Oak cubes in sour beer

[hilts]

I brewed a batch and pitched Imperial 'Sour Batch Kidz'. It has been in primary for four weeks. I would like to mimic a white wine barrel. I bought 3oz of oak cubes. My plan is to sanitize the cubes in the oven, add the cubes to a bottle of white wine, let it soak for a month, then dump the whole thing into the beer. I was thinking though, why not just add the cubes and the wine today? There would be theoretically no difference, right?

2nd question is - I also want to add plums that I chopped up and put in the freezer. Should I simply put the plums and oak cubes in a mesh bag in a keg? Seems like that would be a good way to keep oxygen exposure.

 

[cactusgarrett]

I'm assuming, at four weeks, this batch is far from "done", yeah? Typically with sours/wilds, the oak is added towards the end of aging, since you could come across the circumstance of your beer not being finished before you get the target oak flavor you're after. Letting it sit longer to get the sour/funk you're shooting for could over-oak it.

Fruits should also be added once the beer is done, and towards the end of/after aging. Therefore, I find it easiest just to dump fruit into the fermenter - no need to be pulling it out via bag when you're just going to rack the beer off the fruit (and oak) for packaging in a few weeks.