Cal Larson joins me this week to discuss oak flavors in beer, oak barrel aging and a new oak extract he developed called Soluble Oak.
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Topics in This Week’s Episode (38:58)
- This week I welcome Cal Larson. Cal is the founder of Soluble Oak, where he spent four years developing a patent-pending oak extract for use in beers, wine, and distilled spirits. The new oak extracts are made from real oak and add oak flavor and significant mouthfeel to the finished beverage.
- We start with a brief overview of Cal’s career which is actually as a trader in white oak. Four years he started experimenting with ways to create a new oak flavor extract resulting in soluble oak.
- Cal explains some of the limitations of oak chips and spirals which are commonly used in home brewing. He tells us why these products are often made from less desirable portions of the tree, resulting in more tannic flavors.
- He then discusses oak barrel aging which has a long history, as beers were stored and transported in oak barrels for thousands of years. However most modern brewers are working with used wine and bourbon barrels which have already had a lot of the pure oak flavor extracted from them. As a result we often get more tannic flavors or the flavor of wine or bourbon instead of true oak.
- Cal talks about why used oak barrels often produce very inconsistent aging and require extensive blending.
- He next introduces his soluble oak extract which is made from American and French white oak, and how he developed the product with scientists over a four year period.
- We talk about dosing, and how soluble oak can be added “to taste” to a finished beer instead of having to guess up front or age the beer for months or even years.
- Cal discusses the Brulosophy experiment which found that Soluble oak did impart a unique oak flavor which many preferred.
- He talks about commercial applications for soluble oak in Craft beer and also wine and spirit making.
- We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of soluble oak versus traditional barrel aging, and also where he plans to go next.
- He provides his closing thoughts.
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