Bourbon Oak Vanilla Porter

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Adam78K

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 16, 2009
Messages
327
Reaction score
2
Location
Seattle
Let me know what you guys thin, brewing this for a bud for his wedding present.


Bourbon Vanilla Porter

6 lbs Amber malt extract
.50lb 60l Crystal
1lb 120l Crystal
1/4lb Black Patient malt
1lb Chocolate Malt
6 oz bakers coca
1 cup black strap molassess
1 cup Brown Sugar
.50oz Nugget (60)
1 oz Willamette (30)
1 oz Willamatte (5)
S-04 Yeast
2 Vannilla Beans in secondary
4oz oak wood chips soaked in 6oz of bourbon
200l of bourbon at bottling


After primary, slit open 2 vanilla beans. Scrape the insides, chop the
pods into quarters, add to secondary fermenter, rack beer onto vanilla.
Taste periodically for the correct balance. I left the beer in
secondary for 11 days. Rack to bottling bucket and add 10 ml. per pint
of Jim Beam Black Bourbon (or to your taste). Bottle, enjoy!
 
4 oz of oak is alot for a beer. I would go down to well below 2. Possible 1 oz or at most 1.5. Its very easy to over oak and it takes a long time to age out. This also seems like a bit too much crystal but it could work well. I tend not to go over 1.25# of crystal grains for any batch because they CAN (doesn't always) come out too sweet.
 
I did a vanilla bourbon porter that turned out FANTASTIC!! Brewed in may, tasted one bottle about 3 weeks ago and it was wonderful. Probably put a few in the fridge come end of the month when the temp cools down here.

I did 4 Vanilla beans, diced up and soaked in 1 cup of bourbon (makers mark is what i used) for 4 days. I racked the beer on to that in the secondary, then ended up adding a tablespoon of pure vanilla extract and another 3/4 cup of bourbon to taste during the secondary. Flavors had blended and were very smooth when i tasted it. Light vanilla tones through out, with a good vanilla aroma left in the back of your mouth, and a good consistent bourbon hint throughout.

I think the oak will had a great flavor addition, lemme know how it turns out.
 
I did Denny Conn Bourbon Vanilla porter which has won a few medals for me. I can tell you two whole vanilla bean will over power it and it took a year for it to mellow. On the bourbon part I added 325ml to the batch and you could not notice it, next time I am going to up this some.
 
Let me know what you guys thin, brewing this for a bud for his wedding present.

Bourbon Vanilla Porter

6 lbs Amber malt extract
.50lb 60l Crystal
1lb 120l Crystal
1/4lb Black Patient malt
1lb Chocolate Malt
6 oz bakers coca
1 cup black strap molassess
1 cup Brown Sugar
.50oz Nugget (60)
1 oz Willamette (30)
1 oz Willamatte (5)
S-04 Yeast
2 Vannilla Beans in secondary
4oz oak wood chips soaked in 6oz of bourbon
200l of bourbon at bottling

I'm pretty sure you don't mean 200 liters of bourbon...
 
200ml i mean, yea 200l would be a little excessive. Thanks for the input Anything else would be greatly appreciated.
 
The recipe looks OK to me. I'd brew that. If you use amber extract you can drop the C60, it's already in the extract. Or, use pale extract and keep the C60 to steep. I wouldn't use both.

For the oak you can soak about 4oz of chips/cubes in some vodka or Everclear for a couple of weeks and add the liquid as an extract. Since you can blend and taste, you can add a bit, taste, and keep adding until it's what you want. If you still go straight to the carboy 2-2.5oz is plenty of oak for a 5 gallon batch. It doesn't take as much as you would think to impart lots of wood flavor, and it really takes a LONG time to age out. Better to error on the side of too little than to add too much!

If you have hard tap water, treat it with Campden to remove the chlorine and use it to steep the grains, then use RO or bottled water for the rest. If your water isn't very hard you should add a little bit (1/2 tsp or so) calcium carbonate to your steeping water, LHBS should carry it -- or use some 5.2 pH stabilizer, about a teaspoon. My worry is with that many dark grains you may get astringency from steeping the grains if you don't do something to adjust the pH.
 
I accidently used 4oz of chips in a beer for a week. There is no other flavor but whiskey barrel. This beer has been aging for 7months and still tastes like wood. Like others have said, go low. 4oz will destroy any subtle flavors you have coming from anything else.

I made an oaked beer recently where I boiled (5mins) 1 oz of American oak cubes to leach some of the tannins out, put it in sanitized muslin bag and pitched in the primary when I pitched the yeast. Let it go 14 days, and the oak flavor was noticeable and very nice.
 
Personally, I'd think about dropping out either the brown sugar or the molasses, eliminate the 5 min hop addition and compensate with the other's to hit your desired IBUs (which you prb want to keep 'round the mid 30s). I'd prb scrap the cocoa too and dose the bourbon at bottling to taste @ bottling, which considering your soaking the chips might mean very little required at the end. YMMV and all that.
 
I did Denny Conn Bourbon Vanilla porter which has won a few medals for me. I can tell you two whole vanilla bean will over power it and it took a year for it to mellow. On the bourbon part I added 325ml to the batch and you could not notice it, next time I am going to up this some.

+1 I thought it could have used more Bourbon for sure.
 
Back
Top