vanilla bean addition per keg

[ibrewforyou]

looking to do a little variation of my imperial porter
and add a little vanilla. going to do it by the keg.
heard 1 to 2 fresh beans in keg should suffice.
any thoughts?

[kugeman]

Yeah that should do it. I would say 1 bean would be very light and 2 would be more noticeable. 3 would be full on vanilla flavor. I put 27 into a 7bbl batch of vanilla porter. It's definitely a vanilla flavored beer, but it's not completely over the top. It also depends on how long you let the beer sit on them too. Cut them open for full effect.

[Natrat]

I'd suggest putting 3 or 4 beans cut up into a bottle of overproof rum, letting it steep for a few weeks, and dosing with that. Doesn't take much.

[TPBC]

We finished a robust porter in november and added vanilla beans to the fermenter.

We cut the beans in half and scraped out the insides. Added all of it into a mesh bag soaked in a 1/2 liter of whiskey. Put both the whiskey and beans in to the beer.

Did a bit of research on it before hand and ended up adding 4oz of beans (ended up being 37 beans for us, but i think they were on the small side) to a 4BBL batch. We ended up having a very subtle vanilla flavor to our beer, however our porter was a bit on the roasted side and could have masked it. Next time I plan on putting in 6 or 8 oz in the fermenter to try and kick it up a notch.

I just casked off a stout and decided to add a full 1oz of beans to the cask. I decided to try and cut some time out the equation and put the beans and whiskey in a blender (the cutting and scrapping took me a full hour, kinda tedious with the small vanilla beans we had). I'm shooting for a big punch of vanilla in this one. I'll let you know how it turns out when its tapped, should be another 2 weeks from now. Probably not in time for when you want to add it to your kegs, but i'd like to at least compare results with you.

[chaser]

i've had great results with two per keg aged for about 5-7 days before decanting the beer off the beans. Not too subtle and definitely not overpowering.

[ibrewforyou]

put 3 per keg of imperial porter, the vanilla comes through almost to the forefront.
if you want just a hint of vanilla i would think 2 per keg would be perfect.

[BDL]

I'd suggest putting 3 or 4 beans cut up into a bottle of overproof rum, letting it steep for a few weeks, and dosing with that. Doesn't take much.

And I would suggest not telling the TTB that you are making alcohol extracts!

[omearabros]

And I would suggest not telling the TTB that you are making alcohol extracts!

Are alcohol extracts supposed to be reported to TTB even if you're not labeling - as in a brewpub?

Thanks,
Tim

[brewmatt333]

Are alcohol extracts supposed to be reported to TTB even if you're not labeling - as in a brewpub?

Thanks,
Tim

I don't see any reason why you would ever need to in that instance. Also, it's a grey area as far as alcohol extracts are concerned. At least that was my interpretation of the law.

[BDL]

I don't see any reason why you would ever need to in that instance. Also, it's a grey area as far as alcohol extracts are concerned. At least that was my interpretation of the law.

COLAs and formulas are two very different things. The law is that certificates of label approval are only necessary for just the label itself and only if you ship out of state. However you are required to file a formula with the TTB if the beer contains anything other than hops and the usual cereal grains. Being a brew pub does not exempt you from needing to file formulas.

From the TTB inspectors I've spoken with there is nothing grey about it. You may use food grade alcohol extracts that are readily available and have been filed with the FDA, but you may not make your own extracts, nor add any other alcohol (the big exception being whatever is left in a barrel you use to barrel age). But you must file a formula if you use any of the commercially available extracts.

[Natrat]

Fair enough on the TTB thing. I should have caught that since I'm distilling now, and in the USA...but when we were doing that it was a brewery in Canada, and it was considered "natural vanilla extract." We used overproof rum, too.

At any rate, a good, cheap bourbon vanilla extract from New Mexico might fit the bill, no?

[SouthHouseBrew]

Getting the beans out?

Adding whole vanilla beans to a sanke keg makes it difficult to get them out.

Also with high quality, fresh pods, they don't need much contact time to become overwhelming.

If you're just serving it in house, you could use a corny or a cask. You could either put them in a bag to pull them out or transfer to another keg before too much flavor is extracted.

If you're going to put a few kegs out in distribution, you could steep several pods in beer in a corny and then dose the kegs to taste after filling.

You could also make an extract as previously suggested, but with "beer" instead of vodka (that's your story - you're sticking to it).

For a small batch, you might as well get fresh vanilla beans instead of pre-made extract. Its worth it!

[sdixon]

Vanilla beans

I had good success with 2 beans / bbl in a 5bb batch of stout.

I cut them open lengthwise and then into long thin strips and then diced them into small pieces 1-2mm. Soaked in about 300ml of whisky overnight and then suspended in mesh bag for 2 weeks (added the whisky too :-).

The vanilla was barely noticeable but was there and blended the flavor together well I thought.

Anyway, that was my experience. Hope yours turned out well.