Oak Chips During Bulk Age.. Soak before? In what?

phat · Feb 25, 2012

Ok folks..

I have in my possession a nice bag of french oak chips, light to no toast on them. "normally" I would plan on about 4-6 oz of chips in a secondary after clearing during my first little bit of bulk age, then rack off the chips after 4-6 weeks and continue letting the wine sit. At least with these chips, I have in the past given them a little toasting in the oven before doing this.

Normally I have just dumped in the chips into the carboy, and racked the wine on top of them, then racked it off later. No special treatment, no pre-soak, no tea bags, no things suspended in the carboy..

However, I've seen a number of "from scratch" recepies that suggest soaking chips in brandy ahead of time. Any of you do this? and if you do how have you found it affects the final flavour?

I ask because the next victim is a kit malbec that came with no oak, and I suspect may be a bit on the thin side... I'm probably going to rack this onto oak this weekend and in absence of other opinions will probably do what I have done in the past.. What would you do?

Flem · Feb 25, 2012

If it were mine, I'd just rack onto them as you have done in the past. I've never toasted them in the oven. IMO Good Luck!

almargita · Feb 25, 2012

Same here, I just toss them in, although it does sound interesting soaking them..... May have to try it sometime...
Al

djrockinsteve · Feb 25, 2012

Drop them in. That's what I do.

Lurker · Feb 25, 2012

I believe that some of the oak packages tell you to soak the chips for about an hour before adding to the wine. Usually, I just toss them in.

Richard L.

ps; I have however, stored some chips in water and then added the water to the wine to get the oak (oak tea) taste. If you are not sure what the oak tastes like, taste the water, I did.

JohnT · Feb 27, 2012

I soak them in HOT k-meta first.

I do this more to wash the sawdust off of them (which i do not want).

The most favored components in toasted oak (like the "vanillas") reside a few mm below the surface of the wood. Sawdust has none of these components as they are too thin. I find that sawdust adds a bitterness that I do not like.

Along this thought, if you are looking for the vanillas, I would recomend that you use oak beads instead of chips as the beads are bigger/thicker than chips.