Want to make a mini mash

[eadavis80]

Doing AIH vanilla porter later this fall, however I was thinking of doing a mini mash as I'm doing a big brew day so I have the time to add some additional grains. Any suggestions about what you'd add? The recipe is here: http://www.homebrewing.org/assets/images/AIH 2013 Recipes/AIH Vanilla Porter1.pdf

 

[m00ps]

id recommend boiling the vanilla beans in a bit of water for a few minutes and adding that directly to the fermentor. Sanitizes it and extracts more flavor

also, do not do a secondary. just toss the whole solution into the fermentor

 

[chickypad]

They must be using dark LME in that kit, otherwise it's awfully light on the dark roasted grains IMO at just 2% chocolate and 2% black malt. That's one disadvantage of using the dark you don't know whats already in it, but assuming it's briess dark LME that would put the recipe at like 5% black plus some munich and additional crystal.

You could use the mini mash to get some brown malt in there. For example replace 2 lbs of the LME with 2 lbs of 2-row/pale ale malt plus 1 lb brown malt, keeping the other grains. That would give you a 4 lb mini mash and keep the gravity about the same assuming you get around 70% efficiency.

edit: I see AIH also sells briess porter LME. Hopefully it's that actually, which would put the original recipe around 6% chocolate, 2% black, no munich but some victory, and quite a bit less crystal than with the dark LME (which at 13% plus the steeping crystal would be way too much IMO). A much better starting recipe. The subs above would still apply.

 

[eadavis80]

They must be using dark LME in that kit, otherwise it's awfully light on the dark roasted grains IMO at just 2% chocolate and 2% black malt. That's one disadvantage of using the dark you don't know whats already in it, but assuming it's briess dark LME that would put the recipe at like 5% black plus some munich and additional crystal.

You could use the mini mash to get some brown malt in there. For example replace 2 lbs of the LME with 2 lbs of 2-row/pale ale malt plus 1 lb brown malt, keeping the other grains. That would give you a 4 lb mini mash and keep the gravity about the same assuming you get around 70% efficiency.

edit: I see AIH also sells briess porter LME. Hopefully it's that actually, which would put the original recipe around 6% chocolate, 2% black, no munich but some victory, and quite a bit less crystal than with the dark LME (which at 13% plus the steeping crystal would be way too much IMO). A much better starting recipe. The subs above would still apply.

This is probably a dumb question, but what if I just added a few pounds (2-3) of 2-row with the other grains the kits come with and used all the LME? Would that extra grain have a big influence on flavor or would it just raise the ABV a bit and maybe add a little body?

 

[chickypad]

It would raise the gravity about 10 pts or so and bring it from about 5.5% to about 6.5%, but it will also change the balance. If you're going to do it you'll probably want to bring the bittering up. I guess it depends on what your goal is.

 

[eadavis80]

Maybe I'll just leave it as is and make it as simple a brew day as possible. That's the same day as UM vs. MSU and in Michigan that's a huge game (though the last 5-6 years State has destroyed Michigan). So, maybe this year I'll just call it good enough, leave it alone - throw in the bittering hops, watch 45 minutes of football, race outside, throw in the aroma hops and kill the heat 15 minutes later. That way I can focus on football just as much, if not even more, than the beer.

 

[chickypad]

Sounds like the way to go, given that you're not planning to include ingredients that need to be mashed.

GO BLUE! (can always hope)