I brewed a schwarzbier the other day and was thinking of adding some vanilla flavors. I would prefer to use whole beans, and thought I'd see if anyone had any recommendations. Obviously the brewing process is complete so it wouldn't be thrown in with the boil. Yeast has not yet been pitched. Thanks in advance
You brewed the other day, but the yeast has not been pitched? I'd finish the beer in primary then add vanilla beans to the secondary (after your D-Rest) and age there til you get the vanilla where you want it. Then keg and lager.
It was brewed and syphoned to it's carboy and an airlock put on it. Due to temperature issues (I couldn't get the brew temp down past 90 with my immersion chiller ((I live in PHX)) and my freezer was coming up from storage temp at 32 degrees) I did not want to pitch yeast. The brew is currently sitting at about 52 degrees and ready for yeast. Thanks though for the concerns
What Jimmy said. The longer you wait, the more likely infection will take hold. I just never heard of anyone waiting days to pitch. Why the wait? Beyond that, generally people add Vanilla beans to the secondary like MMAJYK said.
You should invest in a pond/fountain/sub pump, and combine that with ice water and your immersion chiller. I can get down to 50 in the middle of summer.
Agreed, but as long as your sanitation procedures are sound, I wouldn't worry too much. Anyhow, as to your actual question, I'd split the beans and soak them in a small amount of clean-tasting vodka and then add all of it to the secondary for a couple weeks. 2-3 beans should be plenty.
Michigan water and air temps are a bit different than Phoenix, where my thermometer said it hit 99F today, hell Im lucky if my tap water is 85F To USCMcG, dont worry about waiting I do similar things often, although I will stick a carboy in a 32F freezer thats slowly coming up to temp, the extra cold will just help to reach pitching temps sooner As for the vanilla, I would wait till the beer is finished, I definitely think vanilla could work in a schwarzbier, but I love them too much to do that to a whole batch, especially with all the time and effort to ferment and lager. Why not just add a bit of vanilla extract to the glass??
Interesting suggestion. I too love the Schwarz and the vanilla idea just sort of came on as an after thought. Thanks for the advice.
You completely missed his point. You use your warm 85 degree water to chill down to... 90ish. Then, you add ice to the vessel/sink you have the pump in to push water through your chiller. Ice is roughly the same temperature in Phoenix as it is in Michigan. You'll cool faster, and down to lager temps.
yah but why when you have a cold freezer ready to go? pitching the next morning isnt really gonna hurt anything. Ive done this for years now
