Is there a difference between soaking oak in bourbon and just adding the bourbon straight into secondary?

As I was thinking about how I want to make my bourbon oak stout, I was thinking of how to soak the oak in bourbon. I wanted to get the bourbon into the wood, for the purpose of putting it into my beer where it would get the bourbon out.

Is there a reason to do this? It just sounds better than pouring a small amount of bourbon directly in, but I can't think of how it's different.

EDIT: I've thought some more about this. I've had bourbon barrel aged beers, and the taste of Bourbon can be extreme. What doesn't make sense is that there can't be that much bourbon liquid contained in the wood itself, let alone brought into the beer aged in it. So does the wood somehow soak up flavor, allowing you to get the flavor without the alcohol and water?

Topic bourbon oak homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

The main reason for soaking the oak in Bourbon is to sanitize the oak. The Bourbon will kill any bacteria on the oak chips so you have less risk of batch contamination. Then later add more Bourbon to taste.

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I have a recipe for Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter that's very popular. I add the bourbon post fermentation, pre bottling or kegging. I pour 4 2 oz. samples of the beer and add a different measured amount of bourbon to each. After tasting them all and picking the one I like best, I scale that amount of bourbon up to the batch size. I find this makes an easy, controllable way to get just the right amount of bourbon in the batch. So, I'd say do the oak and bourbon in 2 separate steps.

1
answered at

i think the general consensus is to oak your beer and just pour some bourbon straight into the fermenter, so you can get the balance that you're looking for. on the other hand, about the only harm i can see is the whisky extracting unwanted tannins while it soaks.

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