Bourbon barrel Porter

Ward Chillington

Ward Chillington

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So a whiskey drinking buddy of mine dropped by with a Christmas gift in the form of a box of grain and the ask that he gets a 6 pack back of the finished product. It's a Northern kit for a bourbon porter complete with oak cubes for a trip in the secondary. Not being the keenest on adding things to the sacred 4 ingredients, I ask for input from the fo-rum........or in this case the ......…..wait for it …....the fo-bourbon.

Any experienced in this additive??
 
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You could go with whatever the kit says, or if you want more oak flavour add them to the boil and then add bourbon to taste at bottling.

The more usual approach is to soak the chips in bourbon for a few days at least and then add the bourbon and chips to the fermenter after fermentation is complete.Or just the chips if you want to dial down the bourbon. Secondary if having oak chips is going to get in the way of your process (yeast harvesting and the like). If it doesn't, you can use primary (the few times I've done it I've added it to primary).
 
You had me at "Bourbon Barrel Porter"
This is something that I would like to pre-plan for a Christmas brew for next year
 
Make sure you use good bourbon. Cheap booze will result in a cheap tasting beer. Soak the chips for a couple days. You only need to use enough to cover the chips, unless you want to use more and dump it all in. That comes down to how boozy do you want the beer to taste.
 
Craigerrr said:
This is something that I would like to pre-plan for a Christmas brew for next year
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Yeah...actually that's more the Brewing Challenge of the New Year...plan ahead so the cellar always has good fresh seasonal brew in it!
 
So I was about to brew this the other day but had some technical issues ( lack of time ) and didn't brew but it did give me some additional time to think about how I want to do this and I wanted some feed back.

The basis of the thought was risk. Since I am not too big on beer additions like this but I still want to do it; I thought hey...one brew, 2 batches! Brilliant! OK...so this recipe calls for a trip in the secondary and I have a small glass carboy just waiting to do the job for taking the bourbon and the oak blocks and I will keep the balance of the batch in the primary to finish out. I'm thinking less chance of blowing up the whole batch but just introducing the syphon into the primary which should have enough alcohol produced in 10 days or so. Now...what, if anything else, should I be thinking about?
 
I'll just throw this out there for fun.
One advantage to homebrewing.
Alcohol can be added to homebrew.
Say something like bourbon or whiskey.

Just me.
I'd soak my cubes in bourbon. Add to primary. No secondary.
If more bourbon required, add more good quality bourbon to taste/balance.
Enjoy.
 
Sounds like a reasonable compromise and a great way to work out what you prefer. You can also play with blending the two beers in a glass oince they're both finished to get a feel for how less bourbon/oak works.
 
thunderwagn said:
Say something like bourbon or whiskey.
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Hmmmmm...I'm not that big of a hard stuff guy but I got turned on to Jameson a long time ago and still have a couple of shots on ice and a splash of water....maybe that's yet another option!
 
I decided to go with a three way split on this batch. I bottled up a couple of gallons from the base, then I took another two gallons each put them in secondaries and added Maker's Mark bourbon to one and to the other I added Jameson Irish whiskey along with the wood chips.
My question is about expectations in the secondary fermentation Seeing some action already in the Maker's Mark bourbon secondary but I'm not seeing sign of continuing fermentation in the Irish yet. It this because of the sugar in the bourbon being higher or something else?
It has been about 8 hours since moving the brew.
The secondarys are in a 68ish °F space.
I purposely moved little trub into the secondary so I knew for sure I had yeasty bits in the carboy to create some carbon dioxide to preserve the brew from oxidation.
 
Well I think I have my first dumper.

I am pretty sure that I killed any yeast that woke up for round 2 after I dumped the chips and booze in for a stay in the secondary jugs. 2 days now and no further sign of life and it has dawned on me that the alcohol in the whiskey was / is too much for the yeast so I am thinking I have 4 gallons of flat beer with a nice after taste.

Any recommendations before I call this one a lesson learned?
 
Ward Chillington said:
Well I think I have my first dumper.

I am pretty sure that I killed any yeast that woke up for round 2 after I dumped the chips and booze in for a stay in the secondary jugs. 2 days now and no further sign of life and it has dawned on me that the alcohol in the whiskey was / is too much for the yeast so I am thinking I have 4 gallons of flat beer with a nice after taste.

Any recommendations before I call this one a lesson learned?
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Any ideas as to how much whiskey (a 50% ethanol solution) you added? To get your beer's new ABV, figure out how much alcohol you have (multiply volume times ABV). Subtract that from the total volume of beer you have. Add the alcohol in the whiskey to the alcohol in the beer, the water in the whiskey to the water in the beer, then divide the alcohol by the water and multiply by 100% to get your new ABV as a percentage.

If it's not over about 10%, you should still be good to bottle condition.
 
Well you havnt exaughtsted all your options "yet" ward. So you've brewed your porter fermenter it out to almost complete attenuation then transferred this primary fermentation into 3 sepperate carboys with different oak/burbon mixes? You've observed no fermentation in these carboys over two days so now your hesitant to bottle because you think you've killed all remain microbial yeast life with heavy handed booze addition so you fear carbonation won't occur?

What's you hydrometer saying mate?
You didn't reach complete expected attenuationnas per recipie predictions?
What yeast are you using?
As nosey said most yeast can handle up to 10%.
What I'd do is use Champaign yeast to carb me bottles! Without searching the web's I know that stuff has gotta be able to handle up to 15% so this should get the job done. Only thing would be any flavour contribution from the champer yeast but I'm sure it'll be overshadowed by the much stronger flavours going on in this brew.
 
Nosybear said:
Any ideas as to how much whiskey (a 50% ethanol solution) you added?
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Thanks Nosy but the math is killing me...at least right now....let me see if I can figure this..

It was 3 oz of whiskey to 2 gallons of beer or a ratio of roughly 1:85. The ABV was low, 3.8 so I have that factor but the AB of the booze? Sorry but a little dumb there...is that the "proof"??
 
And there's a few yeasts that can handle over 10%, so you'll be able to get something to do the bottle conditioning. Just need to get a rough idea of the current ABV before people can make suggestions.
 
Trialben said:
Well you havnt exaughtsted all your options "yet" ward. So you've brewed your porter fermenter it out to almost complete attenuation then transferred this primary fermentation into 3 sepperate carboys with different oak/burbon mixes? You've observed no fermentation in these carboys over two days so now your hesitant to bottle because you think you've killed all remain microbial yeast life with heavy handed booze addition so you fear carbonation won't occur?

What's you hydrometer saying mate?
You didn't reach complete expected attenuationnas per recipie predictions?
What yeast are you using?
As nosey said most yeast can handle up to 10%.
What I'd do is use Champaign yeast to carb me bottles! Without searching the web's I know that stuff has gotta be able to handle up to 15% so this should get the job done. Only thing would be any flavour contribution from the champer yeast but I'm sure it'll be overshadowed by the much stronger flavours going on in this brew.
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Exactly Trailben!

I gotta check the Hydro reading still and I used Danstar Nottingham.

I like the Champaign yeast idea...for the 2 gallons (about 7.5 liters in your speak) how much yeast and priming sugar should I consider??

And just so you guys know, I really appreciate the help on trying to save this batch
 
Your typical bourbon is 80 proof which is 40% abv. Some are 100 proof or 50% abv, 90 proof or 45% abv. Does that make sense?
If not mistaken 16 oz of 40% will raise abv approx 1% in 5 gallons.
I doubt you got a dumper. A lil Makers makes everything delicious!
 
I made a stout from this kit when I was starting out. The recipe calls for oak chips and bourbon too. After bottling it took 8 weeks for it to carbonate. I was panicked and thinking of all kinds of ways to "fix" it including uncapping all the bottles and adding a conditioning yeast. I still have the conditioning yeast. Patience was the answer. I intend to use the same solution for the imperial stout I have in secondary.
 
Ward Chillington said:
Thanks Nosy but the math is killing me...at least right now....let me see if I can figure this..

It was 3 oz of whiskey to 2 gallons of beer or a ratio of roughly 1:85. The ABV was low, 3.8 so I have that factor but the AB of the booze? Sorry but a little dumb there...is that the "proof"??
Click to expand...
The "proof" is actually twice the ABV. So I'm guessing a whiskey is around 100 proof, or 50% ABV. So your 3 oz of whiskey is 1.5 oz of alcohol, 1.5 oz of water. There are 128 ounces to the gallon so you have 256 ounces of beer at 3.8%. Multiply the 256 by .038 to get 9.728 ounces of alcohol in the beer. That leaves 246.272 ounces of water. Add 1.5 to each. You'll have 11.228 ounces of alcohol, 247.772 ounces of water. Now divide 11.228 by 274.772 to get 4.09% abv after adding your tincture. You will have plenty of yeast in the beer to bottle condition it.
 
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