I am getting ready to rack my NB “bourbon barrel porter” into secondary and add the oak cubes and bourbon. Should I be doing anything to these cubes to sanitize them…never “oaked” a beer before? Thanks in advance for any input.
For that beer I soak the oak cubes in the Bourbon for a week before I dump the oak and Bourbon in secondary. The Bourbon sanitizes the oak. :cheers:
yup. If you DIDN’T want bourbon flavor, a quick dip in vodka will do the trick. But since its a bourbon porter, using the bourbon as your sanitizer is the obvious choice.
second and third that. You might as well just let them soak in your bourbon addition for a bit.
I steam chips or cubes for about 9 minutes before adding to secondary, so they aren’t quite so tannic and edgy.
I was planning on nuking them in the microwave for a few min with water for an upcoming oaked beer ( a JZ technique) but for your situation I would soak them for a week or so in the bourbon.
I steam them, and then soak them in Bourbon (or Scotch) for a week.
Do you really think it is necessary from a sanitization standpoint to soak them for a whole week? I was thinking 24 hours would be more than sufficient to kill anything on the cubes.
Just make sure the cubes are toasted and not “untoasted” as far as labeling goes. I recently made a bourbon oaked stout with untoasted and I’m not going to get the flavor I want out of it. Tip that got overlooked when I was looking for advice. Not anyone else’s responsibility, but it’s a good-to-know fact.
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While it may not be necessary, I also like to give my cubes a quick steam before use.
It’s a bourbon (bourbon) barrel (cubes) porter. Soak them babies for a while to get full flavor out of those cubes. Sanitizing is 10 minutes. Pulling and mixing those vanilla flavors out takes time and all that concentrated juice is where the flavor is.
