Scott Ickes
Grandmaster Brewer
I'm brewing this up today. I was on a business trip to Reno, Nevada back in October of this past year and had lunch at Brews Brothers Microbrewery at the Silver Legacy Casino. I had a really nice sweet porter with my lunch. I spent about an hour talking to the head brewer that day. I asked how he got his porter to be so sweet and smooth. He was kind enough to share the recipe. I'm really looking forward to seeing how close I come. The recipe he gave me was for a 311 gallon batch. I used BeerSmith to scale it down to a 5.5 gallon batch.
I did decide to go with a 90 minute mash to make sure I got full conversion. I also did a decoction mash out. I pull 1/3 of the thickest part of the mash out and slowly brought it to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes before returning it to the mash tun. I talked about this with the head brewer. He said he doesn't do that, because of the time and cost of doing it. But on a homebrew level, it's something he'd probably do.
The recipe is designed to leave a lot of unfermentables to keep it sweeter with a smooth chewy mouthfeel. The addition of Pendleton Whiskey with the Vanilla Beans in the secondary adds to the sweetness and ABV. Pendleton whiskey has a sweeter flavor than most whiskeys. I basically split and chopped up the vanilla beans two weeks ago and put those in my Ninja Blender with 2 pints of whiskey and emulsified it. The whiskey/vanilla bean blend is in pints jars awaiting the secondary.
I let you know how it turns out!
I did decide to go with a 90 minute mash to make sure I got full conversion. I also did a decoction mash out. I pull 1/3 of the thickest part of the mash out and slowly brought it to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes before returning it to the mash tun. I talked about this with the head brewer. He said he doesn't do that, because of the time and cost of doing it. But on a homebrew level, it's something he'd probably do.
The recipe is designed to leave a lot of unfermentables to keep it sweeter with a smooth chewy mouthfeel. The addition of Pendleton Whiskey with the Vanilla Beans in the secondary adds to the sweetness and ABV. Pendleton whiskey has a sweeter flavor than most whiskeys. I basically split and chopped up the vanilla beans two weeks ago and put those in my Ninja Blender with 2 pints of whiskey and emulsified it. The whiskey/vanilla bean blend is in pints jars awaiting the secondary.
I let you know how it turns out!