I brewed a Kate the Great clone based on the recipe here
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/officia ... ne-217674/ which contains no oak info. Having had this beer several times I knew that it was an oaked beer so I shot an email to the brewery, Portsmouth Brewery, and got this as my answer.

"As far as the Kate's oaking goes. All of Kate is lightly oaked. We make our own Portwood simply by infusing oak spirals ( The Barrel Mill, Avon, MN- 800.201.7125) with local Port. Of course if I told you the amounts and proportions I have to kill you!! Actually, we take 6 spirals and break them up, place them into a 10 gal. corny keg and pour 3 bottles of Tawney Port over the spirals. We add about 10 PSI to the keg and let the concoction sit for 18-25 days. Then we fill the remainder of the 10 gal. keg with Kate. Let it sit at ambient temp for 45-60 days then inject the 10 gals back into the 440 gals of KtG. Once the keg is empty we then back fill the 10 gals and let the Kate sit on the oak for another 6 months. This become the double oaked Kate. Very rare, only about 56 bottles produced. Hope this helps. Kate can age for 6 years once in bottles, if truth be known!! Cheers! Tod Mott"

So how do I figure out how much oak to use per gallon etc? And what type of oak. What char level. Not sure if the origin of the oak is as important as the amount of oak but want to try to get as close as I can. Any advice would be appreciated. Chris

Nobody with any help out there at all. I'm not about to take 1/44th of my beer and over oak it then blend it back into the whole volume, I'd rather add the right amount of oak to the entire batch and get it done with. Thanks

Chris

I'm going to guess a Light or Medium toast French Oak spiral, solely based on the fact that Tod Mott said, "All of Kate is lightly oaked". I could be reading too much into that but I would think it's better to start with a lighter more subtle toast than to overdo it with a heavy toast. I did the math on this and there were too many odd decimal amounts to use at a 5-10 gallon scale.

I would do this by using 2 oak spirals per bottle of wine. Break up the spirals and toss them into a 1 gallon glass jug with 1 bottle of wine and let it sit 18-25 days. Once that is done, top off the rest of the 1 gallon jug with beer. Let that sit 45-60 days. After that is done, start blending your 1 gallon concoction into your beer. Blend a 1/4 gallon at a time, let it sit a few days, sample it, and if it needs more add another 1/4 gallon. Rinse and repeat until you get your desired taste.

no idea what I'm talking about most likely, but I've had a few and think I make sense I'm currently drinking my well-oaked DBA not-quite-a clone and I've listened to the episode recently severaly times. 1.4 oz American oak on day 2 of fermentation and allowed to sit 2 weeks delivers a noticeably oaky character.

Extrapolating, "lightly oaked" could mean less oak, less time, milder oak, or some combination of the three. Given that ..... you could add oak and taste it every few days until it's right.

I kinda like the idea of over-oaking a portion and blending it back, then you can calculate what you would need to aok it directly the next time.

Probably the most important thing is taste it taste it taste it and pull the oak when it's right

I have 2 American Medium oak spirals soaking in port right now to prepare for this beer. I plan use the dental floss trick and just suspend them in the keg for a few weeks ( 4-6 possibly ).

Would it be best to carbonate the beer as I normally would with the spirals in there, or should I wait to carbonate it after I take the spirals out, or does it matter?

Either way, I will at least hit it with some pressure to seal the keg. Once it is oaked and carbonated, I plan to bottle some of it and lose it in my basement for a year or so. I may have to take that day off in March to go stand in line for some Kate at the Portsmouth Brewery.

Hmmm I'm thinking at this point that I will probably just add some oak cubes and some Flag Hill Port to my fermenter rather than trying the pressure thing. Seems easier to me and I bet that the convoluted way that they do it has to do with restrictions in their brewery. I know they age Kate in that horizontal tank that is shoehorned almost under the stairs at the front of the brewery and there may not be a way to suspend the spirals in this tank. Nor do they have the tank space/time to transfer Kate off of the oak once it is ready to another aging tank. If you listen to what Tod has said in the past; they have to make Kate in the slowest period for the brewery because the tank that they use to age Kate is the same one that they use for the production of the "Dirty Blonde" which they can not be out of in the busy summer tourist season. I think that if they could oak Kate another way they very well might. I'm going to.

Chris

BTW TDS if you go in March let me know as I'm usually there, so are some other local BNers. Keep us in the loop.

Will do, Chris.