How's this recipe look

[smileyak87]

Doing my take on a vanilla porter

11 pounds pale 2 row
2 pounds munich
1 pound flaked barley
1 pound brown malt
8 oz crystal 60
1 pound crystal 120
8 oz chocolate malt
1 pound corn sugar (add during boil)
0.75 oz magnum (add at 60)
2 oz east kent goldings (add at 15)
2 packs Safale US-05 yeast (rehydrate 15 minutes prior to adding)

Mash at 152 for 60 minutes

Mash out at 168 for 7 minutes

Ferment in primary for 3 weeks

cut and scrape 3 vanilla beans and soak in vodka for 48 hours

Secondary on top of vanilla beans for 3 weeks

bottle carb with 3.93oz corn sugar

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[bajaedition]

looks like it is super complicated to me
try to lessen your specialty malts and get your % of base to specialty malts more balanced

 

[bajaedition]

let me explain a bit

11 pounds pale 2 row- good base amt for % alchohal
2 pounds munich- WOW thats a lot of munich
1 pound flaked barley- What are you trying to achieve here
1 pound brown malt for taste and darkness I suppose
8 oz crystal 60- for body?
1 pound crystal 120- again for body? but then why a pound and a half of 2 different LVs, would not 1 type have worked?
8 oz chocolate malt- taste and color correct?
1 pound corn sugar (add during boil)- sp we added so much body malts we need to thin the beer out?

what I see is way to many specialty malts that seem to be fighting each other and the adjuncts. I would forget the barley and corn, add 2 more pounds of base malt, figure out LV I want the crystal to be and just use 1 pound total, cut the brown malt to 1/2 pound and decide if I could just use it. after all you want a vanilla porter and you are using a chocalate malt?

Just a few points I see. You are working so hard to get big body and malty taste I see no reason for the adjunts, the crystal does not need to be so heavy, the brown and chocalate will both darken the beer a lot, but the taste may fight and complicate the vanilla if both are used.

hope this helps

 

[wtfDean]

first problem i notice is that caramelized malt makes up over 15% of your fermentables. also, as the previous poster pointed out, you have an awful lot of different stuff in there. finally, why do you want to add sugar? do you really want to lighten the body of your porter, or were you just trying to give it that extra few points of gravity? the outcome could be a thinner beer than you were expecting.

you could consider taking the brown and two crystals away and replacing them with 4oz black malt. you can adjust your base malt to bring your total fermentables back to 18lbs. i still question the sugar addition.

when i started writing recipes it was tempting to add everything plus the kitchen sink. in fact, i did this a lot. i urge you instead to examine and perfect your process. a recipe is just a recipe, it can be identical to someone else's and it won't be the same beer. i am an advocate simplicity when writing beer recipes.

 

[smccarter]

Brew it. If it tastes good, brew it again. If it's too sweet/bitter, etc... change your recipe and try again.

The great thing about brewing 5 or 10 gallons of beer at a time is that we CAN make mistakes... meaning bad beer. THEN try again. I think if we were making beer at a volume for profit the worry would be much greater.

Just brew it man.... If it sucks, make a change. If it's great, let us know so that we can brew it too and enjoy a great beer that YOU created.

 

[smileyak87]

Lol. Thanks everyone. Im gonna go back to beer smith and make some adjustments. I was basing it on the vanilla bourbon recipe but an probably over thinking everything.

Never made a porter before so was looking at other recipes and going from there

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[smileyak87]

how does this sound

11 lbs 2 row
1 lb crystal 120
1 lb munich
1 lb brown
0.5 lb chocolate

keep hops the same, drop the sugar completely and the flaked barley. and do 1 pack of us-05, or should I stick with 2? Beersmith says to go with 2, but the OG calculates to 1.065 and all my other beers that have been 1.065 or less I have always used just 1 pack of yeast and it has done fine.

the reason I want to use the 120 and the chocolate is because I have it on hand and it is already crushed so I need to use it up.

 

[cluckk]

That looks much better. When it comes to the yeast, follow BeerSmith on that. Past underpitching is not a good reason to keep doing it. You never know how different those other beers would have been if you had pitched at a higher rate.

 

[Yooper]

I LOVE flaked barley in robust porters and stouts for incredible body and a nice dense and rocky head. I'd probably keep that, if your goal is for what I mentioned.

I'm not an expert on "vanilla porter" (I hate things like vanilla in beer) but for a nice rich but not roasty beer, that's what you have for a base recipe. sort of a brown porter, without as much brown malt as I would use. It's more of a brown ale than anything resembling a porter, but if that's what you want it looks good. If you want something more like a robust porter, some black malt or something roasty would be a good addition.

 

[wtfDean]

if you haven't used adjuncts like flaked barley before, now could be a good time to give that a shot. i second yooper's suggestion of adding black malt (which i mentioned in my first post).

or just make the recipe you wrote and tinker with it. posting potential recipes just opens you up to second guessing and a lot of personal opinion. like smccarter said, just go for it.

 

[Biergarden]

let me explain a bit

11 pounds pale 2 row- good base amt for % alchohal
2 pounds munich- WOW thats a lot of munich
1 pound flaked barley- What are you trying to achieve here
1 pound brown malt for taste and darkness I suppose
8 oz crystal 60- for body?
1 pound crystal 120- again for body? but then why a pound and a half of 2 different LVs, would not 1 type have worked?
8 oz chocolate malt- taste and color correct?
1 pound corn sugar (add during boil)- sp we added so much body malts we need to thin the beer out?

what I see is way to many specialty malts that seem to be fighting each other and the adjuncts. I would forget the barley and corn, add 2 more pounds of base malt, figure out LV I want the crystal to be and just use 1 pound total, cut the brown malt to 1/2 pound and decide if I could just use it. after all you want a vanilla porter and you are using a chocalate malt?

Just a few points I see. You are working so hard to get big body and malty taste I see no reason for the adjunts, the crystal does not need to be so heavy, the brown and chocalate will both darken the beer a lot, but the taste may fight and complicate the vanilla if both are used.

hope this helps

I'd cut that crystal 120 down in half and use inverted sugar instead of table sugar. Table sugar isn't ideal for brewing with. But otherwise the grain bill looks reasonable. But that is less than half the battle. What about the rest of your process? The water chemistry, mash profile, and boil times will change things as well as the yeast you elect to use.
Please google on how to make inverted sugar. It's very easy to do, and I bet you already have everything to do it with.

 

[bajaedition]

how does this sound

11 lbs 2 row
1 lb crystal 120
1 lb munich
1 lb brown
0.5 lb chocolate

keep hops the same, drop the sugar completely and the flaked barley. and do 1 pack of us-05, or should I stick with 2? Beersmith says to go with 2, but the OG calculates to 1.065 and all my other beers that have been 1.065 or less I have always used just 1 pack of yeast and it has done fine.

the reason I want to use the 120 and the chocolate is because I have it on hand and it is already crushed so I need to use it up.

why not throw out the brown and chocolate and and use 4 to 7 ozs of black malt, and lets punch the 2 row up to 14 pounds, 6 ozs of the barley will help

like a food recipe, you need balance not quantity, adding to many taste will make a muddled taste that things fight each other, you are making a vanilla porter, you want the vanilla out front, so with 120 crystal and the black malt we are getting dark and adding body but not adding a lot of interference with the vanilla.
one thing to avoid is using huge amounts of specialty grains, like spices there is a point you need to go for. Brew it once and taste it, allow the beer to tell you what you want it to do. If it is to harsh, adjust down teh black malt, it to much body, adjust the crystal, etc. Simple recipes give the best results.

find a copy of the book Clone Brews, it is a book of recipes of famous beers from around the world. Look at the recipes and realize that most beers do not have a huge amount of specialty grains in them. They do use them to get the taste they are going for. But mot have less than 3 and not huge amounts of any.

Balance

 

[DurtyChemist]

My porter

10lbs 2 row
1 lb crystal 60L
1 lb chocolate
Kent Golding hops to correct IBU desired
Wyeast 1056 in a 1L starter made by shaking

Next batch will try 1/2 lb chocolate to smooth it out. If that doesn't work how I want I will try some crystal 80L. Simplicity. I used brewers friend for the recipe guideline and style determination.


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[wtfDean]

reading the BJCP style book can help with recipe writing too. it's free to download