OK urrybody ...... what is the consensus ....
What is the BEST way to sanitize oak cubes

Steam them
bake em in the oven for a while
soak em in cheap Bourbon for a week or so

???????????????????,,

ceannt said:

OK urrybody ...... what is the consensus ....
What is the BEST way to sanitize oak cubes

Steam them
bake em in the oven for a while
soak em in cheap Bourbon for a week or so

???????????????????,,

well steam would be better than baking. i'd probably steam, then soak in bourbon.

OK.... that's what I was thinking....
I have heard of all three being done....
You guys think a week is long enough to kill all the nasties?

Lakewood said:

FromZwolle said:

ceannt said:

OK urrybody ...... what is the consensus ....
What is the BEST way to sanitize oak cubes

Steam them
bake em in the oven for a while
soak em in cheap Bourbon for a week or so

???????????????????,,

well steam would be better than baking. i'd probably steam, then soak in bourbon.

Well, they fire the inside of barrels to santize them, so in keeping with that frame of mind I would bake them at 450 or maybe 500. Don't char em but a little brown would be good.

but if you've got them toasted to the level you want, baking could throw that off, while steam wouldn't.

Lakewood said:

FromZwolle said:

Lakewood said:

FromZwolle said:

ceannt said:

OK urrybody ...... what is the consensus ....
What is the BEST way to sanitize oak cubes

Steam them
bake em in the oven for a while
soak em in cheap Bourbon for a week or so

???????????????????,,

well steam would be better than baking. i'd probably steam, then soak in bourbon.

Well, they fire the inside of barrels to santize them, so in keeping with that frame of mind I would bake them at 450 or maybe 500. Don't char em but a little brown would be good.

but if you've got them toasted to the level you want, baking could throw that off, while steam wouldn't.

well, baking them would definitely toast them some more. but steam will suck the toast out of 'em. such a quandary. I would get untoasted oak cubes, then toast them myself, then soak in bourbon to condition.

this seems like the best way to go about it.

FromZwolle said:

but now i'm curious as to how much toasted flavor would be lost to steaming, and how much it would darken/increase when baking.

Experiment time!

OK..... as normal.... you guys have brought up even more questions.....
@-)

Lakewood said:

ceannt said:

OK..... as normal.... you guys have brought up even more questions.....
@-)

life is uncertain.

so profound......

FromZwolle said:

ceannt said:

OK..... as normal.... you guys have brought up even more questions.....
@-)

if i ever get around to brewing my brown porter again, i was going to soak the cubes in bourbon, then boil it all to sanitize and dump everything in after fermentation was over, possibly in the keg.

now i might have to re think.

don't you have to think first.... before you can re-think???

Lakewood said:

I can't say I would ever want to boil oak in my beer. Oak tannin soup doesn't sound good. There is a big difference between the slow gentle extraction of flavor compounds from lightly toasted oak at low temps, versus the aggressive dissolutions of anything that will dissolve in water at near boiling temps.

I agree..... boiling would not be a good option....
somebody told me that the microwave would be good for this.... but I am highly skeptical of this also....

Lakewood said:

I can't say I would ever want to boil oak in my beer. Oak tannin soup doesn't sound good. There is a big difference between the slow gentle extraction of flavor compounds from lightly toasted oak at low temps, versus the aggressive dissolutions of anything that will dissolve in water at near boiling temps.

and there you go, rethinking has been thunked.

I was under the impression brewers steamed or poured boiling water into barrels to sanitize them before refilling. I would think you could do the same with chips. Where did you get the chips? Did you make them? If you bought them, can't you just drop em in, I thought they were already sanitized. Maybe a poor assumption.

Well they don't torch them when they reuse them do they? Only torch to char them originally for whiskey. Wine barrels are not torched and I didn't think barrels reused for beer were torched.

OK.... if they come "pre-sanitized" in the bag..... I'm just going to soak for a week in cheap bourbon... (not going to chance that there are any stray "bugs" on 'em) rather than doing anything crazy like steaming

You can brew a few 10gal batches over a couple weeks. Your not going to throw it in the barrel until after the primary ferment so the timing isn't really critical. Just leave stuff in primary until you have enough to rack to the barrel.

Lakewood said:

You can brew a few 10gal batches over a couple weeks. Your not going to throw it in the barrel until after the primary ferment so the timing isn't really critical. Just leave stuff in primary until you have enough to rack to the barrel.

All of this. And if you purge the barrel with CO2 first you wouldn't necessarily have to rack all of the beer into the barrel at once.

C_dubbs said:

Lakewood said:

You can brew a few 10gal batches over a couple weeks. Your not going to throw it in the barrel until after the primary ferment so the timing isn't really critical. Just leave stuff in primary until you have enough to rack to the barrel.

All of this. And if you purge the barrel with CO2 first you wouldn't necessarily have to rack all of the beer into the barrel at once.

you would want to purge with argon, not CO2. for the amount of surface area inside that barrel, you woudl be screwed prolly with it half full and a CO2 blanket on top.

C_dubbs said:

frydogbrews said:

C_dubbs said:

Lakewood said:

You can brew a few 10gal batches over a couple weeks. Your not going to throw it in the barrel until after the primary ferment so the timing isn't really critical. Just leave stuff in primary until you have enough to rack to the barrel.

All of this. And if you purge the barrel with CO2 first you wouldn't necessarily have to rack all of the beer into the barrel at once.

you would want to purge with argon, not CO2. for the amount of surface area inside that barrel, you woudl be screwed prolly with it half full and a CO2 blanket on top.

Interesting point.

you dont ever want to use a wood barrel partially full. they, by design breathe, and will dry out. the gas exchange rate would be totally messed up if you left it half full and you would likely end up with an oxidized mess and a ruined, leaky barrel.

brew multiple batches, leave them in primary until you have enough fermented out, then rack it all to the barrel.

C_dubbs said:

Lakewood said:

C_dubbs said:

frydogbrews said:

C_dubbs said:

Lakewood said:

You can brew a few 10gal batches over a couple weeks. Your not going to throw it in the barrel until after the primary ferment so the timing isn't really critical. Just leave stuff in primary until you have enough to rack to the barrel.

All of this. And if you purge the barrel with CO2 first you wouldn't necessarily have to rack all of the beer into the barrel at once.

you would want to purge with argon, not CO2. for the amount of surface area inside that barrel, you woudl be screwed prolly with it half full and a CO2 blanket on top.

Interesting point.

you dont ever want to use a wood barrel partially full. they, by design breathe, and will dry out. the gas exchange rate would be totally messed up if you left it half full and you would likely end up with an oxidized mess and a ruined, leaky barrel.

brew multiple batches, leave them in primary until you have enough fermented out, then rack it all to the barrel.

I did not know that.

this is also true when you empty it. don't leave it empty. ever. at least not for more than a day or so.
if you don't have beer to fill it back up with right away you can use a bottle of some kind of hard liquor, and dump it in, then slosh it all around to coat everything and then bung it up. that's for short term, a few weeks.

for long term, you need to use a sulfur candle, but really, just don't attempt long term empty storage until you have read a bunch more info

Dang. Now I want a barrel to long age something. Make a tradition out of it. Make something epic big to put in it. Leave it there a year and then plan on having something to rack in as soon as you empty it.

Off topic !

Benvarine said:

You will also need to top it up on occasion to make up for the Angels share if you plan to store your beer in one for a long time.

Durn Angels stealin' muh beya!

But seriously, yeah, you gotta do that.

Time to get that barrel sanitizing thread up I think.