Batch No. 22: Bourbon Vanilla Porter

This beer was based on Denny's famous Bourbon Vanilla Porter Recipe.   It is a recipe that I have seen kicking around for quite a while, and it always seems to get rave reviews.   Denny's Most recent recipe for this beer is as follows:

#383 Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter

Recipe Specifics
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Batch Size (Gal): 5.50 Wort Size (Gal): 5.50
Total Grain (Lbs): 19.38
Anticipated OG: 1.084 Plato: 20.30
Anticipated SRM: 45.2
Anticipated IBU: 32.5
Brewhouse Efficiency: 73 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

Amount Name Origin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America
2.75 lbs. Munich Malt(2-row) America
1.63 lbs. Brown Malt Great Britain
1.38 lbs. Chocolate Malt America
1.06 lbs. Crystal 120L America
0.56 lbs. Crystal 60L America

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.75 oz. Magnum Whole 14.60 30.1 60 min.
0.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Whole 4.75 2.4 10 min.

Yeast
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WY1450 Denny's Favorite 50


For my own recipe I made a few minor tweaks, but as the recipe is so highly regarded I didn't want to deviate too much.  I didn't have any Munich at the time, so I substituted the 2-row, and Munich with Marris Otter in order to get a bit more flavour from my base malt.   I also thew in some flaked barley that I had left over from another recipe, figuring you can't go wrong with a bit of flaked barley in this type of beer.

I also decided to add a little bit of American oak, as I have heard of other people oaking this recipe with success.

My version of the recipe is as follows:

No. 22:  Bourbon Vanilla Porter

Batch Size: 5.75 gal
Boil Size: 7.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.083 SG
Estimated Color: 45.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 48.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain

14.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
1.50 lb Brown Malt (65.0 SRM)
1.25 lb Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 45L (45.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)

Hops

1.00 oz Warrior [17.00 %] (60 min)
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (10 min)

Yeast

2 Packages Safale US-05

Misc.

2 Vanilla Beans
350ml of Bulleit Bourbon
0.75oz medium toast American oak cubes

Mash Schedule

Mashed @ 150F for 75 Minutes

Fermentation Temp

58F ambient temperature for 1 week
65F ambient for 2 weeks
58F ambient temperature for 1 week

Actual Numbers

Measured OG: 1.083
Measured FG: 1.022
ABV: 7.9% (8.5% after bourbon addition)

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Bourbon

I don't really know a whole lot about bourbon, so I just picked up a bottle of Knob Creek to use in this recipe.  On my brothers suggestion I also picked up a bottle of Bulleit, and I had a bourbon showdown to determine which one would be given the honour of flavouring my beer.

The Knob Creek was quite sweet tasting with big vanilla and oak flavours.  The Bulleit had the same vanilla and oak flavours, but was much less sweet.  It also had a little bit of spiciness, probably from the high percentage of rye that it is made with.  If I was just going to drink the bourbon by itself, my preference would be the Knob Creek. However, for adding to the beer I liked the spiciness and reduced sweetness of the Bulleit, so that is what I chose.

Adding the Bourbon, Vanilla, & Oak

During the second week of fermentation I soaked two chopped and scraped vanilla beans in 50ml of bourbon.

Vanilla beans and bourbon were added to the fermenter at the beginning of week 3 of fermentation.

0.75 oz of medium toast American oak cubes were boiled for 10 minutes and added to the fermenter at the beginning of week 4 of fermentation.

300ml of bourbon was added at bottling, after 4 weeks in the fermenter.

Tasting

The vanilla and oak got kind of lost in this beer.  I really have a hard time picking out any discernible vanilla or oak flavours. Thats not to say that they aren't contributing anything, its just not obvious to me.  The bourbon is the real star of the show here.  It is quite subtle when the beer is cold, but the bourbon flavour really opens up as the beer warms.  Overall, I love it.  The beer has been a big hit with everyone who has tried it, and it is on my short list of beers to brew again.

Lynn's Take

"Smells like soy sauce.  This is the soy sauce beer isn't it?" (referring to Dark Lord)

"Its very thin.  Doesn't have any mouth feel"

Me, “take an other sip”

"OK, it has pretty good mouth feel.  I still don't like it though."

Thoughts for Next Time


The vanilla beans were from Costco, and fairly cheap compared to anywhere else you see vanilla beans for sale. They smelled beautiful and were nice and moist when I chopped them up, but they were a bit on the skinny side.  If I were to use these beans again, I would use three or maybe even four of them for a full two weeks in the beer.

I am a little paranoid when adding oak to a beer.  This was only the second time I have ever oaked a beer, and the first was not what you would call a success.  The first time I ever added oak to a beer was 1oz of medium toast American oak cubes to an Arrogant Bastard clone.  They were in the fermenter for a week, and the beer came out tasting like liquid oak.  This time I wanted to err on the side of caution and only used 0.75oz for a week.  With all the strong flavours going on in the beer, it was simply not enough oak.  I'd increase to at least 1oz for my next attempt.

The final thing I would change is to possibly add a little more bourbon.  350ml is almost spot on for my taste but I think I would try 375 to 400ml next time, just to make it a little more up-front at cooler temperatures.