oak chips: aging temerature & sanitation Q

[plaztikjezuz]

hello,

i'm am mainly a homebrewer, have worked in the industry, i am making a kreik right now. i added a little oak to the fermented beer and was going to stick the fermenter in the fridge to crash chill for transfer in a few days. then i thought about it and i do not know if the oak flavor extraction is the same in the cold fermented beer as it is in warm?

i am also curious as to how you treat your oak chips to sanitize them.
currently i just dump them in right out of the bag, in the 5 years i have been using oak i have never had a problem, but i have never read anything on how people sanitize them.
i made a 20% alcohol base a while back would that be enough alcohol to kill the bugs with a few days soaking? should i steam them? how long?

thanks
-scotto

[alchemy]

As for sanitizing oak chips, i boil them once or twice for ten minutes, then discard the liquid as this also has the effect of removing some of the tannin and "new oak" flavor, unless that is what you want in which case steeping should do the job to sanitize. As for Kriek, if you are speaking of Belgian Lambic style you do not want to crash cool or transfer, just put it at cellar temp and forget about it for a year or three. Hope that helps. Cheers!

[DavidS]

Do you have access to a large pressure cooker? It will do the trick.

DS

[rudge75]

Ditto on the pressure cooker.

As for the lambic, part of the reason you'd be aging in oak barrels is for the extended period of aging and the slight ingress of oxygen over time. It really depends on barrel sizing as to how long you should age the kriek for. Supposedly the origin of the oak comes into play also (american or french).

Check out the book wild brews - it has a whole section on barrel aging and suggestions. If you wait the three years, feel free to forward a bottle or two. I'll trade you some I bottled in 2001.