FA Oak Wood just doesn't cut it.
No oak barrel? No problem! Buy white oak chips from Amazon (the kind used for smoking meats).
Wash the chips in soap and water. Rinse thoroughly, boil for 2min and sun-dry. Such chips were never meant to be in direct contact with food/liquids, so you MUST clean them first.
Use a butane torch to char the chips.
You can save some time and trouble by getting this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Charred-Toasted-Wh...g-/200702272501But for peace of mind on hygiene matters, I prefer to just get the untreated chips then wash, boil, dry and char. It's easy!
Make yr juice and store it in a container that can be turned upside down, and can lay on it's side without leaking.
Add an amount of chips which will approximate one-third the surface area of the juice touching the inside of the container. Just agak-agak this and don't worry. A bit more or a bit less won't hurt.
During steeping time, store the container in various positions (right-side up, upside-down, on it's side and rolled to a different part of its side daily) so that the oak chips are distributed as well as can be. This will help speed things up. I recommend you turn the container at least 2X a day.
Expect a loss of 0.5-1.5% of juice volume as some will be soaked up by the chips. If you use oak chunks instead of chips, the loss can be over 3% for the first batch, but subsequent batches will have less loss (and will also taste better as the oak "improves").
Usually CLR takes a week to steep. With oak chips, adding in another 4-7 days will only improve it.
Do sample your juice daily, and when it hits the right amount of steeping, enjoyyyyy!
