Just as in cooking, adding depth and complexity to your beer can transform a good beer into something truly amazing. Many different things can be added to your beer at different stages of the process to gain more levels of depth in your beer. Each thing you add to your beer lends its own flavor good or bad. It may take some time to come up with a great beer, but don’t give up. That is one of the things that attracted us to home brewing in the first place, the endless varieties that can be made with just a little imagination.
Oak is one such addition that can added to any style of beer to create new and interesting flavors. I’m not going to get into the technical make-up of oak, but rather touch on the different flavors oak can impart, the different types available and the usage rates for beer. Some of this information is from our own experimentation, some from reading all over the internet and some from the manufacturers of oak products. We’re just here to sharing information with fellow brewers from our point of view.
Oak comes in many forms from barrels to cubes, chips to powder or essence, to spirals and stave form. There are lots of choices but some stand out because of cost and practicality. They also come in different toast levels from untoasted to dark, each bringing its own flavor. Barrels are not practical for most home brewers. They are expensive and extraction times are long. Sawdust is a pain to work with. We have had trouble getting it mixed into the batch. It wants to float on top, stick to the sides of your primary, your spoon and everything else. The flavor is not very complex.
Cubes and chips seem to be the best of both worlds for the home brewer. Chips are thinner than cubes and the extraction time is about 1 – 2 weeks. They work well used in the primary or in lighter styles of beer, but lack the complexity of cubes. Cubes have thickness and more sides so many more toast levels involved. They say the flavor is much closer to barrel aged flavor. Extraction seems to vary widely mostly on individual taste. I have seen 4 weeks up to as long as a year. The last batch of smoked porter (5 gal.) that we made was 3 weeks, but that was our taste. Maximum extraction with cubes should take no longer than 2 months but additional time will give the flavors time to blend and add smoothness to your new brew.
From what we have seen, chips and cubes come in 3 species of oak: American, French and Hungarian. Each one has different flavors so we followed the descriptions from various suppliers and manufacturers. Flavors to be had from your cubes and chips, depending on toast level and aging are vanilla, caramel, bittersweet chocolate, milk chocolate, butterscotch, coffee and even spices such as allspice and cinnamon. Just think what you could do to a stout, a porter or scotch ale with these flavors. The possibilities can be endless!
Usage rates are more of a general rule of thumb. If you add too much, you can’t take it back out. We started light and pulled a sample for tasting every week until we were satisfied with the flavor. StaVin is one manufacturer of oak products and recommends 2 – 2.5 oz per 5 gallon batch or 5 oz. for a 10 gallon batch. Extraction time they say is 2 months but that definitely varies by taste. Chips usage is .5 – 2.5 oz per 5 gallon. Extraction time is about 2 weeks.
The last thing I want to touch on is sanitation. I think the alcohol levels in beer are low enough to cause some concern about contamination. I would hate to throw out a batch of beer because of contamination. Wine alcohol levels (Say 11 – 13%) will usually kill any bacteria hiding within the oak. We have a vegetable steamer that we used and it worked really well. We put our cubes in and steamed 15 – 20 minutes. I took the temperature during the steaming and was 210 degrees, more than hot enough. I would say that 165 degrees for 15 minutes is hot enough. Milk is pasteurized at 165 – 170 degrees for a minute, so 15 minutes should kill the little beasties! ARGH! Other methods include using the microwave. Put the cubes in a dish with just enough water to cover them. Put in the microwave and heat until the water starts to boil, turn off microwave and let sit 2 minutes. You can repeat that a couple times. Now you have sanitized cubes and some water with oak essence in it. You can add that in too. Another method is soaking the cubes or chips in whiskey or other strong alcohol. It may take a couple days or up to 2 weeks depending on thickness of oak.
Well…these are some of things we have learned along the way and we hope this opens another door in your home brewing experience. Happy brewing out there!
