AHS Vanilla Porter anyone made it?

today i am brewing AHS vanilla porter, and i have a couple questions for those of you who have also made it or have made a very similar beer.

the ingredients include some vanilla flavoring (it is a powder) i am not terribly interested in using this because i feel that vanilla beans would give this beer a much better flavor and it would be more natural. if so would i need to add the beans at secondary?

i am wondering if anyone has done this or am i just totally overthinking it.

lastly, i am going to be making this a vanilla bourbon porter, when should i add the bourbon? begining of secondary? late in secondary? before bottling?

thanks a lot

brew on

i've never made it, but if your using vanilla beans, i would split them and scrap the inside into the secondary and rack on top of them. i've even heard of people chunking the shells and throwing them in as well. as for the bourbon, i'd add at bottling time (or kegging if you keg) like you would with priming sugar

yeah that was my thought was splitting and scraping the beans and then racking on top of them.

any other thoughts?

thanks

I'm bottling the extract version today. I recently made my own vanilla extract, so I am using that, but there is some discussion about beans towards the end of this thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/how-much-vanilla-vanilla-porter-89818/

I would suggest you brew this recipe: Vanilla - Recipes - Recipes - Denny Conn's Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter It is quite famous. I would add the bourbon at bottling time and use vanilla beans in the secondary.

Shay said:

I would suggest you brew this recipe: Vanilla - Recipes - Recipes - Denny Conn's Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter It is quite famous. I would add the bourbon at bottling time and use vanilla beans in the secondary.

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This is on my "to-brew-list" when I get back home. How noticeable is the bourbon flavor? I thought about excluding it (didn't want to have to buy a bottle just for this beer), but I might see if I can find a small bottle.

I've done AHS vanilla porter (all-grain). It turned out to be a wonderful porter, but the vanilla flavor just never came through. I would add 2 beans (split/scraped) to secondary for a couple weeks if not more. When making extract you leave the beans in for 6 months.

golfguy819 said:

This is on my "to-brew-list" when I get back home. How noticeable is the bourbon flavor? I thought about excluding it (didn't want to have to buy a bottle just for this beer), but I might see if I can find a small bottle.

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There is really no noticeable bourbon or vanilla flavor in it. They all just blend together to create the flavor. I do not like bourbon, but I really enjoy this beer.

conpewter said:

When making extract you leave the beans in for 6 months.

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i am sorry, what do you mean by that...?

thanks

I had the Drydock vanilla porter on tap in Colorado a couple years ago. It was awesome. They posted the homebrew recipe on their site HERE

The recipe calls for 5 beans, and they tell you how to get them in there. I haven't tried the HB version, but the vanilla flavor was very noticeable in the commercial version. It was also quite chocolaty. Excellent blending of flavors.

spartanchip said:

i am sorry, what do you mean by that...?

thanks

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Ah I was just talking about making vanilla extract, that the instructions I've found recommend having the vanilla beans in the 35% alcohol solution for 6 months. So just stating that however long you are going to age it, you can leave it on the vanilla beans to get more flavor over time.

I made a vanilla cream ale. For that I scraped the vanilla beans and put them in the wort for the last 30 min of boil.

I have a Vanilla Bourbon Porter that I brew and have tried both beans and real Vanilla extract and can't really tell the difference.


The vanilla flavor gets weaker as it ages.

I brewed the same kit from AHS about a 1 1/2 years ago. From what I remember it was a fantastic beer, very subtle hint of vanilla more aroma than taste. Although it did seem to have a creamy mouth feel maybe from the vanilla addition. I know after a month in the bottle, it truly was at its peak but by then I only had a 6 pack left. Good Luck

I brewed it last fall and it was pretty awesome. It's on the to-brew list. The powedered vanilla was fine, I might use some real vanolla extract next time.

I made the PM version of it... I ended up using two beans, split and dumped in secondary...

Very good beer...

One of the few that a female friend actually enjoyed... And has asked when I was going to make it again...