Whiskey Porter, how much?

So this weekend I'm planning to brew up the brown porter recipe from the "brewing classic styles" book. My intent is to keep to the recipe until the secondary.

In the secondary I plan to add vanilla beens and some amount of scotch. The scotch will be a glenlivet; either an 18, 15 French oak or the 16 nadurra. I haven't decided on the bottle yet but I'm leaning nadurra for that strong flavoring. The plan is about 2 months in secondary.

My target is to have the scotch be the primary flavor but not over powering, while not losing the beer/malt backbone. I don't want to forget that its a porter while drinking it but I want the scotch to be inescapable.

While the vanilla would be a secondary flavor (hint of type of thing)

This is the first time I've done something like this and was hoping for advice on how many vanilla beans (and the propped prep of them) and how much whiskey to include in a 5 gallon batch? Also, how would adding oak impact?

Thanks!

If I was doing this...here's what I would do. And keep in mind this can be done all kinds of different ways...this is just my preference.

Split 1 vanilla bean and soak it in vodka during primary. Add the bean/vodka mixture to secondary.

Soak 4oz. of oak chips/cubes in your choice of scotch for the same amount of time as your vanilla bean. Strain the scotch and add just the soaked chips to your secondary.

The vanilla should compliment your scotch/oak mixture pretty well. I'm not a fan of adding scotch or bourbon directly to the beer. I feel that it leads to an overpowering flavor that ends up being the focus of the beer. Soaked oak chips (without the liquor) will leave you with the closest possible representation of what barrel aging would do.

We have an Oaked Vanilla Whiskey Porter aging right now, we used the Robust Porter recipe from BCS. Added 2 vanilla beans (split) at about 5 minutes left in boil and left em in through primary. We only used 1oz of oak chips, soaked in 16oz of whiskey for about a week while the porter was in primary. At two weeks, primary was done and we racked to secondary on top of the chips and whiskey. Three weeks on that in secondary and we bottled. I like a pretty strong vanilla/whiskey combination so we added another few ounces of pure vanilla extract at bottling. Tasted almost perfect going into the bottles, but the whiskey was a little strong. A while in bottles should cure that.

Thanks! Can I ask, what is the virtue of adding the vanilla in the boil/primary as opposed to in secondary?

Also, how did the robust porter work out? I was going to us e that recipe at first but was worried it would be too overpowering for the scotch.

I just found the vanilla robust recipe from jamil's show and I'm thinking of that as well. This adds the vanilla during boil/primary.

elleric said:

Thanks! Can I ask, what is the virtue of adding the vanilla in the boil/primary as opposed to in secondary?
Also, how did the robust porter work out? I was going to us e that recipe at first but was worried it would be too overpowering for the scotch.
I just found the vanilla robust recipe from jamil's show and I'm thinking of that as well. This adds the vanilla during boil/primary.

Click to expand...

We used the beans in the boil to make sure there was SOME vanilla in the base, but expecting to use more in secondary. I really liked the robust porter before it went to secondary, we'll probably brew the same recipe again straight up but I have no idea how scotch will impact it - but the whiskey SEEMS to be blending with it nicely based on the bottling sample. IIRC, the vanila robust version is also in BCS.

As a side note, we were big fans of AB's Winter Bourbon Cask Ale (yeah I know, most folks find it disgusting) and the only difference between it and this beer seems to be nutmeg.

I have a bottle of jb black sitting right now that I thought about using... Not a fan of how overt a lot of bourbon flavors are though, they seem to over power the taste buds very quickly. Prefer the subtle flavors in 15-18 year old scotches... I'm sure older I'd like too, but that's more money then I'd care to spend~

The nadurra is one of the stronger flavored scotches while avoiding smoke/Peet being the dominant flavor. I think I'd still have to use a bit more then you did using jb... Just based on wanting the scotch to be in the forefront and the differance in intensities.

The scotch flavor may not make it to the forefront. It is not about your recipe or the technique, but the anatomy of the mouth and the placement of the tastebuds. I have tried a lot of bourbon/liquor infused beers and not one of them had the upfront taste that you describe. The alcohol kick that we get occurs when we take the first breath after swallowing. This is what really influences our tastes and enjoyment. I think that if there was an upfront liquor taste, then it would dominate and eliminate any other flavor just because they would not be able to stand up to it.