Vanilla Oaked Traditional Porter - Please Critique!

Recipe: Oaked Vanilla Porter
Style: Robust Porter
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

I modeled this loosely after some of the historical notes in Designing Great Beers. Thus the Amber and Brown malts, and the absence of Black Patent malt or Roasted Barley.

It may be odd going to all this trouble only to add vanilla and oak, but I'm considering only adding them to half the batch. Thoughts?

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.37 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 4.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.060 SG
Estimated Color: 28.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 86.4 %
Boil Time: 60-90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 76.6 %
1 lbs Amber Malt (22.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.5 %
1 lbs Brown Malt (65.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.5 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 4 6.4 %

0.91 oz Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 21.7 IBUs
0.68 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 30.0 Hop 6 8.3 IBUs

1.0 pkg Yorkshire Square Ale Yeast (White Labs #037) Yeast 7 -
4.00 oz Oak Chips (Secondary 7.0 days) Flavor 8 -
2.00 Items Vanilla Bean, Madagascar (Secondary 2.0 weeks) Spice 9 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs 12.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 17.89 qt of water at 166.0 F 156.0 F 45 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (1.02gal, 4.09gal) of 168.0 F water

-Rich

*bump*

Anyone?

-Rich

*double bump*

Nobody?

-Rich

I'm myself going to be brewing a Vanilla Porter (though certainly not in a traditional style) in the next week, so all I can give you is secondhand advice.

For vanilla additions I've seen many posters make their own extract by soaking split and scraped beans in liquor, either rum or vodka, for a week or two before adding to the secondary. Some suggest putting sterilized (either doused in 80+ proof liquor or outsides wiped with Starsan) beans and seeds into either the primary or secondary.

I'm planning on putting whole beans into my primary, so I can let you know in 2-3 weeks how everything turns out. Otherwise it looks like we're in this together!

Tantalus, thanks for replying. Guess so, we'll learn together! I'll be brewing the day after tomorrow, so this will definitely be flying with limited visibility.

-Rich

4 oz of oak is a ton; I think 1-2 is probably where you want to be. It could make the beer really astringent and not so much fun to drink.

FarmerTed, interesting! I've used 4 oz in wines before; will the oak character show more strongly in a porter (or just in beer) for some reason? The hops, maybe?

Thanks for saying something--I'd hate to goof up the oak.

-Rich

Well, I can't comment on wine, but you'll be dumping a lot of tannins into the beer, and it will probably be pretty chalky. I'd check the smoke & wood-aged forum/database for recipes and see what is normal for a porter with a 1.060 O.G. I'll guess and say 1-1.5 oz. I'm pretty sure the FW Double Barrel clone is around 1.25 oz (not a porter, just a great beer). Big stouts may be able to handle a lot of oak (check the Kate the Great clone as well), but your's isn't that big.

Edit: here's a good post from the Kate thread.

Awesome, thanks for that. I will do some more research!

-Rich

FarmerTed said:

4 oz of oak is a ton; I think 1-2 is probably where you want to be. It could make the beer really astringent and not so much fun to drink.

Click to expand...

+1, 4oz is way too much unless you plan on a short contact time

+2 on too much oak, especially if you are only oaking half the batch!