While I was listening to the Holgate brown ale show (There were a lot of ideas in that interview. Great job, Peter.), I had an idea. Take pecans and toast them as the Holgate recipe directs, but use them in the Black Butte Porter recipe to make a Pecan Porter. Anyone see a downside to this? An Austin Brewery, (512) Brewing, makes an awesome pecan porter that is draft only.

What do you think?

I think it sounds awesome. I've had a pecan porter in mind since I first had the 512 beer. Yummy stuff and I have a grove of 20 pecan trees in the back acre that make some of the tastiest pecans I've ever had. If you do it I'd like to know how it works out as getting the pecans into the beer was the thing holding me back so far.

The Holgate interview said to toast the nuts golden brown and put them on top of the mash. So I figure, WTF? I've made bad beer before. . . I will brew it Thanksgiving Day.

Let me know how it turns out as BBP is now one of my regular beers

Peter

I brewed the beer yesterday, and it is happily fermenting away. If you decide to brew it, keep a close eye on the pecans as you toast them. I stirred the nuts every 3-5 minutes for about fifteen minutes.

I screwed up my order, though. My LHBS doesn't carry both American and English chocolate malts, so I said "What the heck?" and ordered one pound of the American. Or so I thought. As I was prepping the night before, I noticed that I ordered Chocolate wheat. So my version with have more wheat than Black Butte Porter. Hopefully, Ninkasi will protect me.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Kegged it today. It tasted great. I get some nutty flavors, but I couldn't prove it was pecans. More when it's carbonated.

Dirk-

Sounds like a happy accident
Let us know how that tastes with come co2 in it, and be sure to repost the actual recipe (if you think others might want to brew it).

'kay, here's my recipe. My efficiency is a crappy 58%. Don't even start.

13 lb Pale Malt 77.61 %
1.50 lb White Wheat Malt 8.96 %
0.75 lb Crystal 80L 4.48 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils 2.99 %
1# chocolate wheat malt 5.98%
0.60 oz Galena 13%/90 min
0.25 oz Cascade 5.5%/30 min
0.25 oz Mt. Hood 6%/5 min
2.25 oz Pecans, chopped
WLP002 English Ale Yeast

I toasted the pecans at 350F for 15 minutes, until they were golden brown, stirring every four minutes or so. It was Thanksgiving time so there were fresh pecans for pecan pies in the supermarket, which is why I went with 2.25 ounces of pecans instead of 2.82 oz in the Holgate recipe. I let the pecans cool, then put them in a bowl and covered with cling wrap. Cling wrap, by the way, clings to nothing but itself. So I wrapped the wrap twice around the bowl. The next day, I doughed in and poured the pecans into the mash, and let it sit at 154F for an hour.