I had seen a lot of discussion about Denny Conn's Vanilla Bourbon Porter on a few boards, and had been considering doing a similar brew for a while, now. So, today, I went ahead with this recipe:

Batch Size - 5.50 gallons
Boil Time - 90 minutes

'Nilla Bourbon Stout
GRAIN
8.50 lbs German Munich Malt (8L)
4.50 lbs Munton's Pale Malt (1.4L)
1.50 lbs Simpson's Crystal 50-60 (55L)
.68 lbs Special Roast Malt (50L)
.50 lbs Briess Roasted Barley (300L)
.25 lbs Simpsons Roasted Barley (550L)

HOPS
3.00 oz. Hallertauer [4.20%] (First Wort Hop)

YEAST
.50 L Fermentis US-05 Top Cropped (Who says you can't top crop from a carboy?)

FINING
1.00 items Whirlifloc Tablet (Boil 15 minutes)

Mashed at 153 for 60 minutes.
Sparged with 5.50 gallons of 170 degree water.

OG - 1.082
Estimated Color - 32 SRM
Bitterness - 42 IBU's

It's cooling right now, so I'll post the OG later. I'm figuring anywhere from 1.078 to 1.088.

After primary fermentation is done, I'll chop up 2 fresh vanilla beans, scoop out the contents, and toss them into secondary. I'll leave them there for 10-14 days, or until I'm happy with the vanilla flavor. Then when I keg, I'll add about 1 1/3 cups of Jim Beam Bourbon to it.

That's the plan, anyway.

I've seen some recipe's that call for oak cubes. Some don't. What do you guys think? Would you use the oak cubes? Hmmm, maybe I'll make a poll.....

If you have any critiques, I'd love to hear 'em. Of course, except for the vanilla, bourbon, and oak, it's already a done deal. I just hope it turns out alright.

One thing that's bugging me, though. Never having done a stout before, I'm a bit thrown off by the color. At a projected 32 SRM, I was expecting the end result to be an opaque black color. The wort is dark, sure, but when held up to the light, it has a ruby red color to it. Definitely not opaque. Is this common for a stout?

You just gotta love using freshly cropped yeast!

I saw some small signs of fermentation almost immediately after pitching the yeast, which was pretty amazing to me. Two and a half hours later, and the airlock is bubbling away like crazy!

I have used top cropped yeast before, but it was always cropped a week or more before I was able to use it. The fermentations always started quickly and were very vigorous, but they've never started this quickly. The beer that I cropped the yeast from was at high krausen, so the yeast were at their peak health and activity. I put the resulting slurry on my stir plate for about two hours while I was brewing, hoping to introduce a bit of oxygen to the yeast before I pitched. Needless to say, I'm quite happy with the results.

I'm going to attach a blowoff tube to the airlock tonight, just in case. I have 8 inches of air space in my carboy, but I have a feeling that it won't be enough this time.

EDIT: Yep, about 7 hours after pitching, this beer began blowing off like Mount St. Helens. The other beer I'm brewing right now decided to start blowing off right about the same time. I've got a helluva mess to clean up in the A.M.

Hey GL,

How did this turn out? I'm curious.

I've used oak chips in a barley-wine I made once, but I didn't notice anything from it, could be I just didn't leave the beer on them long enough.

Like your stout, a coffee stout I made also turned out to have a distinct red hue when held up to the light. I guess that's why it's recommend not to hold a beer up to the light to determine it's color relative to the lovibond scale.

Also, the dark Roasted Barley probably contributed to the red color.

Seriously, though, how did this brew turn out? I'd like to brew it. Sounds interesting.

I kegged this one about a month ago, and carbed it up last week. I tasted it the other day, but I didn't want to comment on it until the beer has been cold conditioned for a few more months, but since you asked...
I went ahead and added the vanilla beans to the beer, but I did it in the same carboy I used for primary. I ended up leaving the beer on the vanilla for over a month, and to tell you the truth, the vanilla flavor just doesn't jump out at me. I soaked about 10 hungarian oak cubes in the bourbon for that month, and when I racked to the keg, I added the bourbon without the cubes. Again, neither the bourbon flavor nor the oak flavor jump out at me. So far, it's a very nice beer. At about 9.5% ABV with the bourbon, it had a nice warming effect when I drank it, but it wasn't full of fusel alcohols.
Truthfully, this is just a fantastic Imperial Stout. The other flavors are there, but subtle when compared to the dramatic roastiness of the Simpsons Roasted Barley. It's not a beer that I would drink a lot of at once, but it is definitely a beer that I'd enjoy sipping on a cold winter evening.