Oak chips, can you use BBQ smoking chips?

[winka]

Afternoon chaps, I've just ordered medium and heavy toast oak chips from online to oak some wines and ales.However can you use the oak chips that you buy for bbq's or are there reasons not to? My local B&Q do some jack Daniels ones at 1 kilo for 8 pound, made from old jd barrels. Would work out a lot cheaper than the 400g and p+p which came to over a tenner
Cheers

[fatbloke]

If the oak chips come from an accredited source like old JD barrels then that'd be fine. You'd still have to toast them a bit more if necessary.

Generally I'd have said no, as you only would want white oak of a type with known flavouring ability.

What I've done before now is to buy a half barrel planter at the garden centre (making sure the planter has a good thickness of charring on the inside to confirm its a spirits barrel). Break it down so you've only got the side staves.

A side stave is then planed with an electric plane down to clean wood, then cut to about 10cm lengths, the 10 cm lengths are then split with a 1inch chisel and mallet into approx 5mm square lengths so you end up with 5x5x100mm sticks.

Then just roast/toast in a low oven until theyre the colour of a light colour pencil lead (keep checking and mixing them round so they're evenly coloured/roasted).

You can just plane the dirty wood off a stave, then when you're at the clean wood level set the cutting thickness for the plane to make thick shavings and toast those but you need to make sure about the toasting then as the can ignite much more easily in that form......

[wilsoa11111]

ive had reasonable sucess getting some dry sticks (oak) fro the local park - the nice dry ones still hanging off the tree and toasting them after removing the bark- has turned some vodka into oak essence for tweaking the odd concoction- dont chip then roast- this creates a v smokey fire in the oven...

[Andy]

I was looking at these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/450g-Whisky-B ... 0910281757

[winka]

Thanks for the reply guys, bit food for thought there.
My chips have just arrived today, Im going to throw some in a 5 litre bottle that I bottled on sunday and leave for a week just as a sample, do I have to boil them or anything first, or just rack the wine onto top of them and give a shake now and again?
Cheers

[WalesAles]

Hello Everyone,
I like the sound of Oak chips in Beer! How do you use them? What does it do to the Beer? ie, Colour, Taste, Smell, etc. What quantity do you use? Please feel free to answer these and any questions that I haven`t asked!
WA

[DeadFall]

Hello Everyone,
I like the sound of Oak chips in Beer! How do you use them? What does it do to the Beer? ie, Colour, Taste, Smell, etc. What quantity do you use? Please feel free to answer these and any questions that I haven`t asked!
WA

Go and drink some Innes & Gunnes.

[WalesAles]

Hello,
Bought the Innes & Gunn 3hrs ago, straight in the fridge at 5deg, the bottle states `drink between 4 to 6 deg` so I got that right, the beer itself...... well......It`s Bloody lovely mun! Hoppy Days!
WA

[Hanglow]

Not all oak is created equal, ye olde IPAs etc were aged in oak from the balkans or thereabouts as it didn't impart much flavour - french oak and the like imparts a huge amount more .

Innis & Gunn produce awful beers imo, but each to their own. Far too sweet for me and clear bottles means ruined beer.

The Ola Dubh beers from Harviestoun are far better if you want some oaked , although more heavily whisky tinged, beers

[Pinto]

Hello,
Bought the Innes & Gunn 3hrs ago, straight in the fridge at 5deg, the bottle states `drink between 4 to 6 deg` so I got that right, the beer itself...... well......It`s Bloody lovely mun! Hoppy Days!
WA

+1 - I found Innes & Gunn ales for the first time a few weeks ago and I love em too ! - favourite so far has been the spiced rum barrel version

As said tho, each to their own - I tend to go against the grain and find that most of the stuff from Brewdog is mediocre at best.... and as for punk IPA.....

[winka]

I'm on soaking 30g medium French in a jar with some J&B rare scotch, going to add it to my ale next week along with the dry hops, can't wait!
P.s I love punk IPA but to avoid the 'each to thier own' I like to say 'one mans ceiling is another mans floor'

Cheers

[WalesAles]

Hello Winka,
Why don`t you just put the whole lot in the FV at the start? Does the same job dosen`t it?
WA

[WalesAles]

S&it,
Spelling mistake.....doesn`t.
WA

[Andy]

There's an edit button top right on each post

[winka]

I have my beer 3 weeks in the primary fv, might have been oak overkill for that long and wanted to try a week for first go
Cheers