Pecan Porter (Adding Pecans)

All I am looking for some feedback on adding pecans to the boil or fermentor. I think pecans would compliment the smoky, chocolate characteristics of a porter. Any ideas on when to add the pecans?

I was thinking to add 1/3 of the pecans at the beginning of the boil. Adding the second 1/3 of the pecans halfway thru the boil and adding the remaining 1/3 of the pecans to the fermentor. Should I roast the pecans?

THANKS!!

I did a hazlenut porter awhile back and I roasted the nuts and added them at 5 min. I would definately recommend roasting them and adding them in the boil rather than the secondary because nuts have oils in them that can go rancid and i don't know how well your beer will deal with it. the oils also will be hard on head retention but it adds awesome flavor.

i made a pecan brown ale a few months ago, using the advice i found around the site. the main thrust seemed to be chop up the nuts pretty finely, toast them in the oven for short periods of time (350 for 15 min) and put them into paper bags and press them to suck off as much oil as you can, repeating as many as 4 times. once you are finished with that, use them as you would specialty grains (steep for 30-40 min at 155). i didn't steep mine for long enough (maybe 10 min) and so the flavor didn't come through as thoroughly as I had hoped.

for head retention, i used 1/2 lb flaked barley with great results. a very fluffy, long-lived head.

there are a bunch of threads out there about how to use pecans that i found helpful. i'd recommend trying a search.

That's really good info. I never thought to soak up the oil prior to using

for much much less work, it seems people have had good luck with the pecan extract. i will admit, roasting and pressing the oils out took a bunch of time and was kind of annoying. but i really wanted to use local pecans.

yeah i like using the real deal ingredients. extracts are kind of a last resort for me