tweak Porter recipe? oak?

[ersheff]

Hello.
I'm going to pick up ingredients for this porter recipe from the LHBS:
10# Gold malt extract
1 oz Nugget hops
1 oz. Perle hops
steeping grains
1# Crystal malt (120L)
8oz Munich malt
8oz Vienna malt
8oz Chocolate malt
4oz Black malt
4oz Roast Barley
This is going to be a bit of a surprise for my girlfriend, who is coming back from Ireland in mid-December for a few weeks and loves porters.
I want to make this extra special for her, so I'm thinking of doing a 5-7 day bourbon soak for 1-2 oz of oak chips, then adding those to the fermenter for a week or so after primary fermentation.
Homebrew shop guy says it will start around 1.08 and end in the 1.025 range. ABV around 7.5%. Seems like a fairly high OG and FG to me. A good, malty, fairly sweet beer.
I'm guessing that this is a good candidate for aging and that the moderately high ABV will help extract flavor compounds from the oak. Any other advice in this regard?
Thanks.

 

[TyTanium]

Brew immediately! Could be pushing it to be ready Christmas! As you said, with high ABV and bourbon/oak, aging is your friend here and cannot be rushed.

Will you be kegging? If not, I really don't think you'll be done in time. If you have standard 3 weeks of bottle conditioning, that only leaves a week and a half for fermentation...

That said, your your oak/bourbon plan (volumes & timing) looks good. I'd scale back on the Crystal 120 - maybe go 1/2# or even 1/4# 120 and 1/2# 40.

 

[Double_D]

I'd take out the roasted barley and just go with everything else. It will be plenty dark between the chocolate and the black malt. Plus it will be a more traditional porter recipe without the roasted barley.

 

[Ølbart]

I would ditch the munich and vienna as well, since you're only steeping small amounts. Those need to be mashed.

 

[corkybstewart]

I like the Nugget for bittering, but I would use something like Goldings or Fuggles for a small 20 minute addition.
Go simple on the steeping grains-drop the Munich and Vienna, as noted above they need to be mashed. Increase the black malt to 6 ozs and drop the roasted barley.