Oaking in primary ?

[Fencingbear]

Hi All,

I'm about to start a new 25l batch made out of supermarket apple juice.
I usually bucket ferment for primary, transfer to a carboy to age for a few months, leaving well alone to minimise oxygen exposure.

Acidity is usually fine, but I like the idea of adding a bit of tannin bite to bring a touch of character to the supermarket blandness.
I'm tempted to use oak cubes over grape tannin.
Nearly everything I can find talks about oaking in secondary. But with tasting and extraction, I'm concerned about oxidation.
So my questions are:
1) Am I wrong to worry about oxidation in secondary ?
2) Is adding oak to the primary fermentation possible ? or advisable ? or foolhardy ?

 

[DBhomebrew]

I'm in the beginning stages of working up a Traquair House Ale clone, a beer fermented in oak vessels.

I, too, found little info on oaking in primary. But I'm going for it. Probably a couple ounces of medium toast cubes for the length of primary, maybe three weeks for this beer, then straight to bottles.

One thing I did find is the phenomenon of yeast eating certain compounds in the wood. This will give a different character than oaking post-fermentation.

 

[Raptor99]

I have only tried oak in the secondary. With supermarket apple juice I also add a bit of powdered tannin to the primary where they are useful as "sacrificial tannins" (read more here: Using Tannins: Purposes, sources, and use in winemaking - WineMakerMag.com). I think that anything you add to the primary vs. the secondary will produce a somewhat different flavor. That goes for oak, fruit, vanilla, etc. (I add vanilla to some of my country wines, not cider.) I suggest that you try it to see what you like. You could do oak in the primary, or in the secondary, or both.