I am going to be brewing Northern Brewers Imperial Stout extract kit and am thinking about adding 2 vanilla beans in the secondary fermentor.
My concern is that the 2oz of Cascade hops added 0 min in the boil may over power the vanilla or pair oddly. Should I add 1oz instead or change the time it is added into the boil? Also should I add the vanilla beans as soon as it is put in the secondary and let it sit for the full 2-3 months or add the vanilla beans in for only the last 2 weeks or so?
Here is a link to the kits instruction sheet:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documenta ... lStout.pdfIve never dry hopped a beer I aged on vanilla…not sure how that would end up. But if i was to do it I would, dry hop for a week or so, then let the beer sit on the vanilla for a couple months.
Why not split the batch, and do vanilla in one and DH the other?
It doesn’t call for dry hoping, just hops added into the end of the boil.
It appears I have retardation!!!
If you age the beer for a bit, the late addition hops should mellow out a bit, as far as the vanilla goes…toss it in for a couple months and see what happens, or still split the batch and age one on vanilla and one add vanilla a couple weeks before bottling.
I made a RIS that I added vanilla beans to, and aged it for 9 months, can’t taste much vanilla at all. But the recipe was a bit more robust than the NB one. And the oak spirals didn’t help the vanilla stand out either…
Hope my mindless rambling has helped :cheers:
