acting upon them in the end (given by rho*g*h). This head pressure will ultimately help leech out the sugars that would otherwise be untouched if not left for months.

That having been said, I've noticed much better results when using oak that has been soaked in whiskey as the flavours tend to mellow and not overpower anything in the beer. I imagine that is what you'd be trying to accomplish when oaking an IPA.

I have some American white oak sticks that I cut and charred, if you'd like some to play around with. They are fresh and would require either the boil or a good soak in whiskey or vodka for about 2-3 weeks, but they certainly offer a good flavour! PM me if you're interested.

[TomFogarty]

Also, I've always oaked in the secondary. Although, primary would probably be okay too; the yeasties seem to enjoy having a "staging area" from what I've heard. Of course, you'd know more about that than me.

Haven't had any experience with oaking in a keg but I'm sure it would be okay. Oak flavour isn't exactly finicky. It's relatively easy to get, and doesn't go away. My only concern with oaking in a keg is that it would be difficult to remove it after and you'd have a greater chance of over oaking.

[Dave Savoie]

American oak I believe give hints of Vanilla YUM

[TomFogarty]

American white does give hints of vanilla; I find it offers a sweeter, lighter character including nicely balanced caramelized sugars, vanillin, and tannin.  

The medium toast French oak gives a very rich flavour of vanilla and hints of caramel. It can be quite overpowering (mostly in tannin) if not used in moderation so I'd suggest adding it in small amounts. It's easy to add more, but once you overuse it there's no going back.

Hungarian oak cubes are much mellower, the darker toasted ones have char and coffee like flavours.

Sorry for the long winded posts, I've just made a point to learn and experiment as much as possible with this sort of thing. Still have lots to learn though, I'd love to hear other people's two cents worth

[brew]

My attempts at oaking are limited, and I've yet to make an IPA - with Wine chips (like from Wine Kitz) I haven't had very good luck and they tend to be expensive (relatively speaking). I know that you can get 1" White Pine boards from Eaglewood (North side). These can be sawed into 1/2" to 1" thick sticks, maybe 4-6" long. I've charred them on my barbeque with a torch (hotter the better) and then used those to age Wine with... I've had much better luck with those.

I've played with toasting to different levels. There is quite an art to it apparently. Here is a graph of what different levels of "toast" are supposed to taste like:

[attachment=0:17x57qvi]oak_aromatoast.gif[/attachment:17x57qvi]

Originally from http://www.worldcooperage.com

I haven't really had a chance to become good at this, but you can see why barrel making is a whole industry of its own. If you're a newbie like me, then for my money, char it good with a torch so it has an nice alligator look to it and you can't go wrong - makes a good place to start at least...

Couple of suggestions:
- Chips cook through real fast - if there's no actual wood in the middle of the chip / stick, toss it.
- Use White Oak - its hard to find around here as it doesn't grow in NB naturally. Anybody who knows of an actual white oak tree around here, I'd be interested... (to start with, they have rounded leaves, not pointy like a Red Oak, which we have everywhere). Red Oak is a bit nasty - you won't mistake it... there's a whole description of pore size, etc... as to why this is...

I wonder if a regular pale ale (maybe munich based) might be a good candidate for oaking? Or maybe should do that with something darker...

[TomFogarty]

Pale ale is awesome when oaked, it's what I used when I aged my beer in the whiskey cask. I've got another batch of pale ale sitting on some of my oak right now, I used a bit of peated malt in the recipe as well just for a bit more smokey flavour.
You're welcome to try some if you want to get a feel for how it tastes!

[brew]

Heh heh - would love to try some! I've been curious about the peated malt as well...  I'll be at the meeting this Sat...

[TomFogarty]

I'll be heading back to Moncton for my March break Saturday afternoon so I don't think I'll be able to make it to the meeting. Worst case scenario I'll bring you some on St. Patty's day.

The batch with peated malt won't be done ageing for another few weeks so it'll be a month at the earliest before it's ready to drink. I've got some of the whiskey cask ale left though, I'll pack some up

[brew]

Good man! Much thanks - the MashOccur will be a good opportunity to try it out!