Oak chips for "barrel aging"

[prjectmayhem]

Hey y'all - I have previously tried to make bourbon stout simply by adding a cup of my favorite (or readily available) bourbon. However this time around I bought 2 oz of American oak chips made from bourbon barrels.
My question is-how do you sanitize these bad boys before adding to the secondary? I plan on using them similar to a dry hop addition by adding them to the secondary for the last 4-5 days of fermentation. I have read everything from soaking them in bourbon (which kinda seems obvious but worried the liquor will pull all the flavor out) or I have seen that baking them for 15min at 200F.
Anyone have experience with these that they swear by or techniques that have worked in the past? Thanks!

 

[Singletrack]

Boil. Put in a jar covered with water and microwave a few times. Discard water.

 

[Timberline]

I've got a bourbon barrel porter maturing in the basement now. I poured the Makers Mark in a mason jar, added the oak chips, covered and let sit, shaking occasionally for a week or so. Then poured the whole lot into secondary. For that particular beer that seems to be the consensus method as per the thread about it here.

 

[ITV]

I steam my oak chips in a pressure cooker to sanitize and open up the pours, then soak them in whiskey. The soaking in alcohol would be sufficient for sanitizing without steaming.
I experimented with using Jack Daniels oak chips intended for smoking and did not like the taste compared to the oak chips from the home brew supply store. The home brew supply chips are toasted which gives the beer a smoother barrel taste as opposed to a fresh cut lumber taste.

I have moved up from oak chips to a 15 gallon used whiskey barrel and I am very pleased with the results so far. The batch that I oak chipped did loose some oak barrel taste after keg ageing for 11 months. I suppose that I could have oak chipped the beer after aging. Comments welcome.

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

I just soaked mine in bourbon.
Actually I vacuum sealed them in bourbon so it was absorbed.