Yeah… It’s been a while. Didn’t brew all summer, but I’m picking back up. This is the review/writeup for the Vanilla Kolsch I bottled in June.

I ordered a standard Kolsch kit from Northern Brewer but added vanilla beans into the secondary. I have no idea how I came up with the idea for vanilla in a Kolsch, but it seemed like a good plan. I researched the different ways to add the vanilla, and the two main choices I had to make were 1- vanilla beans vs. vanilla extract, and 2- add directly to the secondary vs. create an extract by adding vanilla beans to some alcohol, then add this potion. By soaking the vanilla beans in alcohol, more of the oils can be extracted and tasted. I decided to use raw beans and soak them in vodka (the closest you can get to neutral alcohol easily). By the way… vanilla beans are real expensive. Who knew?

After combining this potion of vanilla beans, pods, and vodka, I let it sit for several days as the vodka absorbed the oils of the vanilla. After a few hours, it smelled awesome. When it was ready, I added this directly to the secondary fermenter with the beer. Interestingly enough, at this point it has become a fortified beer, due to the addition of vodka. It also bumped the ABV up. I did the calculation, and by adding 4 oz of 50% ABV vodka to the beer, I increased the ABV by 0.3%, making it 6.3%.

This was also the first time I used the wort chiller my brother gave to me for Christmas. I didn’t get a picture of it, but this is it in use on my roommate’s Belgian with some Coriander floaters.

Wort chillers are a really genius way of cooling the wort. The amount of time it takes for the wort to cool is very critical, because it is during this cooling where infection is most likely. Previous to this, I’ve been just filling the sink with cold water and ice and letting convection do its thing. This is a slow and arduous process, and could take up to an hour or so to cool the wort to 80 degrees (where you can aerate and add the yeast to the wort). The type of chiller I have is called an immersion chiller, and just like it sounds like, you immerse it in the hot wort at the end of the boil. It is a coil of copper hose that can be connected to a faucet. Cold water runs into the top of the copper hose and at the bottom it runs up and out of the pot. There is no physical contact between the cold water and the wort, but because of the massive heat differential and the thermal conductivity of the copper, the wort is rapidly cooled within about 15 minutes.

The final product was a mild, sweet, spritzy and easy to drink beer. It was not overwhelmingly vanilla-y, which I feared may happen. It had a pleasant vanilla aroma, almost like a cream soda. Sadly, this one is almost all gone.

New stuff! Kegs! New brew coming!