Vanilla Creme Ale Clone

I have a recipe from the 2010 BYO 250 classic clone recipes. It is a clone for a Vanilla Creme Ale (Bohannon or Market Street Brewery). I am wondering if anyone has tried this recipe and if you have, how did it turn out? I know that some people have tried the Carmel Creme Ale recipe but this is different.

Here is the recipe.

Vanilla Creme Ale Clone

Batch Size: 5 Gallons/19 L (extract with grains)
OG: 1.040
FG: 1.010
IBU: 14
SRM: 6
ABV: 3.9%

Ingredients:
1.25 lb. (0.57 kg) Muntons Light DME
3.3 lbs (1.5 kg) Muntons Light LME (late addition)
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) crystal malt 10L
1/2 lb. (0.23 kg) wheat malt
3.5 AAU Nugget hops (60 mins) (0.27oz/8g of 13.0% alpha acid)
2.0 AAU Mt. Hood hops (2 mins) (0.5oz/14g of 4.0% alpha acid)
2 vanilla beans (15 mins)
1 tsp. Irish Moss (15 mins)
White Labs WLP001 (California Ale) or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) yeast
0.75 cup corn sugar (for priming)

Step by Step:
Place crushed malts in a nylon steeping bag and steep in 3.0 qts (2.8L) of water at 150 F (66 C)for 30 minutes. Rinse grains with 1.5 qts (~1.5 L) of water at 170 F (77 C). Add water to make 3 gallons (11 L), stir in dried malt extract and bring to a boil.

Add Nugget (bittering) hops and boil for 60 minutes. add chopped vanilla beans, liquid malt extract and Irish moss with 15 minutes left in the boil. Add M.t. Hood (aroma) hops for the last two minutes of the boil.

Cool wort by submering brewpot in sink, with the lid on, until the side of the brewpot no longer feels warm. Transfer wort to fermentor and top up to 5 gallons (19 L) with cool water. Aerate wort and pitch yeast. Ferment at 68 F (20 C) for 10 - 14 days.

Bottle your beer, age for two to three weeks and enjoy!

All-grain option:
Replace the light syrup and powder with 6 lbs. 14 oz. (3.1 kg) Great Western two-row pale malt. Mash all your grains at 155 F (68 C) for 45 minutes. Use 10.5 qts (10 L) of mash water. Collect 4.5 gallons (17 L) wort, add 2.0 gallons (7.6 L) of water and boil for 90 minutes, aiming for a 5.0 gallon (19 L) yield. The rest of the recipe is the same as the extract.

I didn't do that exact recipe, but I always felt like the beer had to much vanilla flavor for me. It always over shadowed over other flavor. If you like vanilla go for it, I think you will enjoy it. If not, I would stay away

My wife used to go to the Market Street Brewery in Nashville before it closed and she wants to try to make some.

this sounds great!!!

I would bottle with Meadowfoam honey. It tastes like vanilla/marshmellow. Great stuff and would go well this this beer...

Someone please help this newbie out. Concerning the above recipe, I don't understand the math when it comes to the volume of wort, based on the water used. Can someone help me understand the below statement? Thanks!

Use 10.5 qts (10 L) of mash water. Collect 4.5 gallons (17 L) wort, add 2.0 gallons (7.6 L) of water and boil for 90 minutes, aiming for a 5.0 gallon (19 L) yield.

Click to expand...

Anybody? Went to bed last night thinking I'd have an answer first thing this morning. NOT.. I really want to try this if I can just figure out the recipie..

I'm thinking I'll just mash-in with 4 gallons for 45 min, drain and then sparge with 3-4 more gallons in an attempt to end up with 6 gallons of wort that will boil down to 5 gallons. What do you guys think? But yeah, I wish I could figure out what the recipe is trying to instruct me to do.

Brewing the all grain version on Sunday ... Not sure if I am gonna like it but what the heck. I have wanted to use vanilla bean in a brew for a while now.

Had a great brew day with this. OG was 1.048 but my post boil volume was off by a half gallon. Not much Vanilla in the hydro sample so I may rack on top of a few vanilla beans soaked in bourbon to sterilize when fermentation is complete.

Ghost town thread!

I went ahead and made the recipe, even though the volumes were off. I'm not impressed. Wasn't able to really taste the vanilla. I'm looking for a good Breckenridge Vanilla Porter clone recipe. Anybody have something close?

I may add some Vanilla to the secondary. Perhaps some apricot!

I brewed this recipe almost 3 weeks ago. I modified it slightly. The beer was in primary for 14 days, secondary will be around a week. I only added one vanilla bean to the boil. The other one was split and put in with the bottling sugar for a few days before being chopped and put into an ounce of vodka overnight and added to secondary. This has been on my to brew list since brew 1. It was a favorite of ours in Nashville. I hope it comes out somewhere close to how I remember it.

Let us know how it turns out! I'd really like to brew something similar to Thomas Creek vanilla cream ale, hoping this fits the bill.

Looking good so far. Got it in the bottle tonight. I don't think I mentioned earlier I did all grain, but bumped the two row up to an even 7 pounds and used S-04 yeast. It finished around 1.004, pre-boil was 1.030, but I was in a hurry and didn't get my post number. I figure it's around 4.5-4.7% ABV. In the hydro sample the Vanilla really comes through without over powering. It also cleared very nicely without using Irish moss or anything. I'll know more here in a week or so how the final product is. This should be a very nice warm weather beer.