Vanilla Brown Porter

This is a recipe I've designed for my vanilla experiment. I chose a brown porter to showcase the vanilla bean flavor because I couldn't think of a better style of beer to pair with vanilla. While I like American stouts I don't think they make a good low alcohol session beer and I find them best when they aren't understated. Porters are often better as an understated beer. By understated I mean light, soft flavors, offering a complex, but easy to drink beer. A brown porter can have a light to moderate chocolate and nutty flavor while maintaining that smoothness charicteristic of session beers. Strong roasted flavors are out of place in this style; they are better left to robust porters, Baltic porters, and stouts of all kinds. For me the distinguishing factor between the spectrum of porters and stouts is roasted flavors. I would rate them like this: Brown Porter < Robust Porter < Sweet Stout < Oatmeal Stout < Dry Stout < Foreign Export Stout < American Stout < Baltic Porter < Russian Imperial Stout. Other factors include mouth feel, alcohol, and intensity. Because it's a style of English origin I'm using Maris Otter because it's a premium English pale malt I want to increase the body and head retention, to this end I am using a generous portion of flaked barley. To round out the malt bill I've included Crystal 120 is to create a dark fruity flavor; pale chocolate and brown malt are for a moderate nutty-chocolate flavor; Chocolate malt and black patent are for a light roasted flavor and color.

(read more after the break.)

Brown

Recipe:
2 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)  59.8 %
8.0 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)  14.9 %
4.0 oz Caramel Malt -120L (120.0 SRM)  7.5 %
4.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt (200.0 SRM)  7.5 %
4.0 oz Brown Malt (65.0 SRM)  7.5 %
1.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)  1.9 %
0.5 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)  1.0 %
0.30 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - First Wort 19.5 IBUs
0.5 oz Chocolate Powder
0.5 pkg Windsor Yeast (Lallemand #-) [23.66 ml]  
0.50 Items Vanilla Bean (Secondary 15.0 days)
0.50 Items Vanilla Bean (Secondary 15.0 days)

Statistics:
Boil Size: 2.5 gal
Fermenter volume: 2.0 gal
Estimated OG: 1.043 SG
Estimated FG: 1.012 SG
Estimated Color: 27.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 19.5 IBUs

Brew in a Bag:
Saccharification Add 11.46 qt of water at 162.1 @ 156.0 for 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 over 7 min 168.0 for 10 min

Brewed on 1/21/12

Transferred to secondary after a week in primary. Vanilla added to each secondary. Hopefully they'll turn out.