To oak or not to oak?
That is the question.
I went ahead and bought a French Merlot kit by Brew King. The person I
talked to at Morebeer.com recommended 1oz of French Oak Cubes to add to the
primary fermentor and to transfer to secondary. He said I would get more
tannin and character by doing this. But when I called back to get
clarification as to whether this was in addition to or in place of the oak
dust that comes in the kit the new guy I talked to said that I might "over
oak" the wine and to make the kit as is. So now I'm confused. I'm thinking
of splitting the difference and only adding the cubes to the primary and
then racking off of them and the dust.
Has anyone made this kit and have recommendations for adding oak or anything
else that might help. I'm not a wine drinker so I can't really test by taste
since I really don't know what to look for but I don't want a bland final
product.
Mark
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