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Wanted: Used Oak Cubes

By Todd Coffey. Filed in Exchange  |  

Hello all.

I’ve been reading Jeff Sparrow’s book Wild Brews and he talks a great deal about oak aging of Belgian Flanders and Lambic beers.  I think a nice compromise would be to use oak cubes (not chips or shavings).  Unfortunately, you don’t want any real oak flavor to come off the cubes, so you’ve got to “use” them first for something else and then start using them for these beers.  They mention that used wine barrels are preferred over new barrels for beer production.

So, if anybody has any oak cubes that they’ve used for wine and are willing to part with them, I’d love to use them for Belgian Flanders and Lambic style beers, and also Belgian and French farmhouse ales…

Thanks!

Todd

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 10:09 am and is filed under Exchange. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Comments

  1. Comment by Rob Briscoe:
    Thursday, January 14th 2010 at 8:40 am | 

    I still have a couple ounces of med roast french oak cubes that I was going to soak in chardonnay for awhile, dump the liquid several times and repeat to get rid of the oak character before I use them in a sour beer. I will probably order another 4-6 ounces for future projects as well. As you said I don’t really want them for the oak character but more to harbor various “bugs” for wild ales.

  2. Comment by Patrick Fleig:
    Friday, January 15th 2010 at 2:16 pm | 

    I have an ounce of French oak cubes in an apricot mead that I am going to remove this weekend. 0.5oz have of these have been soaking for one month and the other 0.5 oz have been soaking for 2 weeks. If you want them let me know and I can bag them in sanitized bag for you and bring to next meeting.

    Patrick

  3. Comment by strutnakid:
    Monday, January 18th 2010 at 5:43 pm | 

    Todd,
    i have some used cubes you can have. they’ve been inoculated with various bugs (Bretts, Pedio, Lacto, etc.) they’ve worked well for me in some comps: http://www.mhtg.org/homebrew-contests/franco-belgian/95-2009-results
    and im only on the second or third generation on them and they havent turned too acetic yet so i think they would be good for another batch or two.

    Also i have a couple custom blends from a great guy on: http://www.babblebelt.com/newboard/forum.html?tid=1108752780&pg=1

    He ran out of his recent “bugfarm” but i am getting ready to step up my vial soon and you can have some if youd like.

    Cheers!
    John Soens

    Maybe as a club we can go in and order a decent bulk amount and get a better price. i usually go through a half pound to a pound every year or so and theyre pricey even by the pound.

    • Comment by Todd Coffey:
      Monday, January 18th 2010 at 7:46 pm | 

      That would be awesome!

      Thank you for the offer. Let me know when you’re ready to move them.

      Thank you!

      Todd

    • Comment by Todd Coffey:
      Tuesday, January 19th 2010 at 6:05 am | 

      So, do you get alot of oak flavor off your cubes when you buy new every year and use them just for a few batches? It seems like if you were going for wild ales like lambic or Flanders, that you’d just keep re-using the oak and cleaning it off occasionally.

      Jeff Sparrow in “Wild Brews” talks about cleaning oak barrels to remove most of the bacteria while keeping much of the Brett yeasts which live deeper in the wood.

      I asked Jami about oak cubes and he doesn’t yet carry them. If there’s interest in buying in bulk, I’ll organize it. :-)

      Thanks!

      Todd

  4. Comment by strutnakid:
    Tuesday, January 19th 2010 at 4:15 pm | 

    Im going to try and make febs meeting so ill try and bring you some bugs and cubes then.

    I usually steam or boil the new cubes then age in wine or booze. i also dump the liquid and refill to get rid of more of the oak flavor too. i dont really notice any oak flavor.

    i do reuse the cubes. i rinse and dry them when i pull them out of the fermentor then rinse again when i add them to a beer for aging. i do it mainly as a way to carry over the bugs and because i heard somewhere that the brett likes to chew on the cellulose in the wood. not sure if thats true.

    John

  5. Comment by strutnakid:
    Tuesday, January 19th 2010 at 6:03 pm | 

    Todd,
    Vinnie from Russian river was on the session on thebrewingnetwork.comif you didnt catch it or his previous appearances they are always informative.

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