Oak aging?

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WalesAles
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Re: Oak aging?

Post by WalesAles » Thu Jan 09, 2020 8:08 am

Great post Jocky!
Chunks for me then. :D
Going to put them in a `Red Ale`. Brewed this before with 100gr Tomahawk dry hop, `twas BLM.
Brewed also with 50gr Mosaic and 50gr Equanot dry hop, this was more BLM! :D

WA

This tap thing still won`t tork! #-o

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rpruen
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Re: Oak aging?

Post by rpruen » Thu Jan 09, 2020 1:53 pm

Thanks to you both for the tips. I have read those topics and the blog, so hopefully know what to expect.

Hopefully I'll know in a few months time :)

Regards

Richard

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rpruen
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Re: Oak aging?

Post by rpruen » Thu Jan 16, 2020 9:32 pm

Thanks for all the tips.

I have made a barley wine, and dumped it into the barrel while still fermenting. My thoughts on this are that if it works for sherry casks, then its probably good enough for my beer. This will likely be a throw away batch, much as I hate to throw out good booze, experiments must be done.

I will keep you updated with how it goes, and how the contents taste when fermented out. I'm assuming the beer will be predominantly barrel flavoured at this point.

regards

Richard

WalesAles
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Re: Oak aging?

Post by WalesAles » Fri Jan 17, 2020 8:01 am

rpruen wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 9:32 pm

This will likely be a throw away batch, much as I hate to throw out good booze, experiments must be done.
rpruen,
Don`t throw it out! [-X
Bottle some and let it `age` a bit. You might have a nice `Oak Aged Barley Wine` :D .

WA

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rpruen
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Re: Oak aging?

Post by rpruen » Tue Jan 21, 2020 1:22 pm

I had to give it a try, so tapped off about 30ml

Smell: boozy with vanilla notes (interesting as it certainly wouldn't smell like that normally) and a bit of smoke.

Taste: surprisingly sweet, vanilla again, and oak. The sweetness is possibly because it hasn't fermented out yet, but I'm almost sure it sweeter now than when it went into the barrel.

Looks: Pale amber gold (not much change, a bit darker maybe)

Nothing revolting so far, in fact it reminds me of desert wine a bit. The yeast seems to go a lot slower in oak, or it should have fermented out by now.

You might be right, bottling is a possibility, but I'm going to leave it a while longer, if things continue the way they are, I will have one unique barley wine.

Regards

Richard

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rpruen
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Re: Oak aging?

Post by rpruen » Tue Feb 11, 2020 1:21 pm

The result?

Contaminated bottle bombs :( it got way too carbonated, and thick and ropey with the smell of rotting pineapple. Pediococcus infection I suspect.

I'm going to have another go, but without the wooden tap, it's hard to clean and weeps ever so slightly. Possibly where the infection came from.

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Richard

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Cobnut
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Re: Oak aging?

Post by Cobnut » Fri Mar 06, 2020 11:58 am

Does anyone have experience next of using oak smoking “powder” to impart some oak flavour?

I’m brewing an old style Keeping ale (albeit with Kveik yeast. Yeah, go figure!) and I plan to put a portion of it into a demijohn with some of my mixed ferm culture and I fancy a bit of oak character too. I have some oak smoking powder and thought a small quantity of that would give some degree of oak character. As it’s powder it has much more surface area than chips/chunks or a barrel, so I’m thinking for my 5L of beer a mere teaspoon of oak powder should suffice.

Thoughts/opinions?
Fermenting: nowt
Conditioning: English IPA/Bretted English IPA
Drinking: Sunshine Marmalade, Festbier, Helles Bock, Smokey lagery beer, Irish Export StoutCascade APA (homegrown hops), Orval clone, Impy stout, Duvel clone, Conestoga (American Barley wine)
Planning: Dark Mild, Kozel dark (ish), Simmonds Bitter, Bitter, Citra PA and more!

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Re: Oak aging?

Post by steviebobs83 » Fri Mar 06, 2020 12:13 pm

Cobnut wrote:Does anyone have experience next of using oak smoking “powder” to impart some oak flavour?

I’m brewing an old style Keeping ale (albeit with Kveik yeast. Yeah, go figure!) and I plan to put a portion of it into a demijohn with some of my mixed ferm culture and I fancy a bit of oak character too. I have some oak smoking powder and thought a small quantity of that would give some degree of oak character. As it’s powder it has much more surface area than chips/chunks or a barrel, so I’m thinking for my 5L of beer a mere teaspoon of oak powder should suffice.

Thoughts/opinions?
Sounds like it might work but I'd be wary of tiny particles of it being suspended in the beer.

Are you filtering it before packaging? Also, maybe worth a quick experiment in water to see how it behaves in liquid.

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