I've very proud of this batch because I took a lot of care crafting it, but I also paid a lot of attention to some specifics. For example, I actually took the time to calculate my mashing (partial) efficiency which turned out to be about 75%. I hope the extra care pays off.
Here's the details copied from the Recipator summary. I didn't include in the summary the spices I included. For the last 15 minutes of the boil I added 3 cinnamon sticks, 0.5 tsp nutmeg, 0.25 tsp ground cloves. During the last minute of boil I added one split vanilla bean. It smelled great.
spice
| Brewer: | - | Email: | - | |||
| Beer: | spice | Style: | Robust Porter | |||
| Type: | Partial mash | Size: | 5 gallons | |||
| Color: |
| Bitterness: | 31 IBU | |||
| OG: | 1.067 | FG: | 1.014 | |||
| Alcohol: | 6.9% v/v (5.4% w/w) | |||||
| Grain: | 1 lb. 11 oz. American 2-row 1 lb. Wheat malt .5 lb. American crystal 120L 11 oz. British crystal 50-60L 4 oz. British chocolate | |||||
| Mash: | 75% efficiency | |||||
| Boil: | minutes | SG 1.112 | 3 gallons | |||
| 5 lb. Light dry malt extract | ||||||
| Hops: | 1 oz. Cluster (5.7% AA, 60 min.) .5 oz. Kent Goldings (6.9% AA, 60 min.) .25 oz. Chinook (12.2% AA, 60 min.) 1 oz. Cascade (6.9% AA, 15 min.) | |||||
The yeast I used was Wyeast 1056, American Ale. I brewed with this yeast about a month ago. I saved a bit from the starter and placed it in a sanitized beer bottle and capped it. I stored it in my fridge for almost a month. I made another yeast starter and rejuvenated the yeast. Hopefully it is still healthy enough to make good beer. We will see.
5 comments:
Sounds like a great recipe, although I might have just put the vanilla bean in the secondary instead of boiling. How's the vanilla flavor? Pretty strong, or not so much?
Here's a recipe I've come up with for my Winter Ale:
-10 lbs Maris Otter (Thomas Crisp, UK)
-2 lbs Wheat Malt (Dingemans, DE)
-1.5 lbs Caramunich (Weyermann, DE)
-0.25 lb Roast Barley (Simpsons, UK)
-1 lb Rye (US)
Step Mash: 111F for 30 min, 154F for 60 min, 168F for 5 min
OG was around 1.080, but I'm not confident in my hydrometer. I'll be replacing that one soon.
-2.0 OZ Spalt Spalter (T-60)
-0.5 OZ Hersbruck Hersbrucker (T-30)
-0.5 OZ Hersbruck Hersbrucker (T-5)
Extended boil for maillard rxn products (and caramelization, depending upon who you talk to...)
and then the really strange part:
-Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan, for the banana and clove flavors it yields. This is supposed to be a "spicy" winter ale, right?
-1 vanilla pod added to secondary
Bottling tomorrow!
-Aaron Hefel
hefel.wordpress.com
Aaron,
That sounds like a very interesting beer.
For mine, adding the vanilla bean during the last minute of boil yielded very little in the way of vanilla flavor or aroma. I was disappointed. The nutmeg and cinnamon seem to over power what little there is. I LOVE the vanilla flavor from the bean, but this didn't work. I'm 3-4 days from bottling. You have inspired me. I am going to add another vanilla bean right now. I found an old bean in my cupboard. I'm going to boil it for a couple of minutes and throw it into the secondary. I don't think it can hurt it any.
Thanks for the comment.
Hey, I was wondering how the vanilla bean in the secondary approach worked. Better than in the boil?
Aren, Fellow Chemist
Aren,
I just so happened to finish the last of my spiced ale last night, and I thought to myself "where is the vanilla flavor?"
The vanilla bean in the 2° did not seem to do much. However, it may have been over powered by the nutmeg or cinnamon. Both of those were a tad too strong for my tastes.
I should point out that instead of boiling the bean, I chopped it up and soaked it in vodka overnight.
I'm contemplating making a standard porter and throwing a bean in just to see what happens.
I made a similar beer and made a tea that I added at bottling. I took 1.5 cups of water and boiled with the vanilla bean and other spices for twenty minutes covered Then cooled and added to bottling bucket. The vanilla came through perfectly.
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