Denny Conn's Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter

I'm looking to make a smooth vanilla porter in an attempt to replicate Dry Dock's Vanilla Porter. I find many porters I try to be a bit heavy and astringent. Dry Dock is a pretty small brewery in Denver so I don't think many on here have tried their porter. I picked up some Deschutes Black Butte Porter to see how that compares but it doesn't have that smoothness that the Dry Dock has.

This recipe looks promising and its fame has me wanting to try it. I don't like bourbon that much so I would probably just soak the beans in a little bourbon, then add to secondary. I don't have much experience with porters and this being such a high gravity I am not so sure that it would be smooth. Would anyone please tell me whether they would characterize this as smooth?

If not, can someone direct me to a smooth session-y porter that might better suit what I'm looking for?

Thanks!

Edit: I know many say add maltodextrin for mouthfeel, but that's not exactly what I'm looking for. Looking for more of a smoothness of grain and malt flavors than body.

It's a very smooth base porter, assuming your water is cooperative or you make the proper adjustments. Also, I don't care for bourbon at all, but the amount called fro in the recipe gives you an integrated bourbon flavor, not one that stands out.

Just about to bottle this bad boy. It's been on vanilla for 8 days and is tasting great. Very excited to try this one. Thanks, Denny!

You're welcome! I recommend bottling when the vanilla is a little stronger than you think it should be. It will be the first thing to go as the beer ages.

Cool, will do.

Denny said:

It's a very smooth base porter, assuming your water is cooperative or you make the proper adjustments. Also, I don't care for bourbon at all, but the amount called fro in the recipe gives you an integrated bourbon flavor, not one that stands out.

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Thanks Denny.

Brewed this beer Sunday.
Man I can't wait to drink it.
Thanks Denny!

Denny, have you ever had this beer finish as high as 1.026? Mine's sitting there. Probably because I had to add 2 lbs of DME due to poor efficiency I'm guessing...It tastes good, although the vanilla is not there yet. WY1450.

Ive always used Makers Mark with great results. I never want to go to expensive or to cheap and this has always been the happy medium

been thinking about this recipe for awhile and was at trader joes last weekend and saw vanilla beans. Had to make a trip to midwest while i was in the cities to get the ingredients. Will be brewing it next week.

SenorPepe said:

Denny, have you ever had this beer finish as high as 1.026? Mine's sitting there. Probably because I had to add 2 lbs of DME due to poor efficiency I'm guessing...It tastes good, although the vanilla is not there yet. WY1450.

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That's right where is should finish. Any lower makes it thin and harsh.

Denny said:

That's right where is should finish. Any lower makes it thin and harsh.

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:rockin: Perfect, thanks! I love this damn yeast.

I'm just gonna think out loud for a second here. I just finished a chocolate sweet stout, where I soaked a vanilla bean in vodka for maybe a half hour, then split it and put it in primary. 5 days later it was nice and vanilla-y. This time, I split a vanilla bean, chopped it in 3 pieces and put it in primary and after 9 days I didn't taste it much. Anyone have this issue? I was thinking maybe the small pieces sunk in the trub...I'm holding off judgment until the bean's been in 2 weeks but have some of you done this in primary? By the way, it's a 2.5 gallon batch-I think the right recipe calls for 2 beans/5 gallons...

Would there be any negatives to using US-05 or WLP001 for this brew since they are all apparently the same strain?

I just have those already and wondering if it would be better to get some 1056.

I also have a pack of 1318 and I have never used that yeast before. So wondering how that flavor profile would work with this beer.

The WLP001 is a year old, but I'm planning on making a starter anyways.

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Edit: Reason for this question is because I saw Denny recommending 1056 somewhere else.

I only recommend 1056 if you can't get 1450. I prefer either 1056 or 001 to US-05. 05 seems to leave the beer just a bit thinner and more estery than the other 2. I'm not a fan of British yeasts in this beer because they tend to throw esters than conflict with the other flavors.

Thanks Denny. I'm brewing this today and calculating my mash/sparge volumes right now. I have a pretty high evaporation rate so I'm going for 7.25 pre-boil volume. I'm still working on fine tuning my system for the mash process.

In your recipe, you mash with 5.75 gallons which equals 1.3 qts/lb of grain. This makes sense, however, it leaves a small amount of water to sparge with, no? If I mash with 5.75 gallons, it leaves me 3.61 gallons to sparge with. (I mash in an insulated kettle that I can direct fire so I don't add mash out water)

I have heard you say that equal runnings gives the best efficiency. In this case, why not mash with 1qt/lb and thereby have equal runnings?

Thanks,
Matt

Edit: I got 1450 btw, starter has been spinning since last night.

I find that using more mash water increases my efficiency more than equal runnings does. In general, if the runnings are within a gal. or so it's close enough. I usually shoot for 7.5-8 gal. in the kettle to end up wwiht a 5.5 gal. batch.

Thanks Denny. So are you doing 90 minute boils with those 7.5-8 gallon pre-boil volumes?

More like 70 min. boils. I give the hot break about 10 min. to stabilize. Once it's moved off the the side of the kettle, I start my 60 min. hops.

Thanks Denny. I just finished this batch up. Overshot the boil volume a bit and may have put too much into my 6 gal carboy when the 1L stir plate starter was pitched. I used 1450. Should I be concerned that the krausen will clog the airlock with this yeast? I don't have any stoppers that can fit a blow off tube.

I attached a picture. That's not krausen, just foam from aeration.

What do you all think? Am I going to wake up to a mess?

Edit: It's fermenting at 65F

matts said:

Thanks Denny. I just finished this batch up. Overshot the boil volume a bit and may have put too much into my 6 gal carboy when the 1L stir plate starter was pitched. I used 1450. Should I be concerned that the krausen will clog the airlock with this yeast? I don't have any stoppers that can fit a blow off tube.

I attached a picture. That's not krausen, just foam from aeration.

What do you all think? Am I going to wake up to a mess?

Edit: It's fermenting at 65F

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I would get a blow off tube on there. In my experience I have seen large Krausen's develop with 1450 that have come within a 1/2 inch if needing a blow off and if you possibly overshot your volume I would think you may need one .

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Yeah, I brewed this last week and I had the highest krausen I've ever had. It seems to be finished already though. Kind of a quick fermentation.

I checked it in the middle of the night and the airlock had wort in it but it appeared to have risen and then settled down. I replaced the airlock with a clean one and it was still clean this morning. The krausen is about 1.5 to 2 inches and appears to be stable.

I've never had any of my brews blow out. If it just chugs along like it is now, I think things should be fine, but wondering if it ramps up later today or tomorrow, then I might have more problems.

I live about an hour away from my local HBS, but probably going to make the trip.

matts said:

I checked it in the middle of the night and the airlock had wort in it but it appeared to have risen and then settled down. I replaced the airlock with a clean one and it was still clean this morning. The krausen is about 1.5 to 2 inches and appears to be stable.

I've never had any of my brews blow out. If it just chugs along like it is now, I think things should be fine, but wondering if it ramps up later today or tomorrow, then I might have more problems.

I live about an hour away from my local HBS, but probably going to make the trip.

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Not ideal but this will work in a emergency . Take a piece of sanitized racking cane 3/8" and put it into your hole in the bing where your airlock would normally be. Then run a length of 3/8" tubing like you would use with a siphon into a bucket of water or starsan etc. Not ideal as hops and Krausen may clog such a small diameter blow off But it's better than nothing.

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All I can tell you is that I use a blowoff tube for every batch. Otherwise, it's often too late by the time you discover you need one. I hope you decanted your starter before pitching.

Denny: Oops, I only started making starters recently. I didn't realize they contribute off flavors. Oh well.

Thanks for the suggestion Aschecte. I'm going to keep a close eye on it and use your technique if it comes to it.

Edit: It was just a 1L stir plate starter, only 20 hours old, so maybe didn't affect the taste much?

matts said:

Denny: Oops, I only started making starters recently. I didn't realize they contribute off flavors. Oh well.

Thanks for the suggestion Aschecte. I'm going to keep a close eye on it and use your technique if it comes to it.

Edit: It was just a 1L stir plate starter, only 20 hours old, so maybe didn't affect the taste much?

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IMHO you will only get off flavors with large starters over 1/2 gallon. I wouldn't worry about 1 liter.

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Aschecte said:

IMHO you will only get off flavors with large starters over 1/2 gallon. I wouldn't worry about 1 liter.

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Thanks! I feel much better now to know that I didn't ruin all yesterday's hard work

I'll probably do some decanting on future batches though.

Aschecte said:

IMHO you will only get off flavors with large starters over 1/2 gallon. I wouldn't worry about 1 liter.

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OTOH, using a stir plate really aerates the starter, leading ti oxidized starter wort. My own tastebuds tell me to always decant.

matts said:

Thanks! I feel much better now to know that I didn't ruin all yesterday's hard work

I'll probably do some decanting on future batches though.

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When you made your starter did you place foil or foam in the top of your flask or did you use a airlock ?

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Aschecte said:

When you made your starter did you place foil or foam in the top of your flask or did you use a airlock ?

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I've read to use foil so the yeast can get lots of oxygen. So yeah, the starter was probably pretty oxidized.

I don't know much about microbiology or what produces the oxidized flavors, but are the yeast able to eat and clean up any of those oxidized off flavors with all that vigorous fermentation?

Denny said:

OTOH, using a stir plate really aerates the starter, leading ti oxidized starter wort. My own tastebuds tell me to always decant.

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So do you have your starter going two days in advance then chill and decant? I always liked the idea of dropping the starter in at high krausen does that not really matter?

matts said:

I've read to use foil so the yeast can get lots of oxygen. So yeah, the starter was probably pretty oxidized.

I don't know much about microbiology or what produces the oxidized flavors, but are the yeast able to eat and clean up any of those oxidized off flavors with all that vigorous fermentation?

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In that case yup you have oxidized beer in your starter and correctly so as yeast needs oxygen at that stage to reproduce. What causes oxidation is oxygen itself as far as cleaning it up I don't believe it will be abl to "clean' up during vigorous fermentation. But one other point to make is that in a full flavored beer a small amount of oxidation tends to hide itself fairly well. Not to misunderstod as me saying it is ideal or something to ignore but it will not be as prominent as per say in a english bitter or a lighter flavored beer. My guess is that you will still be just fine.

FuelshopMcgee said:

So do you have your starter going two days in advance then chill and decant? I always liked the idea of dropping the starter in at high krausen does that not really matter?

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More like 5-7 days early. 2-3 days on the stir plate, then 2-3 in the fridge.

Do you think the yeast in this yeast cake would be too stressed to pitch on top of? I'm thinking of brewing up Wry Smile Rye IPA to pitch on top when I rack this.

I have a ? I am planning this as my day after X-mas brew and I was wondering what you guys thought of boiling down the first gallon of runnings for some caramelization.

matts said:

Do you think the yeast in this yeast cake would be too stressed to pitch on top of? I'm thinking of brewing up Wry Smile Rye IPA to pitch on top when I rack this.

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If you get the 1.086 OG in the recipe, I wouldn't reuse the yeast.

ashplub said:

I have a ? I am planning this as my day after X-mas brew and I was wondering what you guys thought of boiling down the first gallon of runnings for some caramelization.

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I say no. The recipe is perfect (IMO) the way it is. I brewed a lot of test batches to come up with it and if i thought that something would improve it, I would have done it. At least try it as is first, then decide if you want to do it on the next batch.

Thanks Denny. One more question. My LHBS does not have German Munich. They do have American light and dark (I and II). I understand those are not sutable replacements. Maybe I should use MO instead of plain 2-row and use the American light Munich? What do you suggest? Besides getting German Munich that is.

I just tasted mine out after a gravity test 2 weeks into fermentation and it tastes fantastic. Really looking forward to drinking this.

ashplub said:

Thanks Denny. One more question. My LHBS does not have German Munich. They do have American light and dark (I and II). I understand those are not sutable replacements. Maybe I should use MO instead of plain 2-row and use the American light Munich? What do you suggest? Besides getting German Munich that is.

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I almost always use Am. Munich for the beer. My standard is Great western 10L Munich. I'd recommend not using MO. I use Rahr or GW pale malt.