3 Weeks Aged

I filtered my first sample of brew last night, its only aged by three weeks but patience is not my strongest attribute, however i will let this second one age much longer. I tried two different methods, one with fine oak shavings that had been mildly toasted and another where i boiled shavings and strips of oak in water for about 5 minutes. Im trying to gain a oak/vanilla smoothness to my brew and im fully aware that this takes years and masses of experience so my standard is obviously going to be way less but im sure i could create something drinkable.

So the boiled technique brought out a very clear oaky aroma with a very light colour, too light for what i wanted and although the aroma is still detectable in the brew the taste is all that. Plus because the flavour and colour is in the water it meant cutting it with the brew and reducing its strength.

The oak shavings were placed straight in with brew after that had been toasted this had an almost immediate effect on the colour and within a day the brew had that deep rich brown colour exactly what i am looking for. The aroma has started to come through and has definitely gain flavour at 3 weeks so i decided to bite the bullet and filter this batch off and bottle. I filtered it of 4 time to ensure there was no oak shavings left in the brew.

I sampled a little glass afterwards and its made for a fine effort, there is still that kick there which im hoping to reduce through leaving the brew and the oak much longer with this batch. I will use the 3 week batch as i bench mark.