Im thinking about splitting a few gallons out of a robust porter and aging it on some oak just to try something different. My plan is to use french or hungarian medium cubes then the final week before bottleing adding some vanilla beans to accent the vanilla flavor from the oak. Thats the plan will it work, we’ll see. Any one use oak before and have any tips on sanitizing, aging time, amounts etc
I made an imperial stout and split the batch by bottling half and adding 1 oz. of medium toast oak cubes which were soaked in bourbon for one week to the secondary. I think I let the cubes sit for two weeks to a month in secondary, I cannot remember exactly. Both beers turned out great!
You can get some vanilla notes from oak so you may want to just use the oak and skip the vanilla beans. This would allow you to see how the oak changes the flavor of the porter. Or you could split the batch three ways to see how the flavor changes.
