Second brew - feedback on recipe and some questions

[Cannae216]

Hi all,

My first brew has been in the fermentor for a week now (simple Brewers Best weissbier kit), and I am starting to think about the next brew. I have taken a BrewToad recipe (https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/bourbon-vanilla-stout) and started to play with it in Brew Smith. Attached is my planned recipe.

I would appreciate any feedback anyone has on the recipe.

Also, this will be the first time I have done anything more than basic LME boiling, so I do have a few questions...

1) Is it normal to add oats and corn sugar directly to the boil? I would have expected the former to be included in the grain steeping, and the latter as part of the bottling process?

2) I am planning on doing a partial boil, and want to make sure I have correctly accounted for this in the recipe.

3) Would it be alright if I started soaking the vanilla beans and oak chips now, even though I won't be adding to the secondary in 2-3 weeks?

4) Has anyone made a Scotch infused stout? I didn't see a lot of recipes for this, which is why I switched to bourbon, but curious whether anyone has experience with scotch as I do prefer this over bourbon.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

 

[dkennedy]

1- I'd steep the oats with the rest of your grain. Corn sugar should be for bottling, don't add to the boil.
2- I think that you're good, but have never done a partial boil recipe.
3- Sure. I made a vanilla stout and aged the beans for about a month. Might not have been necessary, but it worked fine.
4- I haven't, but I'm sure someone has. I extracted my vanilla into Michael Collins single malt, and would do it again. Try it with Scotch, would be my take.

 

[dkennedy]

PS- I think that you could simplify that malt bill as well, personally. the multiple colors of extract will be lost once you steep your chocolate and roasted. YMMV, just a thought.