I'm going a little nuts and need advice

[WhiskeySam]

I'm going to be stupid and throw a bunch of additions into a porter I intend to age for a while. I'm shooting for a 9% base porter. I'm thinking of the following additions

Oak
Cherries
Coffee
Vanilla bean
And cacao nibs

Planning on soaking the oak, coffee, vanilla and cacao in bourbon and throwing all that into the primary after fermentation is done and letting it sit for another 7 days before removing to secondary.

The cherries I plan on heating and crushing, but including the pits and all. Will likely put the cherries on for 14 days.

Question: quantity? What I'm thinking is

1 oz oak
2 vanilla beans
1/2 lb coarse crushed coffee
5oz cacao nibs
And from what I'm reading, 4 pounds cherries (?)

The cherry addition seems huge. Looking for guidance here. I don't want to make this beer cartoonish, but I want a lot of blended flavors.


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[Colorowdy]

Looks good to me except for the coffee. I would leave that out completely but that's just me. You can cold brew some coffee and add it to taste at bottling.

 

[zoomzilla]

4 lbs of cherries is fine. I recently had a delicious cherry beer brewed with 5lbs for a five gallon batch. It was tasty but not overpowering. They put it in secondary so that's what I would recommend.

 

[Hello]

Looks good to me except for the coffee. I would leave that out completely but that's just me. You can cold brew some coffee and add it to taste at bottling.

Said it best. I would add cold brewed coffee at bottling. Otherwise, I like where the recipe is going.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

The coffee and the nibs together may amp up the bitterness factor too much. I would cut them both in half and add another vanilla bean to balance it a little more. Definitely used cold brewed coffee. Can't really comment about the cherries since I've never used them before.

 

[WhiskeySam]

Thank you for the advice. Keep it coming if you think of anything else.


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[Crispy31]

I once dumped a vanilla porter(it was a very sad day.) The base recipe was good, I had brewed it twice before attempting to add vanilla beans to it. I used 3 and waited a week and what I ended up with was simply undrinkable. I would not use 3 beans again, nor recommend it, and I would sample it sooner than a week. Just my 2 cents.