Beer Forum

Soooooo.... I got this idea to try and make an imperial vanilla stout aged in whiskey barrels for my first holiday beer. Im attempting to get this effect by soaking some oak chips and vanilla beans in wild turkey 101 and then I want to add them to my fermenting stout. I'm a little new to this so I have a few questions, any insight would greatly help:

Im adding 4 oz. Oak chips. More or less?

Im adding 4 Vanilla beans cut in half leangth wise. Too much?

How do I steralize/sanitize? I was thinking put jar in pot of water and let boil? will that work? Is there a better way? does it matter cause they are soaked in whiskey?

How long should I leave in fermenter? I was thinking 7-10 days and doing it after 7 days of already fermenting.

Should I rack off yeast cake to secondary prior to adding?

Again any insight would help alot !!!

I currently have a vanilla whiskey barrel porter that I am fermenting. I soaked the chips and 2 vanilla beans in Maker's Mark. I racked off to a secondary after about a week. I just added them straight into the carboy. I figure the whiskey will sanitize them. I didn't cut the vanilla beans. I am going to let it sit in the secondary for about 2-3 weeks. I am also planning on adding more whiskey during bottling.

How big of a batch?

4 oz of chips should be fine for 5 gallons. It depends on taste - how much oak you want in the final product, how strongly flavored the beer is already, etc.

4 vanilla pods is about 4 times too much for 5 gallons though - depending on the exact species of pod you have. 1 or 2 will be plenty. After you split them & soak them scrape out the innards. That's where all the flavor is at, so you want those floating around free like dry hops. Still add the split pod because you'll pull some more flavor from what you didn't scrape on the inside. The outside of the pods offers little to no flavor at all (i.e. putting them without cutting/scraping is a waste of pod).

Soaking in whiskey should be enough to sanitize them, I'd give them at least a couple days of soaking though. Don't boil them afterwards since you're going to boil all the goodies right back out of them.

As for length in the fermenter, add them after fermentation is pretty much done. A few points left won't matter & some people prefer that. It really depends on what you're looking for though & how sensitive your palette is to those particular flavors. I would start taking samples every 2-3 days after the first 4 & package it when you like it. If you go a little heavy on the flavor, you can age it out, so you may want to slightly overshoot it, depending on how long you're going to keep it around vs how long before you want to enjoy the first bottle/pour.

A Oak Bourbon Porter is one of my favorite beers, I sometimes add vanilla beans to hit. Here is what i do for 12 gallons.

I add everything after fermentation is complete. I don't secondary anything.

5oz Oak CUBES. I have not used chips, so i can't comment on those. I soak for 10 to 14 days.
30 FL Oz of Knob Creek

sanitize by soaking the cubes in bourbon for a minimum 4 days.

Two beans, I wouldn't go over 3. These i leave for up to 7 days.

30 fl.oz of bourbon

Is there any porter flavor left?