Oaking an RIS and need opinions...

Ingredients
1

Evening gents(and ladies)

Im brewin up a RIS tomorrow and my local HBS was out of Med+ American oak cubes(what I have always used. They did have heavy toasted chips.  Since heavy is just past the med+ I grabbed them. On my way home I got to thinking, I have only used 2.5oz of med+ American oak cubes in the past. Now i have heavy toasted and 4 oz and due to more survice area- im thinking I should start checking the beer around 2 weeks?

RIS is 95 IBU(intended for some aging)
10%
50SRM

Guess im just looking for anybody with experience with chips. When should I start checking?

I do like pronounced Oak in my RIS, but was planning on entering this in comps this coming year

Oh and the chips are currently soaking in about 4oz of Bullit Bourbon

Thoughts

2

General consensus is that the chips give you less depth of flavor and more tannin. I tend to agree with that. Personally I would ditch the bourbon when you add the oak because it is probably loaded with more tannin than you want going into your beer. Maybe even give the chips a change of bourbon to help extract tannins ahead of adding the chips to your beer.

I would add a lesser amount of chips than cubes to the beer and taste after a couple weeks. If it’s not oaky enough then add more and give it another couple weeks. Even with chips you can get a smoother oak flavor if you give them longer contact time but you do not want to overoak.