Jim's Beer Kit

I am looking at brewing a Big Smoke - Underworld Milk Stout recipe from the Camra's Essential Home Brewing book. The recipe says to add a vanilla pod at 30 minutes boil. This surprised me as I think that any benefit from adding vanilla would be lost with 30 minutes boiling.....or am I missing someth...

Just an update to say I went ahead and brewed this recipe all be it with modifications. Using a Grainfather G30 setup, grains were mashed at 70°C with the sugar added towards the end of the boil producing a 1.066 OG. I substituted the White Labs yeast with a Lallemand Nottingham dried yeast mainly f...

Thank you IPA.
This info is interesting and for me at least new knowledge

Yep and thanks for this.
If I try this brew I’ll definitely be mashing at the higher temp to try and produce those long sugars and higher FG

Thanks very much for your advice confirming my concerns with this recipe.
Should I attempt brewing these recipe ingredients it probably requires further fermentation to a much lower FG to allow conditioning which of course will vastly alter the beer sweetness and ABV

Hoping I have posted this enquiry in the correct forum. A friend has asked if I can have a go at brewing a Velveteen Caramel beer from a recipe on the American Homebrewers Association website. Apparently this beer is a very sweet low alcohol (around 3%) dark beer and I believe to be of Russian origi...