Brewers Best milk stout (adding vanilla)

[chadm817]

Hey everyone,

I'm on my third brew.
Midwest brewing irish red in bottles
Midwest brewing brown nut ale in secondary

Just bought Brewers Best milk stout.

I pretty much wanted to be a little creative without going overboard and do an all grain recipe.

So I am looking for a little help. I want this to be a vanilla stout so I guess in this case it will be a vanilla milk stout.

Should I use vanilla beans or vanilla extract?
How much?
Should I use in the boil or in the secondary?

If you could walk me through this a little bit again only my 3rd brew! I don't even know if my other ones turned out haha. I have tasted them along the way and they taste fine but I won't be satisfied until I drink a fully carbed beer and get a buzz!

Thanks in advance!

 

[ill4delph]

Split your bean(s) and soak them in vodka for a few days and add to secondary. That's pretty much the common practice from what I've seen around here. Good luck!

 

[k_mcarthur]

Make sure you soak it for at least a week, I got impatient and infected a whole batch once. Now I add extract at flameout, seems to be easier and with the same outcome.

 

[res291que]

Mcarthur I beg to differ if you haven't killed what ever microbes in less than a couple hour soak there is something else amiss in your process and the batch was probably already infected. Just my 2 cents.

 

[k_mcarthur]

Mcarthur I beg to differ if you haven't killed what ever microbes in less than a couple hour soak there is something else amiss in your process and the batch was probably already infected. Just my 2 cents.

I might try it again one day, but that was my only infection out of probably 50 batches over the last few years. Extract works just fine.

 

[chadm817]

Has anyone used vanilla paste instead of vanilla beans or vanilla extract?

 

[rocketsan]

Also wondering about vanilla paste