Robust Rye Porter Brew Session

Heated mash water to 170 degrees F and poured into mashtun. Mashed in 4# rye malt, 4# maris otter, 2# amber malt and 2# brown malt. Achieved mash temp of 157. Held for 60 minutes. Sparged with 5.0 gallons of water at 170 degrees F. Mash did get stuck briefly, but I was able to scoop out some of the mash and get the runoff going again. I may start using rice hulls in my mash to help with this problem. This beer did not finish out as low as I had calculated, so when I racked off to secondary, I boiled half a pound of table sugar in water. After it had cooled, I added it to the secondary with my maker's mark/oak chip solution that had been set aside for four weeks. We are planning on bottling this batch on June 15th, which will give it seven weeks in secondary. I anticipate a significant oaky flavor from the chips and a lot of vanilla tones from the bourbon. It will be interesting to see how all the individual flavors play out.