Robust Porter Recipe HELP

[Simon Cooke]

Hi there fellas,

 

Im brewing a Extract/Partial mash Smoked Vanilla Bourbon Porter in about a week and am a wee bit worried about my process/recipe. 
Advice/tips/ideas very welcome!!

Rather than copy-pasting it il just link you to my Hopville recipe.

Here's the main recipe I have been confidently pursuing until now:
25L Porter 7.7%

My first worry was sparked by a brew buddy of mine...
So far the ingredients for this brew have almost breached 100bux (25L)
As you can see this beer is not very close to Robust Porter style, with a lot of fermentables and with a final abv expected around 7.7%
Being a poor student, my mate suggested that I make my money go a bit further and stretch out the volume (maybe up to 40L) to end up with not such a robust beer, with a lower ABV, and more bottles to drink. (see recipe #2)

recipe #2

So as you can see, the only change to ingredients would be using a full tin (1.5kg) dark malt extract instead of 500gm. Now with a 40L volume, obvs lower gravity and ABV of 5.3%, lighter colour and lower IBU.

My question... Which one would you brew?? The hardcore 25L OR the more relaxed yet high volume 40L?


And also, one question to do with the process, how long should I steep my grain for? at what temp? and with or without all those extract syrups (light, amber, dark)?

I was planning on going with 30min steep at 66°C with just 500gm extract syrup (as Im worried the boil following this would nuke them) 

Cheers!
 

[Simon Cooke]

Cheers Paul,

Thats very interesting, I did not know that about mashing.

the grist to water ratio here was 1.75kg grist to 7Liters water, with 1.4kg amber extract and 1.5kg light LME if I remember correctly. Here is the final recipe we used: Robust Porter

We racked to secondary at 1.024 (expected was 1.020), so an abv of 5%. 
It tasted quite heavy on the mouth, a bit to thick, but tasted really nice rich, malty with lingering smoke.
We added the 300ml of Jim Beam/ Vanilla bean mix which cut through that mouth feel very well and brought it down to a more balanced viscosity. Youll notice the recipe has bourbon chips in it, but we will decide shortly whether we want to add those too. 

 

[Paul Wicksteed - another1]

Sounds like it has come out okay in the end, I would definitely put the oak chips in the secondary, if I had the opportunity i would barrel age some of it in a 5ltr oak barrel, and taste difference in 6 months time.

 

Should age well, you should open up a bottle and taste test it every week, and compare the difference.

[JoKing]

Did you do your S.G reading with 20 degree wort? Temperature makes a massive difference.

[Paul Wicksteed - another1]

great expectations have iodophor, its in the Mad Millie Cheese section.