Fermentation in the secondary fermenter has slowed down to a crawl, so last night (14 days post-brew) I added the homemade vanilla extract (pods and all). The extract has a very nice vanilla aroma–much stronger than just soaking whole bean pods.
In one week, it’s time to bottle!
My vanilla porter has gone through the first stage of fermentation, and after one week I have now transferred it into a glass carboy for secondary fermentation. At the time of transfer, the gravity was 1.024, down from the starting gravity of 1.056. I expect that the gravity will go down a little more over the next two weeks before bottling.
The beer is nicely flavored, with no off character that I can detect. Dark color (see photo at left), lighter body, and heading towards the direction of a very drinkable porter. Interestingly, the yeast strain I used (White Labs California V ale yeast) produced a mild sulfurous aroma in the early stages of fermentation. I have read elsewhere that this is a normal characteristic for that strain, so I didn’t worry about that too much. It’s not detectable on tasting, either.
I also started some vanilla beans in vodka, to make an extract for the porter. At the recommendation of my brewing colleague Greg, I split the pods, scraped the seeds into the vodka, and then cut the pods up and threw them in too. In one week, I plan to add them to the secondary along with the rest of the beer.
Vanilla Voay Porter, in the secondary fermenterIt is finally time for the first batch of the season! I’ve been wanting to do a vanilla porter for some time, because I have a bunch of vanilla beans from my last trip to Madagascar. My wife and I both like porters, too (and she loves vanilla porter), so the stars are in alignment for this attempt.
The base recipe is modified from one I found on-line; nothing too fancy, but that’s probably an OK thing. I had thought about riffing from the recipe for last year’s Schoolhouse Porter (which turned out awesome!), but the flavor for that would be just a little too big against vanilla. The hops are all whole hops from my dad’s vines in South Dakota, and I got all of the other ingredients at a new local homebrew shop (Vanguard Home Brewing Supply – much closer than the other options, and an excellent selection of malts, grains, and yeasts).
For those who are curious, “voay” (pronounced “voy”) is Malagasy for “crocodile.” The name was chosen because of the Malagasy origin of the vanilla, in honor of the various fossil crocs I’ve dug up over there, and because it has a nice ring to it!
Vanilla Voay Porter
Steps
Tonight (7 January 2011, six days after brew day) I transferred my latest batch of the Rainy Day IPA to the secondary fermenter, a 6-gallon glass carboy. Right now, the s.g. reads at 1.018 (down from 1.060 at the beginning, for 5.5% alcohol by volume). Once the transfer was complete, I added 2 oz. of Cascade hops pellets (5.4% alpha acid) in a nylon mesh bag, for dry hopping.
The hops pellets were left over from last year (I bought them in March 2010), and were kept triple-bagged in the freezer. I’ve read that some deterioration is natural after opening (these were opened last year, as it was a 6 oz. bag), but that pellets are pretty hardy in the long-term because the interior is protected from oxygen.
In another minor technique change, I decanted the beer from the primary into the secondary fermenter through a hose attached to the spigot at the bottom of the primary, rather than through siphoning. I had been a little hesitant to try this, because I was worried about getting too much of the trub and other nastiness off of the bottom. But, it doesn’t seem like any more than normal got carried along (especially when I tipped the bucket back a bit for the initial part of the siphoning). I’ll definitely be trying this again, as it was much easier.
The beer is reasonably bitter, but not quite as much so as I remember from last time. The color and flavor is nice otherwise, so it will be interesting to see how the dry hopping augments the taste and aroma.
The Rainy Day IPA that I brewed last March turned out to be one of the best beers I’ve made yet. It had everything that a good IPA should have – clarity, lots of IBUs, and a good hoppy aroma. The use of pelletized hops for the dry hopping phase seemed to be the key to getting good hop aroma retention after bottling. Perhaps the increased surface area is behind this? In that case, I wonder if finely chopping up whole hops would have the same effect.
At any rate, I decided to make another batch of this, with just a few minor tweaks (primarily related to the ingredients I had on hand). Except as outlined below, everything is the same as before. So, I’ll only list the changes.
Differences From the Last Batch
I can’t wait to see how it will turn out, and if I can replicate the good points of the last batch. I plan to dry-hop it once again with some Cascade pellets left over from last year. They probably won’t be as fresh, but I do want to use them up.
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