When oak aging beer we add oak wood chips to the beer. This will infuse the flavor of the wood into the beer.
For the home brewer, oak aging is a cheap and reasonably way to give a barrel aged touch to the beer. The chips are made of oak. In some cases wooden barrels are used to make the chips.
As a result of the aging, or say lagering, on the wooden chips, the beer will absorb the flavors of the wood. Compared to maturing in wooden barrels, oak agen is relatively cheap and easy to apply:
- It takes up less space
- It is suitable for smaller batches
- Ideal for experimenting with flavors
The biggest advantage of oak aging is the contact surface, which allows the beer to extract the flavors better from the chips. On the other hand, however, used barrels are somewhat more ‘perishable’ and therefore contain more flavors.
This mainly depends on the way in which the wood chips have been toasted. But in general you can keep between 5 – 30 grams per 10 liters of beer when aging.
The more chips you use, the more intense the flavor will become. This of course depends on personal preference.
If you are going to use the oak chips, you can first heat them in an oven to kill the possible present bacteria. A temperature of around 100 – 160 degrees (Celsius) is warm enough. Just put the chips in the oven for 20 minutes and everything is good. There is also a chance that you loose some of the flavors.
An alternative is to put it away in a jar with some liquor. For example vodka, whiskey or rum.
You can achieve this by letting the chips infuse into a strong liquor. If you especially want the wood flavor, vodka is recommended. But alternative you choose for bourbon, whiskey, gin or rum.
Put the chips in a glass jar, fill the bottom with the liquor and let it steep for two weeks. The bacteria will be die and the flavor of the booze will be absorbed into the chips.
The alcohol in the spirits will be diluted by the beer in the barrel. So there will not be an extreme increase in the alcohol percentage.
It is advisable to add the wood chips at the end of the secondary fermentation. This is approximately after two weeks. Just make sure you’ve already soaked the chips in liquor. You can do this on the brewing day itself for example.
This can be anywhere from two weeks to several months. The taste will be a bit more intense if the aging takes longer.
Experimenting with oak aging
Where you can use a wooden barrel more often, it is best to simply use the wood chips one single time when oak aging. Of course, the price is also right for the rest. 250 grams of oak chips costs around 6 euros / 7 dollars.
By pulling the chips into different spirits, you have the opportunity to do some experimenting. Divide a batch after brewing and then put each part away on chips that have each been drawn onto a different drink. So one part with bourbon, one part using rum and one part that goes with gin.
Do you only want the flavor of the wood, just for some oak like tast. Then it is better to use vodka. This one is boozy, but otherwise neutral in taste. It’s a safer choice, but a good way to get started with oak aging.
