Chocolate Oatmeal Porter- AG

Finally poured a first glass today. The beer is absolutely wonderful. Mine came out slightly light on body since it finished out at 1.016. There is a fine whiskey nose to it from the buffalo trace whiskey, pleasant finish of chocolate and coffee. The coffee i added to the beer was a chocolate and coconut coffee and it was absolutely delicious. Since the coffee addition, much of the coffee profile i wanted has faded, so i am going to make a cold brew and add it to the keg to get the profile back to what i wanted.

Absolutely a great recipe @FATC1TY !! Definitely a recipe to keep in the back pocket for the holidays.

 

Next time i brew this, i want to add some carapils to enhance head retention and mouthfeel.

 

Approximately, how much more oats would you add?

 

I will be brewing this on 12/12/15, following the recipe as shown in the OP. Since we have an 8-gallon brew kettle, we will be using a Wilserbrew BIAB and will need to sparge up to our desired pre-boil volume.

I am thinking around 3 gallons of water for the mash, then pour over sparge up to 7-7.5 gallons for pre-boil volume. We will lose around 1.5 gallons to boil-off over the 1.5 hour boil time, and we pour everything into the fermenter, so expect a trub loss of at least 1 gallon as well. Anything between 4-5 gallons into the keg is fine. We will also make a vanilla extract using (3) Beanilla Madagascar Vanilla Beans split and scraped and soaked in a few ounces of bourbon for a week prior to adding to the carboy.

Does this sound reasonable for a first attempt at this recipe?

 

You are correct, after running things through the Priceless BIAB Calculator we will be using 5 gallons for the mash and then sparging up to 7 gallons.

 

We hit an OG of 1.069 following the recipe in the OP. Glad to see that our first BIAB experience at least got us to this point, hoping to see active fermentation sometime tomorrow. About 4 weeks until we can tap the keg!

We did substitute Fuggle for Willamette since Willamette wasn't available when we ordered the ingredients. Hopefully it won't change things much.

 

We've never used vanilla beans. Do you usually soak them in vodka or bourbon to sanitize them?

 

Yes, try to let them soak for about 3 weeks and then pour in the tincture for about 2 weeks for 2 beans. You can always sample and see if the vanilla taste is where you want it.

 

I brewed this on Sunday night, subbed Biscuit malt for the pale chocolate. Screwed up the water calculations (OG 1052) and ended up adding 1lb of DME at 1080 after not seeing fermentation within first 48 hours. Happy to say it's bubbling along now. Only my 3rd all grain batch.

 

I want to do this beer. What amount of water should I mash with and how much should I sparge with. I want to end up with at least 5 gallons to ferment.

 

@FATC1TY I will be brewing your recipe this week end. I have 3 beers to brew for my friend's sons graduation party. I plan to split batch this and do half with coffee and maple and the other half with peanut butter. I will let you know how it works out.

What type of water profile did you go with on this?

 

Ok cool! Thanks for the tips. I do check and monitor ph so that wont be a problem and I also have a London water profile that I use for my stouts that I'll use for this cheers!

 

Just brewed this beer. Its chilling as we speak. Everything went exactly as planned expect my efficiency lil normally I get in the mid 70s and rocked an 84% lol so this will be a little bit stronger. I'll keep you updated on how it turns out. I will be split batching it. Half with coffee and maple and the other half with peanut butter