This may be a dumb question but what styles of beer lend them self best to sitting in a secondary with french oak cubes?
I haven’t done it but the ones I have tasted that are nice with the oak flavoring have been big dark beers like Imperial Stouts and Barley Wines.
maybe a french beer? french saison, bier d’garde?
I used medium toast french chips in an imperial oatmeal stout back in June. It’s aged really well. I love the vanilla flavor the oak gave the beer. I only kept it on the chips for 7 days (5 gallon batch, 2 oz chips).
I’ve oaked porters and stouts so far. I think way back in the day I oaked something else, but I can’t remember what.
I recently had a La Trappe oaked quadruple. I did not like it with the oak. Smoky. Weird. Much better without and I believe my taste threshold for the oak tannins is pretty high.
These days you find every style is getting oaked. I’m just waiting for oak aged malt liquor.
I like the darker beers myself. (RIS, Baltic Porter, etc…) but I also think Belgians work well with some oaking as it adds more complexity to the beer. As was said, you can oak just about any beer style these days. Seems to have become more and more popular by pro-breweries as well. Perhaps us homebrewers have more and more influence on the pro-brewers. 
I put a white oak spiral in an American IPA recently that turned out great. It really accented the citrusy hops.
I’ve oaked my IPA’s in the past. I’ve also over-oaked. Not very tasty…
Start light, IMHO.
Dave
Must be careful with soak time. I have over-oaked as well.
Thank you. You all have given me some good ideas. I brewed Denny’s Old Stoner barley wine about 10 months ago and it is still sitting in the secondary. I am thinking about adding some french oak cubes to it for about a month before bottling. Would that be too long on the oak? Will using oak in this beer ruin it? What does everyone think?
I first boiled 1.15 oz. French medium toast oak chips in 1/4 cup water for 9 minutes, and added just the chips to secondary (full 6-gallon carboy) of Denny’s Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter for 10 days before bottling. It was heavy on the oak until it integrated well several months after bottling, and then was really delicious although the vanilla beans faded by then - that beer got the most compliments of any this year, and the most requests to brew it again. I would rather err on the side of too little than too much oak, and a little goes a long way.
Of course cubes have less surface area than chips and so can stay in longer but I would still steam or boil them for awhile to take the edge off a bit, and maybe taste it every week after the first one to two weeks (YMMV depending on how much you start with).
+1 to using a vegetable steamer. Put 1/4" of water in a pot, open steamer and place in a handful of oak chips and cover. Steam for ~5 minutes and you are good to go!
Dave
I think I will add French cubes to the secondary for about 10 days as suggested. Thank you all for the replies.