My plan for my RIS any thoughts??

[olotti]

In honor of my newly born son next week I plan on brewing one of the RIS recipes either the Rapture or Award winning RIS, in his honor. Both are High gravity 1.095-1.120 stouts, I'm shooting for something over 1.1 and around hopefully 10% final abv, in a 5.5 Gal batch. Anyway the plan and I'm looking for thoughts is to brew the beer and leave in primary for 1 month, rack to secondary on bourbon soaked oak cubes that have been soaking for 1 month + and bulk age for 6 months, then bottle and age for another 6 months and drink the first one on his 1st birthday. One year from brew to drinking.

My questions are:

Is 6 months an appropriate ageing time on the oak cubes or will it be to "oakey" when bottled.

Should I add the bourbon and the cubes or just the cubes to the secondary. I'd like a bourbon presence ie. KBS but not something that overpowers the beer.

Will I need to add yeast when bottling due to the extended bulk ageing and bottle ageing time? If its advised what type of yeast would I use?

Thanks for the help.

 

[MNSmitty]

I think 6mo on oak might be a bit overpowering. But I cant really say, I havent personally played with oak cubes yet.

But I applaud the idea of the beer. Thats exactly what I did. I brewed a RIS on my son's 1st birthday. And plan to brew that RIS every year on his birthday. I used WLP007 for my RIS. Its been in the primary 6 weeks. I havent pulled a sample yet to see where the gravity is at though. Thats the plan for this weekend. I plan to age it until Christmas.

 

[olotti]

I think 6mo on oak might be a bit overpowering. But I cant really say, I havent personally played with oak cubes yet.

But I applaud the idea of the beer. Thats exactly what I did. I brewed a RIS on my son's 1st birthday. And plan to brew that RIS every year on his birthday. I used WLP007 for my RIS. Its been in the primary 6 weeks. I havent pulled a sample yet to see where the gravity is at though. Thats the plan for this weekend. I plan to age it until Christmas.

I did think of that but I also thought that the 6 months of bottle ageing would dampen some of the oakiness, I'd prob plan on adding some bourbon to at bottling since I don't want to lose the bourbon taste while the bottles age. Guess it's all trial and errror at this point.

 

[TwoGunz]

I've only used oak spirals but my RIS picked up the oak pretty quickly. I'd recommend sampling a taste regularly (weekly at first) and get it off the oak when it's about right. In the 8 months I've aged my RIS without oak, it hasn't lost the wood flavors significantly


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[olotti]

I was thinking of 4oz of oak cubes then age until it tastes right then bottle condition unitl his birthday so that could be anywhere from 6-8 months from time of bottling.

 

[olotti]

Anyone else???? Thoughts please??

 

[Dustbowl]

I have an old ale bulk aging (5 months in) with 0.5 oz of rum-soaked oak cubes right now. It has a nice round flavor, not overpowering at all. You could probably cut the oak amount back to 2 oz and be okay. Just go with your taste when you sample. I would suggest not adding the bourbon; the RIS will pick plenty of bourbon flavor from the whiskey absorbed by the oak. If you want to add more bourbon flavor later, you can always add it to taste at bottling.