Oak aged in oxygenated aged wine

[bunt1828]

I've got a Flanders red aging and it's about time to add some oak. I've got an ounce of cubes that I've had sitting in Merlot for a long while now (I did a good job of forgetting all about this beer). The problem I've got is that yesterday I opened up the jar with the oak/wine to swap out the wine one last time and realized that the wine had become incredibly oxidized. I tasted some and it was absolutely terrible. If I add the oak to my beer will the ****ty wine taste go along with it? Since I've got so much time already invested in this beer I'd rather throw out the oak and soak some new cubes for a couple weeks (in a plastic bag to avoid this same problem) if that's safer.



Thoughts?

 

[ColoHox]

No, you're good.

Don't pour in all that oxidized wine of course, just add the oak cubes.

 

[ArcLight]

I've got a Flanders red aging and it's about time to add some oak. I've got an ounce of cubes that I've had sitting in Merlot for a long while now (I did a good job of forgetting all about this beer). The problem I've got is that yesterday I opened up the jar with the oak/wine to swap out the wine one last time and realized that the wine had become incredibly oxidized. I tasted some and it was absolutely terrible. If I add the oak to my beer will the ****ty wine taste go along with it? Since I've got so much time already invested in this beer I'd rather throw out the oak and soak some new cubes for a couple weeks (in a plastic bag to avoid this same problem) if that's safer.
Thoughts?

When I use Oak, I let the cubes sit in Bourbon to extract the tannins and add the Bourbon, not the cubes.

I am speculating that if you only add the cubes, the wine, though lower in alcohol than Bourbon, will still have extracted a lot of the oak flavor.
If you now add the oak, you will probably get minimal oak flavor, and a little wine flavor (probably none).

I would either add fresh oak cubes directly, or (too late now) used a small container , just big enough to hold the oak cubes, then filled it with wine and sealed it. It would still oxidize, but it would be less oxidized wine.

 

[bunt1828]

Thanks. I suppose I'll just throw them in.

I once used some "fresh" oak on an IPA and then didn't get around to kegging it for several months (had other IPAs on tap that lasted way longer than normal). The result was an oak bomb so bad I had to dump it. Since I plan on leaving this one alone for several months, I wanted to strip out the "extreme" oak flavor and leave something that takes more time to develop. If after a few months it still isn't there but the base beer is ready I'll add fresh oak for a week or two to taste.

 

[ArcLight]

Thanks. I suppose I'll just throw them in.

I once used some "fresh" oak on an IPA and then didn't get around to kegging it for several months (had other IPAs on tap that lasted way longer than normal). The result was an oak bomb so bad I had to dump it. Since I plan on leaving this one alone for several months, I wanted to strip out the "extreme" oak flavor and leave something that takes more time to develop. If after a few months it still isn't there but the base beer is ready I'll add fresh oak for a week or two to taste.

You can try that.

I would instead use a smaller amount of fresh oak cubes, try 1/4 ounce.