How to put Rum'n'Raisin flavours in a brew...?

[philistine]

Dudes,

Im looking for tips on introducing rum n raisin flavours into a brew.
How do? When do? How Much? When Much? etc etc

to be more specific, im getting an ex-bourbon barrel and although my end-game plan for the barrel has nothing to do with beer, it seems a shame not to use it for some kind of dark, bourbon barrel aged big beer... The trouble is, I dont really like dark, bourbon barrel aged big beers ;-)

After lots of too-ing and fro-ing I realised that I had a pretty amazing dark beer once - La Sirene Praline.
So Im gonna base a beer on that, but I really want to include a rum'n'raisin twist.

Its gonna be a Bourbon Barrel Aged, Imperial Chocolate, Rum and Raisin Porter.. or something

Im keen to hear anyone's ideas/thoughts/experiences on achieving this and how they did it.

At this stage Im looking at soaking Raisins in some rum for a while and then adding the rum to the barrel post-ferment.
I have no idea how much rum or raisins to use
Im open to other ideas though.... Ive been told (by a wine maker) that raisins are no good due to seeds and tannins and he recommended sultanas.
Which made me think of using golden raisins - which are basically giant sultanas but with a really interesting twang to them.

But yeah.. anyway - thanks in advance!

 

[indica86]

Raisin like flavours can come from caraaroma

 

[manticle]

Oaked rum/rummed oak - toasted and soaked.
Caramunich and/or special b (from experience) cararoma (from reports).

Yeast appropriate for rich esb, uk barley wine or Belgian dark strong.

 

[rude]

James Squire Rum Rebellion Porter was good when they did it

 

[indica86]

Special B and Caraaroma are very similar manticle.

 

[philistine]

Oaked rum/rummed oak - toasted and soaked.
Caramunich and/or special b (from experience) cararoma (from reports).

Yeast appropriate for rich esb, uk barley wine or Belgian dark strong.

Im looking at the Denny Conn's "Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter" as a starting point to build the recipe - its got 1.25lbs of choc malt (among others).
Do ya reckon Special B would make a good substitute? The main thing Im trying to avoid or at least minimise in this brew is that typical coffee/roasty/astringincy that a lot of dark beers seem to have (its the thing that makes me not like them much)

 

[manticle]

It's hard to advise since you don't really know what you want (but dislike big, dark and roasty barrel aged beers).

Give me more, I'll (we'll) return the favour.

 

[philistine]

Haha
Yes well thats a good question.
I have enjoyed dark roasty beers, but really dont like ones that have that bitter burnt coffee vibe.
My inspiration is the La Sirene Praline (think belgian choc stout)
Building from that i wanna make it big and imperial- to survive barrel time
And then i wanna add a rum n raisin vibe

 

[manticle]

Easy to get rid of the roast and make the barrel work. As suggested - quad or barley wine will be good starts. I was confused by your base porter recipe -porter is a roasty beer too. Avoid black malt and too much roast barley and you'll be on the right path.

Big beer needs big yeast and big time (patience)

 

[pirateagenda]

funny you should mention this. I was thinking of a winter warmer and have been planning a rum'n'raison wee heavy.

 

[philistine]

Got any ideas on the rum n raisin bit yet?
Im still keen to add actual rum and raisins, but just not sure exactly how and how much

 

[manticle]

Unlikely you'll want to add the raisin/rum mix ill post fermentation so I would brew the base beer, soak a whole bunch of high quality raisins in the rum of your choice and then try adding small amounts to a glass till you get a proportion you like. Then scale up and dose the whole. Flavours will obviously change over time too - my experience of adding things like whisky soaked oak is that time will result in a more pronounced but also more well integrated flavour. Keep tasting the main batch till you get the flavour level you like, then package.

 

[pirateagenda]

i was going to age it with rum dominoes, and also add rum soaked raisins. hadn't looked into it too much though.

 

[pirateagenda]

don't know if its allowed to link to other forums but I just read about a succesful one where the guy stuffed a 1 litre jar with as many raisins as he could fit (although in america, raisins are sultanas) and filled with dark rum. Left the raisins to soak for a week, then blended the whole lot and added it to secondary. this was for a 19L batch.

he also added vanilla to his. That would be nice for a stout, but seeing as mine's a wee heavy i think i'll skip the vanilla.

 

[Matplat]

Surely the point of aging it in a bourbon barrel to get the oaked bourbon flavour. If you go and add rum on top of that, isn't it going to muddle the flavours?

I have no experience in this so I'm merely speculating.

 

[manticle]

don't know if its allowed to link to other forums......

It's fine if the link is pertinent to the topic at hand

 

[thumbsucker]

I can confirm that dried grapes work really well in adding that wine raisin flavour. Just make sure its not coated in oil. I get mine from a local Afghan store (the Afghans have a huge range of dried grapes/fruits) but any good grocer should supply you.

I added a mere 1kg of dried black raisins to water (for a 40 litre batch), to hydrate then pure them, then bring to simmer for 20 minutes to sterilise them and then add the beer on top of them.

 

[Garfield]

Got any ideas on the rum n raisin bit yet?
Im still keen to add actual rum and raisins, but just not sure exactly how and how much

Go for it!

You could mash raisins with grist or add to boil. Add rum, post ferment, just to taste or pull a sample and mix up an test batch.

Another option would be to age a beer in a Muscat barrel

 

[peteru]

Gladfield light chocolate malt is good at adding that nice choc aspect without any of the burnt/dark flavours that you seem to be concerned about. It goes really well with Gladfield rye.