Vanilla Porter, Age old ?- to Bottle or 2ndary

[Downhillfromhere]

Brewed up a Holiday Vanilla Porter about 6 days ago. Started much bigger than I expected at 1.070 but the fermentation went really quick with Wyeast 1028 British Ale and it finished perfectly at 1.016. Didn't really want it to get any lower than that because I wanted to avoid to much ethynol bite. Anways, it's ready to get out of the primary and I wanted to have this beast ready for Xmas so the ? is!

Go straight to bottling, use vanilla extract, and ship it out to Chicago in 2 weeks so it has a week to hang out there and cross my fingers that it's ready for Xmas. OR go to secondary with Vanilla Beans and ship it late... Thoughts, Concerns? Can I get away with having it ready to serve up in 24 days?

Drank the sample today by the way, and it has a bit of an ethynol smell to it, but wow, it's smooth and spot on and little to no lingering aftertaste. Has a very dry feel to it. Hoping that ethynol will settle down a touch in 3 weeks of bottle conditioning if that's the route!

 

[devilishprune]

Did you control your fermentation temperatures? If so, you might be ready to bottle it if the gravity has been consistent for a few days. Bottle it and leave it for a few weeks, and then taste it. If you think that it's good at that point, then it might be okay to go. Otherwise, you might just want to wait it out and serve it later. Better to have good beer later than crappy beer sooner right?

Personally I like to leave it in the primary for at least 3 weeks.

Ethynol is something completely different than ethanol. Ethanol is in beer and gets you drunk; ethynol is (probably) not in beer, and will (probably) make you sick.

 

[Downhillfromhere]

sorry, wrong spelling! I've been dealing with alcohols in my bio classes and my spellings are all over the place. Temperature was definitely controlled. It's been nice and cool in SoCal for the past couple weeks, prime ale temperature. Held it at 64-66 for the first 3 days, then let it rise up and sit at 68-70 for the last 3 days to keep the yeast active. I'm actually really happy how that stepping worked out. I'll check the gravity again tomorrow to make sure before bottling, but the yeast has dropped clear!

 

[kanzimonson]

I think the flavor of vanilla beans is superior to extract. The question is how much vanilla do you want? I think you can get your vanilla fix in 1 week though. Here are some of my results:

I made a pumpkin beer (average gravity, amber beer, extra crystal, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice) and I added 1 split, scraped vanilla bean to a secondary for a week. In the final product it was pretty subtle, partly because of all the other flavors in there. It was like a cool background, a little hard to detect unless someone told you about it.

I also made a vanilla coffee porter (in my recipe menu) with 2 beans, same procedure, 14 days and it was a vanilla BOMB, in a good way. Very powerful vanilla flavor, and one of my biggest crowd pleasing beers.

So depending on how much vanilla flavor you want, you could get away with just one week. If you want crazy vanilla flavor, put 4 beans in for one week, but you damn well better taste it every day to make sure you don't go over. For something average, 2 beans for one week would be fine.

Lastly, make sure you leave enough time for bottle conditioning. You'll have plenty of time for the beer to age, blend, and mellow. Just don't take it out of the primary unless it tastes clean.

 

[Downhillfromhere]

Looks like I'm just going for it. Took another reading today, still sticking right at 1.016 and it has a bit of an ethanol smell to it, but I put a couple drops of vanilla extract in the sample and that smell goes away and wow, tastes great. Has a great bitter Vanilla Coffee taste to it and finishes as dry. I'll open a few bottles at christmas and maybe have the family hold off on drinking the rest until they're perfect, so in about a month

 

[Downhillfromhere]

oh yeah, and it's going to be 1oz of extract