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5 G brew from kit

OzarkBrewer

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Around the day after Christmas we brewed a batch of Anniversary Ale from a kit.  The malt was a powder.  It had a bag of oak chips included.  No instructions though.  so we had another kit for a Traditional wheat and just followed along with those instructions but we really didn't know where to include the wood chips so we put them in the grain bag. 

Did we do what we should have done with the chips and what can we expect from this brew?  We had about a 60 min. heat up to get to our 170 pt.

We also added an extra pack of hops with the first batch hop addition the kit came with and called for.

Love those hops!
 
When I use wood chips, I put them in some type of liquor to sterilize them.  For example, you can put them in a pint mason jar with vodka or bourbon.  Leave them in there for a week or more.  You can then decant the liquor and put the chips into the secondary fermentor, to give an oaked flavor to your beer.  I usually put the oak infused liquor and all into my secondary.

The purpose of the oak is to give the beer a barrel aged flavor.  I've heard of people making oak tea, by boiling the oak in water and pouring the oak tea into the fermentor. 

I suppose putting them into the grain bag and steeping them makes tea.  I'm just not too sure how much of the oak flavor will carry through the fermentation process.

I guess you'll find out!

Before you bottle it, taste the beer and see how much oak flavor you have.  If you want more, you can always get oak and make some tea with it and flavor the beer to taste before bottling.
 
Thank you Scott for that reply.  I'll report back when the beer is ready.

AR. Dave
 
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