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I have made a ten tidy clone using the 1st runnings method. Which left me with 3 gallons after boil. I transferred from the primary to secondary and I am currently ready to add the bourbon soaked oak cubes (american medium plus toast), which was a ratio of 12 oz bourbon to 2 oz of cubes. My question is how long do you recommend soaking the bourbon oak cubes in the secondary before bottling?

Marcus Thomas
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For the bourbon flavor, the effect is rapid. However, for the wood, you'll want to keep that in for a few weeks. However, bourbon will likely mask much of the oak that you will extract.

chabeck
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  • That would agree with my experience. I used a recipe kit with bourbon + oak in the secondary. Recipe said 6+ months for the secondary but a house move meant I only had 3 months. Too much bourbon flavour! although post bottling, the flavour is slowly balancing. Next time I'll use less whisky and age longer. Perhaps increasing the oak chips might help? – winwaed Nov 23 '15 at 14:44
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I have not tasted a "ten tidy" yet, but based on my experience with wine and oak chips, I would say that one week is enough to get some wood taste. After 2 weeks, I felt the oak taste was too strong for a wine.

So according to that experience, I would say that after a week take a small sample to taste. Then decide if you'd like to leave it more time or not. Take another sample every 2-3 days until you are satisfied with the amount of extraction.

Philippe
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wild stab in the dark here but I think it makes sense. I have several jars of varying chars of oak in different whiskeys and wines. I plan on pulling them out, soaking them in another jar of like beer to be brewed, and then adding to full batch. My hope is this would simulate a second (brewers) use barrel and at the very least less aggressive and could work from there.

Ryan Shdo
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