Just not enough vanilla.... fix?

[butterpants]

Recently made an Imperial Vanilla Sweet Stout. Brew day went well, hit my numbers solid. Fermentation was clean. Final product needs more vanilla aroma and flavor.... especially to be "imperial". It's just not bold enough. In the recipe I used 5 Madagascar whole beans, split, tossed in a bag and then into the boil with 5 min remaining. 5 gal batch.

To augment this vanilla, what do you guys recommend I do?

I was planning on doing some oaking with Bourbon and light French Oak spirals..... on top of that steep more beans? (gawd they are expensive) Go the easy route and try vanilla extract? How much to start with?

 

[pkrath84]

For future batches I wouldn't have put the vanilla into the boil. I find that the compounds you're trying to take from the vanilla are extremely volatile and degrade quickly with the exposure to heat from the boil. 5 beans should have been overkill in my experience, added after primary fermentation but not necessarily racked to a secondary.

When you take to treating with oak and bourbon, I would soak another bean or two (split and seeds scraped) in the bourbon you plan to use. Let this mixture steep for up to a week and toss the whole lot into your carboy along with the oak.

You should be good to go after a few weeks, maybe up to a month to pull flavors from the vanilla and oak. The timeline I give is based off of my use of oak CUBES in particular. Perhaps someone can chime in on the use of spirals.

Hope that helps. Keep us posted. I've used 3 beans in 6 gallons in the past. This should turn out to be a vanilla bomb!

 

[castillo556]

Not an expert, but putting them in during the boil seems counter productive.

I would have soaked them in bourbon for a week or more and then threw it all in a secondary for a few weeks.

 

[insanim8er]

Put them in the fermenter after the vigorous fermentation subsides. All the essence gets blown out otherwise.

I also like to do vanilla tinctures with split beans in vodka. Add that to taste before bottling.

 

[castillo556]

I'll also add for affordable vanilla beans, check out Ebay. You can get bulk packs for $.50 a bean.

 

[butterpants]

Excellent thank you. I'll start with soaking/steeping another bean or two.

I was apprehensive about tossing them in the boil, even with only 5 minutes left but that is what the recipe called for.

After you guys split and scrape seeds do you include the seeds n goo or just the hull? I used both

 

[insanim8er]

Just split the bean and toss it in.

 

[butterpants]

copy

 

[abeasst]

I put my beans in during secondary in a hop sack. I'm going to do an experiment and put them in a hop sack and hang them from the top of the keg next time. Leave the beer in primary for 4 weeks then rack to keg to age for 2 months with the beans hanging from lid.

 

[butterpants]

That's what I'll be doing.... muslin sack in corny suspended with 6lb test fishing line. Bourbon soaked oak spiral + 3 Madagascar split beans

 

[pkrath84]

Just split the bean and toss it in.

This is fine. I scrape them but shouldn't matter. Main thing is that everything goes in to the spirits and then into the carboy.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Home Brew mobile app

 

[kwadric]

If you age the beer on American Oak you will get a vanilla like flavor as well.

 

[butterpants]

French light Oak

 

[Cacaman]

I made a robust porter in the past, scraped 1 (maybe 2 beans) and put the mush in about 2 oz of vodka, let it sit for 5 days covered with sanitized foil, then dump (with a strain) to secondary for 5 days. The result was an amazing vanilla aroma and taste, perfect amount in my opinion. Over the weeks the flavor and aroma diminished as expected. Good luck!