Goose Island BCBS Vanilla Variant

[Rob2010SS]

I'm looking to brew an imperial stout in about 6 weeks. My goal is to make a vanilla bomb of an imperial stout. Why? Because I love vanilla stouts. I'm usually disappointed in stouts advertised as vanilla variants because it's not strong enough vanilla. Enter - Goose Island's BCBS Vanilla Variant from last year (or the year before, whatever year that was).

This beer was like a straight up marshmallow. There was so much vanilla in it and it was delicious! I find it hard to believe that it all came from vanilla beans post fermentation. There had to be other factors contributing to that vanilla. While the barrels can contribute some of that character also, I don't think that was a majority of it.

What are other options of getting vanilla flavor in the stout?

I was checking out Beanilla's options and they have some vanilla paste that I thought about using, there's vanilla beans and extract obviously. Would some white chocolate either in the boil or in the fermenter come across vanilla-y?

Thoughts?

 

[ITV]

I still have an unopend bottle of BCS Vanilla variant from 2012. The bottles states aged in rye whiskey barrel with real vanilla bean. I suggest barrel aging to get the vanilla and other flavors from barrel aging and use real vanilla beans to boost the vanilla flavor, I'm not a fan of artifical flavorings.

 

[Rob2010SS]

I still have an unopend bottle of BCS Vanilla variant from 2012. The bottles states aged in rye whiskey barrel with real vanilla bean. I suggest barrel aging to get the vanilla and other flavors from barrel aging and use real vanilla beans to boost the vanilla flavor, I'm not a fan of artifical flavorings.

Yep, that's already on the list. I have a whiskey barrel ready for it.

My problem is that after drinking the 2018/2019 Vanilla variant, there's no way that's just vanilla beans. I've used vanilla beans many, many times and I've gone as high as 6 beans in 5 gallons. Never that potent. And this didn't just taste like straight up vanilla, it was like a marshmallow bomb.

So I'm looking for other ways of getting vanilla in there to use on top of vanilla beans in secondary.