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

[MagicLarry]

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.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

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.

 

[MagicLarry]

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

 

[Lil' Sparky]

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.

 

[MagicLarry]

Thanks for the help.

 

[MagicLarry]

You updated it thanks.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

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

 

[jmilton1987]

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.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

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.

 

[jmilton1987]

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

 

[jmilton1987]

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.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Glad to hear. You must have some good neighbors!

 

[jmilton1987]

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

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Mmmmm. Looks tasty!!!

 

[Wing Nut]

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.

 

[ckloecker]

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

 

[Lil' Sparky]

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

 

[dhacker]

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.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

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.

 

[dhacker]

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

I just loves me some chocolate malt!

 

[iddqd]

Thinking about brewing something similar to this. I'll probably use extract instead of 2-row and munich, 1 lb of biscuit instead of brown malt and maybe using Morgans Master blend chocolate instead of the chocolate malt and some of the extract. I'm also planning on adding oak chips to it. The plan is to soak them in the bourbon for a while along with the vanilla beans and then tossing everything into the secondary.

How does this sound? Think it will be good?

 

[Lil' Sparky]

Honestly, I really don't know. I've never brewed extract, and this has such a complex grain bill that I'm not sure exactly how close you can get using extracts unless you were REALLY good at doing the conversions. The Morgan's sound like it might be OK, and it's 85% munich malt so you'll be making that part of the grain bill back up. I'd go easy on the oak chips. I've heard they can be overpowering if you're not careful. Are you substituting biscuit for brown because you can't get it there? It's not the same, but I guess it might be close - wouldn't be bad anyway.

 

[iddqd]

Thanks for the reply! Yep, the biscuit malt is because I can't find brown malt. And I'll check out some recipes with oak chips and see how much they used before brewing, thanks for mentioning that.

 

[bkov]

i think the brown malt is a significant part of this brew

 

[bkov]

is crisp brown malt the same as brown malt like in the recipe?

 

[Lil' Sparky]

I don't know for sure but I bet it's ok.

 

[14thstreet]

I'd like to plug my recommendation for this beer. I made mine (with the corrected chocolate amount) 7 months ago and despite coming in low at 1.068 (didn't boil off enough), this beer still ranks as the best I've made so far. I made a half batch to start and split it with one half getting the vanilla and bourbon. If you can't get any of the extras, the base porter is awesome in its own right. I've sheepishly kept it to myself but I'll admit I've nursed them because they are so precious and was curious to see how it ages over time.

 

[egurney]

Can somebody post a beersmith file for this?

 

[Lil' Sparky]

I added it to the 1st post.

 

[theacolyte]

Sorry for the potentially stupid question here.

I'm trying to do something similar (my first homebrew) with a brown porter mix...

I'm not doing a secondary so I'm wondering if I just add vanilla extract + bourbon when I bottle will I get the same effect? I'm guessing that adding real beans to a secondary allows for the essential oils to absorb, but that's what extract is...

My thought was to add the vanilla/bourbon at the same time.

Thanks in advance!