Pecan Pie Porter

[BoomerBrews]

2nd brew here. I decided to make a recipe from scratch for thanksgiving time.

Boil Size: 5 Gallons
Boil Time: 60mins

Estimated OG: 1.062 Actual OG: 1.061
Estimated FG: 1.015 Actual Final OG: 1.020
Estimated ABV: 6.11 Calculated ABV: 5.38
IBU 32.49
SRM: 36.89

Ingredients:
6.6lb Light LME
2lb light DME
3 oz molasses (20 min)
1lb Crystal 60l
4oz black patent
1lb chocolate

1oz German Northern Brewer (60 min) 8.8AA
1 oz Williamette (7min) 4.6AA
1oz UK Fuggle (3min) 4.3AA
15g safale s04
.5oz gypsum
1 tsp ground cinnamon @ flameout

I steeped the grains in 1.75 gallons of water at 160 degrees for 30 mins. Removed the grains. Added the 1.75 gallons to the 4.25 gallons of water in the kettle and brought to boil. Also added .5oz gypsum to the water. Added Extract and stirred in. Added northern brewer 1oz for 60 mins. 40 mins into the boil i added 3ozs of blackstrap molasses. Added Williamette at 53 mins and fuggle at 57 mins. Added 1/2 tab of whirlfloc at this time too. At flameout i added 1 tsp of cinnamon. I then let this sit outside (40 degree weather) covered for about an hour as i had to run errands. Came back and added the wort chiller brought the wort to 70 degrees and pitched 15gs of safale s04 and aerated it. I had a slight leak from the hose clamps on the wort chiller and had an extra .25 gallons added to the wort unfortunately. I brewed this 19 days ago. I monitored fermention temps using a swamp cooler set up. Ferm was held at 64 degrees. I let it sit on top of the yeast for another 12 days. I bottled last night. I ended up with a Final OG of 1.020. Not sure why i missed my target. At bottling i ended up wit 4.75 gallons of beer. I boiled 3.75 ozs of priming sugar in 2 cups of water and added this to the bottling bucket. I also added 4 tsps of vanilla extract and transferred the beer on top of it in the bottling bucket. from here i had another bucket. I added 11 tsp of caramel natural extract, 7 tsp of pecan extract, and an additional tsp of vanilla and transferred 2.75 gallons of beer on top of this. I bottled the 2 gallons of non- pecan/caramel flavored beer and then bottled the 2.75 gallons of flavored beer. Some notes on taste, Blackstrap was subtle but there. I could not taste the cinnamon. The slight addition of vanilla added a barely noticeable taste but seemed to make the beer slightly smoother. I tested the gracity 3 times after ferm at 7 days, 14 days, and 19days. The yeast at 7 days was noticebly fruity and banana-ish. at 14 days it was less noticeable.. at 19 days it really cleaned itself up. Im very pleased with the outcome of this. The hop choices while all from different countries really accented the beer. I will update again with the final impressions of both beers in 2 weeks after conditioning.

Im sure im missing something in here but this is off the top of my head. Feel free to correct me or ask any questions.

 

[Hogarthe]

3 oz of molasses does not seem like much.... But I've never brewed with it.

 

[BoomerBrews]

3 oz of molasses does not seem like much.... But I've never brewed with it.

It’s not a lot. Too much blackstrap can being overwhelming. I wanted it to be subtle due to how strong and bitter it is compared to regular molasses

 

[Nosybear]

3 oz of molasses does not seem like much.... But I've never brewed with it.

Molasses can get nasty really quickly. I use about 3 oz in my Kentucky Common, that's enough to be noticeable but not to easily identify. This recipe is complex compared to my pecan pie recipe (the one on the back of every Karo dark syrup bottle shipped). The flavors in that pecan pie are the crackery flavors of the crust (Belgian pilsner), the caramel flavors of the dark syrup, vanilla, the pecans and the butter. Pecans provide a lot of oil, a method I've seen to add pecans is to repeatedly heat them and pat the oil off of them. It's a lot of effort, I think I'd break down and use an extract, as you did. I don't use chocolate or cinnamon flavors in my pecan pies but hey, it's your pie, and your beer. Ferment with a diacetyl-producing yeast for the buttery flavor of the custard, add vanilla and pecan flavoring at packaging to taste. Just enough neutral bitterness to cut the sweetness somewhat - I'd still want a sweet beer but not an cloyingly sweet one, say around 15 IBU.

I put all that in for contrast and to show how two brewers might approach the same problem, not to tell you your beer is wrong. When I formulate a recipe, I think of what it should taste like, then look for ingredients to produce those flavors. In the case of a pecan pie, I love them and I really love making them here with the high altitude adjustment (less sugar). Your approach looks to be fine and I hope you like the beer. Now that you've planted the bug, I may have to look into making my approach, just to see if it works!

 

[BoomerBrews]

Appreciate the feedback. Always good to get others opinions. This was only my 2nd homebrew so I’m learning a lot. 1 tsp of cinnamon is completely unnoticeable. I added it just to see if I would taste it and because parpazian lives by adding a small amount in all of his recipes. When I think pecan pie I think caramel,pecans, and butter. I used molasses to get the smoothness similar to butter while not overdoing it. My steeping grains I tried to stick to what would make a nice porter and add the sweetness through the chocolate malt and caramel. Before I added the caramel and pecan it was actually so delicious that I decided not to do the full batch with those flavors. I did taste the non carbed beer after adding the flavors and I do think I missed the goal of pecan pie but it is still very tasty. The caramel is nice and obvious and you get a nice pecan flavor at the end. I will try to simplify my recipe next time and change the base malts to get the more distinguished pie characteristics.

Molasses can get nasty really quickly. I use about 3 oz in my Kentucky Common, that's enough to be noticeable but not to easily identify. This recipe is complex compared to my pecan pie recipe (the one on the back of every Karo dark syrup bottle shipped). The flavors in that pecan pie are the crackery flavors of the crust (Belgian pilsner), the caramel flavors of the dark syrup, vanilla, the pecans and the butter. Pecans provide a lot of oil, a method I've seen to add pecans is to repeatedly heat them and pat the oil off of them. It's a lot of effort, I think I'd break down and use an extract, as you did. I don't use chocolate or cinnamon flavors in my pecan pies but hey, it's your pie, and your beer. Ferment with a diacetyl-producing yeast for the buttery flavor of the custard, add vanilla and pecan flavoring at packaging to taste. Just enough neutral bitterness to cut the sweetness somewhat - I'd still want a sweet beer but not an cloyingly sweet one, say around 15 IBU.

I put all that in for contrast and to show how two brewers might approach the same problem, not to tell you your beer is wrong. When I formulate a recipe, I think of what it should taste like, then look for ingredients to produce those flavors. In the case of a pecan pie, I love them and I really love making them here with the high altitude adjustment (less sugar). Your approach looks to be fine and I hope you like the beer. Now that you've planted the bug, I may have to look into making my approach, just to see if it works!

Ale

 

[Nosybear]

Appreciate the feedback. Always good to get others opinions. This was only my 2nd homebrew so I’m learning a lot. 1 tsp of cinnamon is completely unnoticeable. I added it just to see if I would taste it and because parpazian lives by adding a small amount in all of his recipes. When I think pecan pie I think caramel,pecans, and butter. I used molasses to get the smoothness similar to butter while not overdoing it. My steeping grains I tried to stick to what would make a nice porter and add the sweetness through the chocolate malt and caramel. Before I added the caramel and pecan it was actually so delicious that I decided not to do the full batch with those flavors. I did taste the non carbed beer after adding the flavors and I do think I missed the goal of pecan pie but it is still very tasty. The caramel is nice and obvious and you get a nice pecan flavor at the end. I will try to simplify my recipe next time and change the base malts to get the more distinguished pie characteristics.

Ale

Instead of cinnamon, try a couple grams of salt at bottling.

 

[BoomerBrews]

Instead of cinnamon, try a couple grams of salt at bottling.

What will that do? Never heard of doing that.

 

[Nosybear]

Just like salting food, bring out some flavors.

 

[BoomerBrews]

Update: Monday is going to be the official 2 week carbonation, but I had family over so I cracked open a bottle of both the regular and caramel pecan flavored. The regular was delicious. Roasted flavor with nice smoothness. I tasted a hint of the molasses. I had one person tell me they tasted cinnamon which I added 1 tsp at flameout. Overall the regular was very good.. the flavored one... not so much. The flavors to me taste almost unnatural despite being natural extract. It’s a bit overwhelming even tho I only used about half of what the bottle recommended. I most likely will let the flavored bottles sit another month and hope they mellow out.