Mill Street Vanilla Porter Clone need help

[pegcitybrewer]

So my wife asked me to clone mill street vanilla porter, which if you aren't familiar with is a toronto based vanilla bomb. I checked their site and the listed ingredients are pale malt, caramel, biscuit, flaked wheat, roasted barley, pure vanilla extract Nugget hops and American Ale yeast. abv 5.0

I partial mash so I ballpark first crack at a recipe was

4.5 lbs maris otter
2.5 LME
.5 victory
.5 flaked wheat
.5 caramel 60
.5 caramel 120
5 oz roasted barley
4-6 oz pure vanilla extract
25-30 IBU worth of Nugget at 60 minutes.

the problem I'm having is getting the colour down with just those ingredients.
should I just add something like 5 oz of midnight wheat and use dark lme? I don't want to use too much roasted barley but I cant figure out how Mill Street gets it so dark without other grains like chocolate or something.

any thoughts you might have would be appreciated. On a side note, not exactly sure how much vanilla to use but this beer has a very strong vanilla aroma and flavour, so if you think 4-6 oz is too much/not enough let me know.

Thanks

 

[TheMadKing]

So my wife asked me to clone mill street vanilla porter, which if you aren't familiar with is a toronto based vanilla bomb. I checked their site and the listed ingredients are pale malt, caramel, biscuit, flaked wheat, roasted barley, pure vanilla extract Nugget hops and American Ale yeast. abv 5.0

I partial mash so I ballpark first crack at a recipe was

4.5 lbs maris otter
2.5 LME
.5 victory
.5 flaked wheat
.5 caramel 60
.5 caramel 120
5 oz roasted barley
4-6 oz pure vanilla extract
25-30 IBU worth of Nugget at 60 minutes.

the problem I'm having is getting the colour down with just those ingredients.
should I just add something like 5 oz of midnight wheat and use dark lme? I don't want to use too much roasted barley but I cant figure out how Mill Street gets it so dark without other grains like chocolate or something.

any thoughts you might have would be appreciated. On a side note, not exactly sure how much vanilla to use but this beer has a very strong vanilla aroma and flavour, so if you think 4-6 oz is too much/not enough let me know.

Thanks

I'm not familiar with this beer, so I can't help you with the color aspect since I don't know what you're aiming for. The vanilla aroma is most likely from putting vanilla beans into the secondary.

The extract will get you there, but it will lack the "depth" that soaking real beans has. I would cut your extract out and throw in 3 vanilla beans, and make sure you soak them in vodka overnight to sanitize them. Toss them in the secondary for 14 days and they'll really come through.