Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Bourbon Vanilla Porter (AG)

I was putting this recipe into my BeerSmith software and I am trying to figure out the water amounts for the Mash and the Sparge. I am assuming I will be around 70% eff. as this will be my first all grain batch. I am looking at 1.25 qt/lb for the mash. So with 18 pounds of grain I will need 4.5 gallons of water for the Mash. If the grains absorb 1 gallon of water, does that mean I will need 3 gallons for the sparge? I would like to end up with 5.5 gallons of wort in the primary fermentor.

BIG beer for first AG!

Your volumes look good for a 60 min boil. However, with such a large grain bill and only 3 gals of sparge water, you'll probably get below 70% efficiency. Really, you need to sparge that much grain with more than 3 lbs. You have a few options.

1) mash a little thicker (say, 1 qt/lb) and use the extra volume in the sparge.

2) Add an extra gallon of sparge water and boil for 2 hours. If you do this, don't add the first hop addition until you've got 60 mins remaining. You can use two pots, or boil some on the stove if your boil kettle isn't large enough to hold everything.

I would recommend both. Good luck, and let us know how the first AG goes.

Some buddies and I did 20 gals about 2 weeks ago. Transferred it to the secondary (onto the vanilla beans) yesterday. Man, this beer really does taste GREAT! If you've never done it, I highly recommend it!!

Gonna brew this to hopefully enjoy on my 21st coming up in June.

Is there an expected OG, FG, IBU for this recipe?

Also, is Maker's Mark the business for this? I know absolutely nothing about bourbon.

Cheers!

I thought I had all that info in the original post, but it's not showing up. Anyway, it's there now. Thanks for pointing it out.

Thanks, ended up brewing it before you edited the original post so just took a guess, was only out but two points, haha lucky. Cheers!

Just now getting around to drinking the last batch we made. This recipe really is awesome. I wish I could take credit for it. Nice job, Denny!

How is the mouth feel on this recipe? Would this be recommended for someone who likes 'thick' creamy really full bodied porters?

Yes, it's got a thick mouthfeel. I wouldn't say it's really creamy though. Might want to add a little flaked oats, lactose, or something like that if you want to add creaminess.

Thanks Lil' Sparky. I can't wait to make this once my Wit is done. I am going to use some local Maui grown vanilla beans.

I made this one lasty july, it has been bottled and stored in a cool dark place. I opened one this christmas and was over whelmed with the vanilla flavor. I used two beans. The flavor was too much. I am going to let it sit for till at least next fall and see if it mellows out.

That's weird. You must have gotten some really strong beans. Two beans per 5 gal usually just gives a mild vanilla flavor, not one that in any way dominates the taste. Hopefully it'll turn out for you.

I am re-doing the vanilla porter idea as the last one I made on 2.5 beans left me with about $8 less in my wallet and exactly 0 Vanilla taste, there was only a slight hint of it, maybe, in the nose of the beer.

Wing nut, which Vanilla beans did you use? There are like 3 types I think.

The ones that I bought are called Vanille D'amour, they are madagascar beans and come two 7 inch beans in a glass tube. They realy added a huge vanilla flavor. I am not sure you can get these in north america, I picked these up last time I was in France at the local grocery store. At the same time I bought 1kg of licorice root that helps in adding a wonderfull creamy head on my stouts. French grocery stores are so much better!

Cheers
Wing Nut

I just brewed this yesterday. I had to go extract and specialty grains though. I brought it to the lhbs and he changed the recipe to what he had and it went like this:
9# Amber LME
1# Crystal 120L
.5# Crystal 40L
.5# Chocolate
.5# Black Patent
1oz Galena [12% AA] (he had no magnum) @60min
1oz EKG [4.5% AA] @10min
2 packets Safeale 05 yeast re hydrated b/c he was out of 1056
My OG was 1.056 but I bumped it up from a 5 gal to 6 gal and forgot to the the lhbs to do the same.
Overall it smelt great and the gravity tasting was delicious. Anyone have anything to say about the Black Patent the lhbsseemed put off that a porter would not have any?

I think the black patent addition will be OK. It definately changes the recipe and 1/2 lb may be a little much for my taste (although a lot of porter recipes use this much).

Porter recipes may or may not include black patent. Rarely they have just a hint of roasted, too. Too much, though and you're making a stout, not a porter.

Thanks for the info, I will post pics when It is done

jmilton1987 said:

I just brewed this yesterday. I had to go extract and specialty grains though. I brought it to the lhbs and he changed the recipe to what he had and it went like this:
9# Amber LME
1# Crystal 120L
.5# Crystal 40L
.5# Chocolate
.5# Black Patent
1oz Galena [12% AA] (he had no magnum) @60min
1oz EKG [4.5% AA] @10min
2 packets Safeale 05 yeast re hydrated b/c he was out of 1056
My OG was 1.056 but I bumped it up from a 5 gal to 6 gal and forgot to the the lhbs to do the same.
Overall it smelt great and the gravity tasting was delicious. Anyone have anything to say about the Black Patent the lhbsseemed put off that a porter would not have any?

Click to expand...

I'm interested in doing this, did you use hopped or unhopped LME?

I used unhopped LME here is a pic of the grav reading too

and it tastes great right now Gravity today was at 1.012 and has been at that for 2 days to i moved to secondary and racked over 2 vanilla beans

edit: if someone knows how to make that image show up plz help me it is @ http://twitpic.com/6zxmv

Here it is click-free.



FYI - I typed in (w/out the spaces) [ img ] http://web3.twitpic.com/img/11754247-2bca1a1e46eb9f9cc30f781107d03260.4a2f1de2-scaled.jpg [ /img ]

Great recipe, but I have a quick question. Beer smith tells me I need 3.98 gallons of sparge water but the recipe calls for 6. Please advise thanks alot.

What's the water/grain ration you're using for your strike volume? If that's higher, then it'll lower your required sparge volume. There may also be some differences with beersmith settings (i.e., boil-off rate, MLT loss, chiller loss, etc.) but it shouldn't cause 2 gallons difference.

FYI - whenever I brew a new recipe for the first time, the only things I look at are grain bill, hop schedule, and the mash temp. I let Beersmith do the rest of the calculations based on my system and preferences.

1.25 quarts per pound. 21.25 quarts far the 17 lbs of grain right?

I don't have beersmith here at work with me. I'll double-check when I get home, but 4 gals sounds right according to my quick pencil&paper calculations. I probably have the recipe wrong. If so, I'll update it.

Thanks for the help.

You updated it thanks.

Yeah, I don't know why I ever put 6 gals. Thanks for pointing it out!

Sparky I just bottled and ended up with a FG of 1012 so I am fine with that also instead of using makers I went with my personal favorite bourbon, Knob Creek. Also I am looking forward to having a cold one of these in 3 weeks, but I doubt my neighbors will let me get through our block party on the 12th w.o craking a few open. Also I in a bottle there might be a suprise glass shard, bc as i was raking i knoced over the hydrometer and did not have a lid on the bottling bucket but it was a good 30cm away from wher the hydrometer broke.

Sure, try one in a few weeks, but hold out on drinking those as long as you can. 3-4 months from now they'll really smooth out! And if you can wait until it get's cold, they make a great winter drink by the fire.

Sparky, I live in Wisconsin by the time September rolls around it will start dipping back into the forties so I will prob make another batch in a bit when I go all grain to compare

So I know it isn't quite 3 weeks in bottle yet, but at the block party yesterday a few neighbors and I had some and it was a huge hit. I love this beer and it will become a staple in my brewing.

Glad to hear. You must have some good neighbors!

Sparky I have let it sit now in bottle since 30th June, and decided to go back into the stash of them here is a pic of the final product

Mmmmm. Looks tasty!!!

Looks great! I had problems with the vanilla flavor being too strong. I opened up a bottle last night and it was great! The flavors where smooth and subbtle, one year in a bottle and it is perfect.

I want to make this but I am not setup for AG. By talking to a few people and doing some research on the web, I have tried to convert Denny Conn's recipe to partial mash. My goal was to keep the Munich and Brown malt character, but not need to do a full mash.

Is this a reasonable conversion?

Amount Ingredient
Extract
6.00 pounds Light LME
4.00 pounds Breiss Munich LME
Partial Mash
1.50 pounds Brewers Malt, 2-row
1.50 pounds Brown Malt
1.00 pounds Caramel/Crysatal Malt - 120L
0.50 pounds Caramel/Crysatal Malt - 40L
0.50 pounds Chocolate Malt
2.00 gallons Strike Water at 161°, target temp 152°F
Mash for 140 Min
2.00 gallons Sparge Water at 170°
2.50 gallons Water to reach 6.5 gal boil volume

Hops
0.75 oz Magnum Hops 60 minutes
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent 10 minutes

Wyeast Labs 1056 American Ale

2.00 each Vanilla Beans added in secondary
2.00 oz/gal Oak Chips added in secondary
1.5 - 2.5 oz/gal Makers Mark Bourbon added at bottleing

2-3 weeks in secondary

Age 4 - 6 months

Yeah, I think that should get you pretty close, anyway.

Wow! this thread has gone on for over two years, and the correction to the recipe has never been posted!

From Denny himself . . the Chocolate malt is supposed to be 1.25 lbs. instead of .5 lbs. Unfortunately, the flawed recipe got published and passed around and still circulates to this day.

Yeah, I had seed the other version (didn't know which one was the "official" one), but 1/2 lb chocolate sounded more to my taste, and it really is great as I posted it. Maybe I'll try the heavy-chocolate version sometime.

I'm actually brewing this tomorrow. Nice, plump Madagascar bean pods on the way . .

I just loves me some chocolate malt!