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Hi all,

I'm going to have a stab at making something similar to this. I have a 100g packet of rum barrel chips so here goes:

1 Tin Cascade Choc Mahogany Porter
1 kg LDME
100g Med Crystal
50g Choc Malt
500g homemade medium invert sugar
Some fuggles for flavour
US-05

And I'll put the chips in the secondary and leave it for a while.

I am aiming for 6+% (which is why I'm adding the invert sugar) in order to help strip some more goodies from the oak chips. Also I'm looking for a brew that I can chuck under the house and crack open next winter.

There are a couple of things I'm not sure of though:
- what IBU's should I be aiming for?
- should I bother with the late hop additions, given that I'm trying to get the oaky flavour through? Is there a hop another I could use to compliment it?
- is there a 'recommended' maximum length of time that the brew should be in contact with the oak? Could I leave it for 9 months?

Cheers,

Tim

ibu's i would say between 35 - 45 and you wont want late additions just hops mainly for bitterness and a little flavour, i would make my last addition at say 20 mins, hops i would use personally would be more along the lines of willamete or goldings but fuggles would be fine, and i see no reason why you could not leave for 9 months as long as you get it off the trub, maybe consider a cube or something you can seal as a second or even third. Kegging would be ideal for this

I'd put some chips in the boil too.

wouldn't that extract too much tannin from the wood? i know *some* is desirable for this, but boiling the chips?

Is there all that much tannin in oak? I've never noticed, but I'm not an oak expert.

I would have written: 'put the chips in the mash' but that isn't an option in this case.

Maybe steep them with the grains?

As for getting the Oak taste in I'll take the tips from TCB Old Oak Ale Wetpack. Chips are added at the end of the boil and left in with the wort during primary fermentation. This works well for that beer.

Cheers,
Greg

Not wanting to rain on your parade but...

Homemade invert sugar?

Please.

If you are going to boil the liquor from the steeped grain add plain sugar then. You will get as much 'inversion' during your boil as you will during your 'inversion' process which presumably is something along the lines of adding citric acid to a sugar solution.

Am sure Greg will want to remove this to another thread as its not the point of this one but you cant, i repeat, CANT invert sugar with a pinch of citric acid. And please dont argue colour change, candy thermos etc with me. Its a bunch of malarky. Whats you have is sugar with something in the order of 5-10% inverted.

There is nothing i dislike more than people raping science on forums....

I NEED a coffee.

Rant off.

^^ i get what you're saying there, but if you pre-make it, even if you don't invert much you'll still be able to caramelise/darken it as you want. this is harder to achieve in a full wort boil of course, because the water content prevents it from getting much above 100 degrees.

Back on the chips, you'd want to be weighing them down with a marble or two. Otherwise they just float on the surface. Sanitise the marbles first too

Chris wrote:Back on the chips, you'd want to be weighing them down with a marble or two. Otherwise they just float on the surface. Sanitise the marbles first too

They sink after they soak up some liquid

Just to dredge up an old post:-

I made this one last night:

100g Crystal
60g Choc Malt
100g Rolled Oats
1.25kg LDME
Tin Cascade Choc Mahogany Porter
20g Fuggles 30mins
20g Fuggles 10mins
450g homemade candi sugar (I'll be careful not to call it "invert" )
100g rum soaked oak chips added at the end of boil

Filled to 20L and pitched 2 sachets Coopers Ale yeast at 24degrees. Hopefully should come out at a bit over 6% ABV.

There are more hops that what was recommended but I had the rest of a pack to use up.... I also might grab another 100g of oak chips for when I rack it after a couple of weeks. Hoping to leave it until mid winter before bottling or kegging.

Will keep you posted on the results.

Cheers,

Tim