Should I add Oak chips?? - Raspberry wine

[Delaney]

Hi,

I'm making Raspberry wine, and Black Raspberry wine.

I don't have any experience using oak chips. Do you guys think I should add any to my raspberry/black raspberry wine???


There are 4.5# / Gallon
ABV% is 13.3

This produced 27 liters of wine. (7 gallons)

 

[Rocky]

Sounds like a great wine. Oak could add another layer of flavor to the wine. Why not try it with one gallon and see if you like it? If you do, you can add it to the rest or most of it. If you are contemplating this, I suggest that you send a PM to "joeswine" for specific advice on what kind of oak, how much to add and for how long.

 

[Affe]

Seems like this would be a more personal preference from what I've gathered.

Tried looking into raspberry wine and oak chips -- found several questions with no real answers, perhaps the most insightful piece of information was this:

I've never tried raspberry but blackberry oaked is excellent.

I'm thinking about giving [the oak chips] a rinse and just tossing in a half-ounce. Any objections?

That's all I've ever done....rinse the dust off of them. I would probably start with 1/4 oz and taste often. If it still isn't oaky enough for you after a month, you can add more now knowing what 1/4 oz adds to the flavor.

There were a few other places that I could quote, but most don't have any new information to present. I'd suggest you give it a taste first -- do you want more of an oak flavor to it? I feel that you will be able to provide us a better answer than we could you

 

[Wade E]

Like said above its a very personal choice as to whether to oak a fruit wine. I dont oak my Raspberry but do oak my Blackberry wine. I like Hungarian Medium toast on the Blackberry at 2 ounces per 6 gallons for about 3 weeks of cubes. If I were to do my Raspberry Id go with less oak and maybe go with French light toast.

 

[docanddeb]

I have oaked raspberry/elderberry twice... and LOVE it. I used med toast hungarian once and med toast american the other.
It is totally a personal choice. You can oak just one bottle, if you want to taste it!! Put on an airlock and taste as you go!!

Debbie

 

[buddy]

If you are looking to do some experimentation with oak, you can make up some oak extract to try on your wines to see if you like them better that way.
I believe that you can also purchase ready made oak extract if you prefer.
Here is a link to the oak extract discussion from Luc.
http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=694