Brewing with Bourbon barrel Wood

[iguenard]

Hey all, this is my first post in the rather slow Homebrewing section.

Just wanted to talk a bit about the alternatives to barrel aging your brews. I am working on trying to get a few KY bourbon barrels for my home brewing, but in the meanwhile I have been experimenting with some Jack Daniel's Tennesee Bourbon barrel chips you can get in the States.

I got mine in a 1kg bag from the Gander outdoors store for roughly 8$.

Granted, these chips are supposed to be tossed in a BBQ to give that bourbon aroma to your BBQ food, but why not use these for brewing?

I cleaned the chips over some warm water, and have tossed roughly 30g of chips in a mason jar filled with my own Imperial Chocolate Stout, post-fermentation, and stored the test jar in my fridge.

After a single day the Bourbon Whisky aroma really settled in to my brew, and after 5 days, it is starting to meld together gracefully.

This thing is tasting like a mix between a Sam Adams Triple Bock and a Victory Storm King. I am VERY proud... but I dont wanna screw it up this far in the process.

One thing though, is at 82 IBU, my stout was pretty bitter, but the acidic quality really kicks with the Bourbon chips after 5 days. Is this going to get any stronger? If so, I'll want to age it on the wood for no more then 4 days in my cold room.

I'll probably pitch some of 500g of these chips into my secondary tomorrow. Thing is I dont know how long to keep it in there to avoid getting too much acid in the stout.

Thanks in advance, and let me know if anyone here is a home brewer from the Ottawa regions.

Cheers!

[grub]

i haven't used those chips in particular, but here's what i know about oak.

chips are pretty common. they have a very high surface-to-volume ratio (much higher than using an actual barrel), so it doesn't take much contact time for their effect to be seen in the beer. as a result, it's very easy to over-oak. checking them very regularly is important.

you can also get oak cubes (a little less than 1cm x 1cm x 1cm usually). these give you a little lower surface to volume, more comparable to a barrel. as a result you can leave them longer and they tend to be a little smoother than the chips.

you can also get things like rods and such for a slightly lower surface to volume ratio.

using an actual barrel can be tricky. generally barrels will be in the 55 gallon size (220ish litres). they need to be kept full and topped up periodically. smaller barrels are also available, but similar to chips you get a much higher surface to volume ratio than with a full barrel, so you need to monitor them regularly to insure you don't over oak them. there's also maintenance involved in keeping and using a real barrel that you can avoid with cubes since barrels are reused and cubes and such are generally single use.

once you decide on the shape of your oak, you need to decide what type of oak. the big three are american, french, and hungarian. french is really nice, smooth and less tannic. american tends to be very assertive and a bit more "rough". i believe hungarian is somewhere in between.

after that, the question is toast. medium, medium plus, and dark are typical.

so you've chosen your origin, shape, and toast. then you can decide if you want any additional flavour. raw oak will impart vanilla and tannin and a nice raw oak character. you can soak your oak in just about anything - bourbon, rum, port, sherry, or anything else. the higher the surface area (chips) will absorb the flavours much faster than the lower surface area (cube/rod). some folks will just have jars of chips aging from months to years in various liquids.

i've read from various people that on a homebrewing scale the cubes are the best bet. the chips can be unpredictable and it's easy to leave them for too long, overpowering the base beer. things move a little slower with the cubes, so it's easier to control. with extended contact time the chips can also get pretty tannic whereas the cubes don't.

i've used medium toast french oak cubes a few times. we've used the plain cubes in a wee heavy and a brown ale, merlot soaked cubes in a sweet stout, port soaked cubes in a porter and bourbon soaked cubes in a brown ale. in each case the cubes were soaked in the liquid for a relatively short period of time (a few weeks) before adding to the beer, and as a result they didn't pick up very much of the liquid character. an ounce or two works great.

in the future i'd like to soak some cubes for at least several months. i'm planning to pick up a pound of medium toast french oak the next time i'm at a homebrew shop and split them into a few different mason jars so i've got some whenver i need it.

i'd say that 500g is a LOT for a single 5gal/20l batch. i'd probably go more like 1-2oz (28-56g?) and monitor it at least every few days. you can always add more later if you need to, but you can't take it back if it's a tannic vanilla bourbon bomb after only a few days.

hope that helps. let me know if you have any other questions.

[tuqueboy]

Just a quick addition to Grub's thorough explanation of oak. You may also have some luck finding Canadian oak, perhaps through some of the barrel makers in the Niagara region. You can always try calling a winery or two and see if they'll part with one of theirs, or at least tell you your source. The Canadian oak is most similar in character to the French, rather than the American. The French and Canadian are from cooler climates, and thus tend to be slower-growing trees, therefore the wood has a tighter grain. The American, on the other hand, is grown in a warmer climate, therefore it grows more quickly and doesn't have as fine a grain. That makes the wood much more assertive a flavour.
Cheers,
tuqueboy

[The_Jester]

The Jan/Feb '08 issue of Brew Your Own magazine has some stuff about brewing with barrels and wood chips. If you can't find the magazine, you may still be able to find the articles on their website - www.byo.com.

[iguenard]

Thanks for the kind responses, I've went and pitched way to much oak from what you've told me, but I'll let you know the results in 2 weeks when I bottle.

Thanks!!

[grub]

Thanks for the kind responses, I've went and pitched way to much oak from what you've told me, but I'll let you know the results in 2 weeks when I bottle.

it'd be a good idea to check on it every few days, more often if you feel it's close to the level you wanted. you can always transfer off the oak early, but you can't easily go back once it's too far.

[iguenard]

UPDATE: So I ended up going with my gut feeling, and pitched my fully-fermented 20L of Chocolate Imperial Stout into 2 10L glass carboys with different bourbon-oak chip quantities.

- 333g of Jack Daniel's Bourbon Oak Chips in the first
- 666g of devilishly good JD's Bourbon Oak chips in the second.


The reason I went over the top vs your suggestions is that these chips are old and used, and the quantity of tannins it brings to the beer is a lot less then new oak chips. So using 50g in 10L, I didnt think it would have changed much to the taste of the Impy stout... especially at 85 IBUs.

So we bottled last weekend, and I was pleseantly surprised, yet I have to say you were right in the sense that I pitched too much.

Pleasantly surprised because it holds up to the stout, and is not overpowering. At 333g, the Jack taste is strong, yet the oak is just a slight enhancement to the flavour. The Jack will probably diminish and even out in a few months time.

At 666g, the oak tannins kick in, and the Jack less so (opposite to what I would have thought). The vanilla flavours are imparted and really seem to spruce up the chocolate of the Impy Stout.

Bottom line... its going to be freaking tough to watch this one mature in the old cold room before drinking more of it. I bottled in 250ml bottles to speed up maturation, and ... well you can only drink so much bourbon barrel beer in an evening. It is a sipper, not a refreshment.

Anyways, I'll let you all know in may if it is as good as I think it is. I'm going to enter this one in some competitions. I think it is worthy. The people that helped me bottle this baby had an early taste, and all thought it was amazing.

Cheers!

[grub]

glad to hear it turned out well. if you need further evaluation, send a couple my way

one point to consider is that even if the chips are "old and used", you can usually just leave them to soak longer until you reach the level you want (and if it doesn't get there, add more). as i mentioned, it's easier to give it more time or add more chips than it is to undo things if you over-oak it. i'd especially advocate this if it's a product you've never used.