Chocolate/Vanilla Porter

I'm looking to make a new batch of beer this weekend. It's only my third batch, so I'm still using a premade kit (Brewcraft's Streets of London Porter). I wanted to add something to it, so I went out a got some Chocolate extract and vanilla beans. I don't want the flavors to be too overpowering, but not necessarily too subtle either.

I know I'm slowly going to add the Chocolate extract to the bottling bucket and just taste as I go to where it's about how I would like it. So I guess it comes down to the vanilla beans. Do I open it and add straight to secondary? Do I open it and add it to some vodka to make an extract?

Just wondering what has worked for others in the past.

This isn't something that I've done before, but I do enjoy the taste of beer and I recently had a chocolate vanilla porter from Troegs. They provide some text on how they did it : "After fermentation, we aged #54 on Ghanaian vanilla beans and medium roast Ghanaian cocoa nibs for ten days."

The vanilla was perfect in this brew, in my opinion. The cocoa was a little too bitter for my tastes, but I did enjoy the 1/2 growler of it. Here is a video on their beer (scratch 54):

Good luck!

I added vanilla to a porter by taking the beans, dipping in Starsan, slitting lengthwise and then dicing with a sanitized knife and cutting board. I added to secondary and racked the beer on top. I let it sit for about 5 days, at 5 days it was incredibly vanilla-ey. It has greatly mellowed as it aged though.

ASXL41 said:

So I guess it comes down to the vanilla beans. Do I open it and add straight to secondary? Do I open it and add it to some vodka to make an extract?

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That's exactly what I would do. Open the bean and scrape all the goodness out of it and then dice up the pod to make it manageable. Put it all into a small glass with a couple ounces of cheap vodka and let it sit for a few days. Pour it into the primary or into the bottling bucket along with priming sugar, stir well, but not so much as to add air and bottle.

Thanks for the advise. How many beans should I use? I'm looking to make a standard 5 gallon amount. And I'm leaning towards scraping, cutting and adding to vodka.