Beer Forum

I got a recipe kit for a basic extract 5 gallon Dry Porter for this weekend. I just bought a pound of coffee from Caribou. I don't normally brew coffee at home, but this was Amy's Blend, some deal where proceeds from the coffee sales go to help find a cure for breast cancer. So, I've got this pound of coffee I'm not going to do anything else with, and that's what got me thinking about doing a Coffee Porter. Then I started thinking that adding a little vanilla to this would just be great. Here is my current plan:

Make the porter per the usual instructions, then at the last 2 minutes of the boil, add a tablespoon of vanilla extract. Let it ferment out, then after a week or so, rack it to a secondary where I have put my coffee beans. I'm thinking of giving them a very course grind, like just cracking them a bit.

Do these proportions and timings sound correct?

not sure about the coffee.... but I would add the vanilla at 2ndary as well.
less loss of volitiles
BUB

My local homebrew shop (The Brew Hut) just reciently started their own micro-brewery next door (Dry Dock Brewing). They make an exelent Vanilla Porter (best I've had).

Here's a link to the recipe, and if you have any questions, their number and e-mails are on the page too.

http://www.drydockbrewing.com/Rec_UVP_AG.htm

Wow, that calls for 5 vanilla beans. Just checking the price at my local grocery, they're like 6 bucks per bean. Will vanilla extract not work as well?

Use real vanilla beans. You can get them reasonable from The Organic Vanilla Bean Company on Ebay. Great people to deal with.

-A satisfied customer

Wow, I never thought to pick up Vanilla beans on ebay, but they're really cheap there. Unfortunately, I'm brewing today. I bought some anyway. If they get here early enough, I'll use them in my secondary, but if not, I'll just use extract and then rebrew the recipe later with the beans, to see if I can tell the difference. Thanks for the tip.

As far as the coffee goes, I have a coffee porter on tap right now. I ground the beans up like you would for regular coffee, then cold steeped 4 oz in quart of water for three days. I pastuerized the coffee on racking day a just dumped it into the brite tank. The coffee aroma is nice, but the coffee flavor is very subtle .I think I'll go with 6 or 8 ounces next time.

Keep in mind that vanilla beans are reusable.

Excellent. I'll do that. I've got a french press, so that would probably be just the thing. To pasteurize, you just boiled it for a while?

I brewed the porter today. I missed my OG by a few points (I wanted a 1.052 and hit 1.048. I think the boilover affected my gravity...)

I just picked up 12 vanilla beans on eBay for 7 bucks.