Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Bourbon Vanilla Porter (AG)

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I brewed up a 10g batch of this in September. In November, I Brett B to one fermenter, and Brett L to the other.

I just checked and the Brett B hasn't changed much since it was added. It never formed a pellicle. I'll probably just add the bourbon and keg this one soon.

The one with the Brett L though... big bubbly pellicle. I just gave it a taste - kapow. Man, that's one sweet funkalicious beer. Loving it. I'm gonna let it go till spring, add bourbon, then bottle. Sweet!
 
I brewed up a 10g batch of this in September. In November, I Brett B to one fermenter, and Brett L to the other.

I just checked and the Brett B hasn't changed much since it was added. It never formed a pellicle. I'll probably just add the bourbon and keg this one soon.

The one with the Brett L though... big bubbly pellicle. I just gave it a taste - kapow. Man, that's one sweet funkalicious beer. Loving it. I'm gonna let it go till spring, add bourbon, then bottle. Sweet!

Pics please, of the funky one of course.
 
Pics please, of the funky one of course.

I popped a few bubbles in the middle when I put the thief in there, but you can see what I'm talking about there.

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Brewed this again today. Previous batch used US-05 and was one hell of a beer. I decided to use Notty on this with Olive Oil and minimal aeration.

I'll update you guys in a few weeks.
 
Won a blue ribbon with this one. Just added some bourbon soaked toasted oak chips in secondary, along with the regular bourbon addition prior to kegging. Had to make my own brown malt at the time, roasted in the oven at 350 degrees, and crushed with a rolling pin. My local now carries brown malt and it is a lot darker than my homemade version. I am now lazy and use store bought.
 
Sparky, I am gonna make this and keg. How long should I let it condition in the keg before drinking it?

Thanks this looks amazing
 
Sparky, I am gonna make this and keg. How long should I let it condition in the keg before drinking it?

Thanks this looks amazing

I'd leave it in primary for at least 3-4 weeks and then rack to a keg. At that point it should be drinkable.

However, you'll have to decide when to condition with the Vanilla and when to introduce the Bourbon.

I condition with the Vanilla (In a hop bag) while it's in the keg so that I can taste the levels of Vanilla over a few days. Once it reaches the proper level, I pull the hop bag.
 
Brewing up a triple batch of this on the weekend, can someone double check my starter numbers for me?

I'm going to do 4L at 1.04, cold crash and decant, then do another 4L at 1.04, giving me 1328 billions cells, or about 19.5 millions cells/mL if all goes to plan? I have a 5L erlenmeyer and stir plate if that matters.

Using Brewers Friends calculator using the Braukaiser model (but I don't know if this is even accurate, other calculators seem to disagree greatly, especially on the step up calculations.)

Thanks everyone, super excited!
 
I'd leave it in primary for at least 3-4 weeks and then rack to a keg. At that point it should be drinkable.

However, you'll have to decide when to condition with the Vanilla and when to introduce the Bourbon.

I condition with the Vanilla (In a hop bag) while it's in the keg so that I can taste the levels of Vanilla over a few days. Once it reaches the proper level, I pull the hop bag.

Hap, how long do you typically leave the vanilla bean in? Also how much bourbon do you add to 5 gallons and when? :rockin:

thanks !
 
I finally found the error to my carbonation problem. I replaced the bonnet on regulator with a quick call to MicroMatic. A few $$, 10 minutes to replace and more days under REAL pressure gets me




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Racked onto the beans today. Had 9 12oz bottles of beer left that didn't fit in the carboys, so I bottled them with 75ml of bourbon, only had imitation vanilla, so I skipped that.

The inside of the beans was weird, never cut into one before and I see where the flecks of stuff comes from now in some vanilla ice creams.
 
Brewed a triple batch of this as part of our new brew club on Saturday (none of us had done AG, most of us hadn't even brewed). We used the grain bill found on the brew365 site, and mashed at 153 for 60 min. Hit our OG of 1.080 and everything tastes great and seems to be fermenting well (it's in the four along the back wall)

I just had some questions about the vanilla and oak additions. I'm planning on adding 2 split/scraped beans and some medium toast oak chips (both soaked in bourbon for a few days) at around 3 weeks, but can I add these straight into primary, provided fermentation is completed at that point? I'm running low on fermenters and it would make life a whole lot easier, but isn't completely necessary.

Also, how much less do you need to add with oak chips vs oak cubes, I seem to have bought the wrong product...
 
Brewed a triple batch of this as part of our new brew club on Saturday (none of us had done AG, most of us hadn't even brewed). We used the grain bill found on the brew365 site, and mashed at 153 for 60 min. Hit our OG of 1.080 and everything tastes great and seems to be fermenting well (it's in the four along the back wall)

I just had some questions about the vanilla and oak additions. I'm planning on adding 2 split/scraped beans and some medium toast oak chips (both soaked in bourbon for a few days) at around 3 weeks, but can I add these straight into primary, provided fermentation is completed at that point? I'm running low on fermenters and it would make life a whole lot easier, but isn't completely necessary.

Also, how much less do you need to add with oak chips vs oak cubes, I seem to have bought the wrong product...

Looks like your answer is in the other thread.
 
With a beer starting at 1.075, the ph and alcohol content would take care of anything the beans are carrying as long as you wash them in some nice hot water first. The only thing that would like to live in that beer, is, um... me!

Also, how long do YOU usually leave the beans in the secondary?? I assume you also made a starter for this beast?

That is ridiculous. You need close to 50% ABV for sanitizing whereas 70% is standard in labs and 95% is ideal. Alcohol sanitizes by breaking down cell membranes... 6% won't sanitize anything. Think about sours... they are given their flavor with... what.. BACTERIA during fermentation. I'm not even going to address the your pH comment because it is even further off base.

Your risk of contamination from the vanilla beans is low. You've already fermented.. meaning there's not a lot of food left for the bacteria to enter a fervent reproduction cycle either (ever feel too tired for sex with your girlfriend?). And your hops naturally have antimicrobial agents in them. Yeast put these off as well. (Evolution is the bomb). You run a greater risk if youre planning on bottle conditioning to carbonate because you'll be introducing priming sugar. Still there's a lot more yeast in solution that can compete with the bacteria. Think of it as 10000000 starving people competing with 100 starving people for the same few scraps of food. Most everyone will starve, but the odds are the group of 1000000 will still get the majority of what was there.

If you're really concerned, run a UV light over the surface of your beans for 5-10 minutes. That'll kill off any surface bacteria and wont affect the beans or vanilla at all.
 
Just sampled my latest batch of this.

I love this stuff.

Now, on to some interesting facts about this batch:

1. Fermented with Nottingham (Vs US-05 for every previous batch). Much fruitier and more yeast character. I think a little bit too much, but nothing to complain about. It's still a great beer.
2. Sampled without the vanilla or bourbon. To me that's important to get an idea of the difference between the US-05 and Notty
3. Fermentation went too high (Temp controller broke while fermenting) (Around 75 F for about 10-14 hours). Fortunately, I don't think it gave too many negative characters, however I think the excess fruitiness is from some esters going wild at these temps. I've heard that Notty creates "Monkey Beer" when fermented too high.

Even with the fermentation muck up, I still love this beer. As mentioned, I'll probably switch back to US-05 for this. I liked the really clean profile of the previous batches (Just my preference, not a shot at the Notty yeast).

On another note, the Notty makes this taste a little bit closer to a scotch ale. Not quite a scotch ale, but I'm convinced that I could use this yeast for a scotch/scottish recipe.
 
I moved this over to a pair of 5 gallon carboys for the vanilla and had enough left over for nine 12oz bottles. Added roughly 10ml/pint and it's pretty amazing, even without the vanilla. I think the beans I had weren't as fresh as they should have been and couldn't taste vanilla at all after a week, so I added more vanilla beans and I'm kegging on Saturday to carb, then bottling from the kegs.
 
Hey guys got a couple ?'s and didnt really wanna read through 50 pgs to see if these ?'s have been answered lol. First ? Would using jack daniels be ok and if so how much should I use for the bourbon aspect. Also how many beans should I use to get a mild but noticable taste, this will be for a 5 gallon batch.
 
Giving this a shot today with Denny's Favorite yeast. I think I saw a couple people say it comes out good with that one as well.
 
Giving this a shot today with Denny's Favorite yeast. I think I saw a couple people say it comes out good with that one as well.

You from g rap michigan? If so theres a thread I started in the michigan section about brewing at other peoples houses.
 
Kegged on Tuesday night...filled two cornies to the brim. Sitting on gas to carb and then I'm bottling from the keg for easy transport and sharing.

Ended up adding double the amount of vanilla beans as the taste just wasn't coming through with the first addition of two beans per carboy. When I went from primary to secondary to add the vanilla, I had enough to fill nine 12 oz bottles and I added bourbon to them and holy smokes are they good. Can't wait to try them with the vanilla as well.
 
Kegged on Tuesday night...filled two cornies to the brim. Sitting on gas to carb and then I'm bottling from the keg for easy transport and sharing.

Ended up adding double the amount of vanilla beans as the taste just wasn't coming through with the first addition of two beans per carboy. When I went from primary to secondary to add the vanilla, I had enough to fill nine 12 oz bottles and I added bourbon to them and holy smokes are they good. Can't wait to try them with the vanilla as well.

Are you splitting, gutting, and chopping the vanilla beans? I do this and i get the vanilla character within 24-48 hours. Sometimes too much.

However, i always add the vanilla once the beer is carbed in the keg. I use hop bags that can be removed when i know it tastes the way i want it to. Best way to control it IMO.

It always puzzles me when i hear people say they added two spilt and gutted vanilla beans to 5 gallons and don't get any vanilla after weeks.

I've now tried 3 different types of vanilla bean and i always get TONS of vanilla character really fast.
 
I'm going to brew this today. I had .5lb of Chocolate (400) left over from another stout, so I am using it instead of the Chocolate (350). What characteristics of the beer will change due to this?
 
Whoa! Left the vanilla in a bit too long, it has a very strong vanilla taste. Any idea if the vanilla will mellow with age?
 
The vanilla will mellow with age. Must have been strong beans. I usually do three beans for two weeks.

It does seem to mellow fairly quickly for me. Many times it only takes a few days for my beer to have too much vanilla for only two beans. However, I keg the beer and it's possible that a lot of the vanilla settles to the bottom of the keg and the later pours just have less of the vanilla character.
 
Hi folks
I'm brewing this recipe tomorrow but I've just realised my brown malt is from Simpsons and is roughly twice as dark (300 EBC) as the brown malt listed in the recipe. Does anyone have any experience with this particular brand of brown malt in this (or other similar) recipes?
At this stage my plan is to halve the amount of brown malt and sub in something like biscuit/victory to make up the other half.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions
 
I finally got around to kegging my funked-up version of this. Very tasty. Was drinking it tonight, and I'm toasted. Later fermentation with brett B. I've got a brett L version also, kegged and carbed, but I'm not touching that one yet.
 
I'm sure its in this 51+ page thread somewhere but can someone tell me what the correct amount of pure vanilla extract is for 5 gallons of this, I have 2 days until racking to secondary and can't get the pure vanilla beans in the meantime. Thanks for whoever helps.
 
BrewOClock said:
I'm sure its in this 51+ page thread somewhere but can someone tell me what the correct amount of pure vanilla extract is for 5 gallons of this, I have 2 days until racking to secondary and can't get the pure vanilla beans in the meantime. Thanks for whoever helps.

I used 2oz last time of the stuff in the picture but bumped it up to 3oz this time. I hope that helps.
 
So the recipe says add the vanilla beans to the secondary and the Makers at bottling/kegging. But some people added the vanilla beans to the makers for a couple days then poured all that into the secondary. Which is the preferred method? I brewed this Sunday so I will be moving it to the secondary early next week. I forgot to let my boil run longer so I ended up with more wort and missed my OG (got a 1.069).. other than that though I am excited to try this one!
 
I soaked two split and cut beans in whiskey for a week and them dumped it all in the secondary (whiskey barrel actually) for 1 week and then transferred to the keg. The vanilla flavor was amazing, but has since subsided after 2 months.
 
I soaked the beans in about an ounce or so of the bourbon for a few weeks (was only supposed to be a week, but my brew schedule kept getting pushed out and the beans were already soaking) to sanitize them before adding to secondary. The bulk of the bourbon (I used 8 oz.) was added when I transferred from secondary to the keg.

Edit: No, this isn't what I did. I'm remembering incorrectly. Jeez, it sucks getting old. :drunk:

It was the oak chips that ended up with an extended soaking in the full 8 oz. of bourbon for about 3 weeks before adding to secondary. I can't remember what I did with the vanilla beans. Might've just added them to the end of the boil. I'll check my notes tonight and update this post... again.

Edit 2: Evidently, I soaked the vanilla beans and the oak chips in 8 oz. of bourbon and dumped the whole mess into the secondary for about a week, then I kegged and let it age for 4 months before tapping. Fortunately, I don't need to refer back to my notes to recall that it turned out to be really nice brew.
 
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