Fresh oak chips coloured way to quickly

[Devonhomebrew]

Ive got some dark toast and medium toast oak chips fro the brews shop and aged my apple brandy and mead bandy on it. It has been 3-4 days since i put the oak in the mason jars and they are already a nice dark colour which i like so i strained it off the oak and bottled it up is this bad????

Baring in mind i did put about 2 good pinches of dark and 1 good pinch of medium in each quart jar.

[Prairiepiss]

You don't go by color. You go by flavor. And that ain't enough time to do squat.

[Devonhomebrew]

I was just worried that the colour of it would just get darker and darker and darker.

Cheers man i will put the oak back in luckily i kept the apple and mead oaks in different jars.

[Aussie_Distiller1989]

When you use chips or even small staves they
Have a higher surface area then a barrel would
So the tannins are leached out quicker but
The flavour takes longer so it shouldn't get
Any darker leaving it in a cool dark place will
Also help a lot.

[Devonhomebrew]

10*C garage and getting warmer very slowly because of the spring hitting us the max temp it gets to is 20*C at midday in the summer.

So flavours will come better if i age it for a month on the oak chips then?

[rtalbigr]

Those oak chips ya buy at a brew shop are really made for use in wines. They really, IMO, don't work well for distilled spirits. Oak sticks, cubes, spirals work much better.

As Mr. P stated color is not an indicator for aging. Aging is a protracted process that can takes months/years, not days.

So, you've strained the chips off, put the jar on the shelf and check it in about 6 mo.

Big R

[Devonhomebrew]

Ive put them back in hahahaah im gonna check on it late march

[Jimbo]

What Big R and Piss say is right! And if it got that dark that fast you got way too much oak in there and youll just be tastin wood . It dont take much at all. It might seem you arent puttin enough to do shit, but you really are. If you put a pinch in and its starting to darken up in a couple weeks but not as dark as you migh tlike it, you prolly got it about right. And need to leave it alone for nuther couple months minimum

[Devonhomebrew]

Willl it get darker and darker with age or will it hit a point where it cant get any more dark?

[rtalbigr]

Willl it get darker and darker with age or will it hit a point where it cant get any more dark?

At some point the color will stabilize. You are worrying unnecessarily about the color, it really doesn't indicate anything. Give it time for the chemical reactions to occur, that aging, and it just takes time.

Big R

[Devonhomebrew]

Cheers man ive got a nice little 12.5oz bottle filled with mead brandy and im aging it on medium oak chips and it is only just starting to become coloured in thinking it was just the dark roasted chips that coloured it in those 4 days. I do understand now that colour means nothing and i will aging for 1 month on chips then aging for another 3-5 in the jars just to mellow. Aswell as letting the angels have there share. They have been nice to me as of late but maybe they will become more thirsty as time goes on...