Batch #100 - Imperial Raspberry (Blackberry) Vanilla Porter

It's a nice round number in the brew log, 100.  Kicking off the triple digits.  I considered for a good while what that century batch should be.  A barleywine, finally?  Another stab at an IIPA (with all Centennials, of course)?  So many options.  All of my previous quarter-century batches have been big, dark beers--always

cold-weather favourites with me--and in the end, I decided to carry on that tradition with an imperial porter.  To keep it from becoming too ordinary, though, this one's getting vanilla beans, probably oak, and definitely a bunch of raspberries.

Vienna base for malty warmth, a good helping of brown malt for its restrained roast, and some medium-dark crystal and pale chocolate to add a few more layers to this big, rich porter.  This also seemed like the perfect batch in which to use the D-180 syrup I've had lying in wait since last summer, bringing its dark fruit character and helping dry out this hefty beer.  Minimal hopping for balance, and a healthy slurry of neutral ale yeast to ferment.

The big fun will take place when I add the raspberries, vanilla beans, and oak.  Wanting these extra ingredients to make a big impact, there'll be a lot of each going into secondary; if they're too overwhelming, it'll be up to time and patience to bring them into balance.  I'm planning on giving them about a month of contact time,

though it'll be up to the beer to tell me when it's ready.  I may also add these ingredients in stages, particularly getting in the vanilla last so that the secondary fermentation of the raspberries doesn't blow off all the aromatics from the beans.

Wanting to give this beer the summer to ferment and age a bit but running out of time before our summer trip, it became the first half of another double-batch brewday the day before we left town.  Though there was a lot of frenzied activity throughout the house, the wort came out fine.  The real issue is whether or not the fermentation temperatures behaved themselves in my absence over the last couple weeks; activity was just getting started when we left the house, and the best I could do for it was to add some extra ice packs to the swamp cooler to get the initial temperature down.  This is the disadvantage of my low-fi temp regulation setup.  I'm sure it rose above where I'd normally try to keep it, but I have a feeling it won't have gone too far out of hand.  Now I just have to hope it didn't blow off the airlock...

Imperial Raspberry Vanilla Porter
Batch size: 4.6 gallons
Projected OG: 1.089
Projected SRM: 39.0
Projected IBU: 30.5
Boil time: 95 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 65%

Grains/Fermentables
75.4% - 13 lb Vienna
11.6% - 2 lb Brown malt
5.8% - 1 lb C 80
1.4% - 8 oz Pale Chocolate
5.8% - 1 lb D-180 Belgian candi syrup (10 min)

Hops
.7 oz Magnum (13.5%) (85 min)

Yeast
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50/US-05 (slurry)

Extras
1 tbsp Yeast nutrient (10 min)
7 lb Frozen raspberries (secondary)
3+ vanilla beans, split, scraped & chopped (secondary)
2 oz home-toasted oak, boiled (secondary)

Water additions (mash)
10 qts Distilled water
1 g Baking soda
1 g Chalk

Brewday: 18 June 2012
Mash: 21 qts @ 150F for 60 min
1st sparge: 6 qts @ 212F
2nd sparge: 9 qts @ 212F
Pre-boil volume: 6.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 15.4P (1.066)

Fermented in swamp cooler, started at 65F ambient

4 August 2012
SG: 1.024

Secondary: 10 August 2012
Added frozen blackberries (in place of original plan of raspberries); will add oak and vanilla beans after fermentation settles down again.
Very full; hopefully fruit fermentation won’t be too vigorous.
Revised est. OG: 1.091

Vanilla: 7 September 2012
Oak: 9 September 2012

Bottled: 8 December 2012
FG: 1.024
ABV: 8.8%
Bottled with 3.7 oz light brown sugar

Tasting: Sweet and winey, though not necessarily in a bad way. The blackberries are the big player here, with the roast really not making a dent in comparison.  The oak and vanilla really don't play a part, either.  This is a beer to enjoy slowly; I expect the batch to last well into next winter.