Today my brother Logan is helping brew his spin on a classic robust porter. The characteristics we are trying to hone in on is a dark color, smooth/non-dry mouth feel, malt forward with room to hid the ABV, and a large sustained chocolate taste throughout the entire sip. We also decided to amp up the ABV because it's winter and why not!
Grain Bill
10.5 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US
2 lbs Vienna Malt
1 lbs Munich Malt 10L
1 lbs Caramel Malt 10L
1 lbs Chocolate Malt
0.5 lbs Black Malt
Hop Additions (100% whole dry hop cones)
1 oz (60 min) US Golding
1 oz (60 min) UK East Kent Golding
.5 oz (30 min) Cascade
.5 oz (0 min) Cascade
Yeast (Dry Yeast)
23g (2 packets) Safale US-05 w/yeast starter (24 hours)
Mash Schedule
60 min Mash at 153F.
15 min Batch Sparge at 165F
Dough In - 10:15am
4.5 gallons of water was added to the pre-heated mash tun at 168F. After dough in the mash temp was 158F, after a minute or two of stirring it settled at 153F, which is what we were shooting for.
While we wait the 60 minutes for the mash, we are getting inspired by a porter line up. Starting with Sinebrychoff's Porter from Kerava, Finland. A very dark, dry Porter, with hints of chocolate and cherries. Although the ABV is 7.2% there is definitely a nice boozy presence that is sustained throughout the entire taste, however not overpowering.
The mash stayed right around 153F for the entire hour. It took about 3 full pitchers during vorlauf to clarify the wort. We got about 2.5 gallons at 1.089 SG for the first runnings. When adding the additional 4.15 gallons for the batch sparge, the temperature came in way under what we were targeting. Some wort had to be removed and boiled, then added back to the mash tun to bring the sparge temp up to 168F. I also misjudged exactly how much water could fit in the mash tun during sparge and so a couple quarts were sacrificed to the grain gods. After 15 minutes we vorlaufed another three pitchers and ran the second runnings off into the boil kettle.
The total pre-boil volume 6 1/3 gallons at 1.060 SG. Aiming for 1.062 but because I couldn't fit so much liquid into the mash tun during sparging, I am ok with those numbers. While we are waiting for the wort to heat up to a boil it's time for some Jimmy Johns and another beer. This one from Sweden, D. Carnegie & Co.'s Klass III Porter. Less dry than the previous Scandinavian porter, its got a much more creamy profile which is what we are going towards with Logan's Porter. Milk chocolate and vanilla flavors and at 5.5% ABV it's a very drinkable smooth beer that you don't have to worry about having a couple of.
First hop addition of two ounces. Smells awesome. We got another 30 minutes till the next hop addition. So it's time for porter number 3, Bell's Porter. It has smooth creamy texture with subtle tastes of milk chocolate and a lighter more caramel color than the previous two porters. A pretty solid run of the mill porter. Nothing bad, but nothing outstanding. Time for the second hop addition.
Just added the last addition of hops and we have 5.42 gallons. I just got some hose clamps which super help with the air issue I was having in my plate chiller set up. It worked out really well, chilled over 5 gallons of boiling wort in under 10 minutes to 71F.
We measured an OG of 1.070. Since we're using only dried whole cone hops there is some loss in hop utilization and absorption of the wort, but it looks, and smells, real awesome.
Then we pitched the yeast, which had been brewing in a yeast starter 24 hours beforehand. So there should be roughly 370 billion healthy yeast cells ready to ferment all the sugars in our now beer.
And now we wait for the yeast to get to work fermenting. In about two weeks it will be bottling time. Another beer variety to add to the christmas six pack.
It's about 5 pm after cleaning all the equipment, which means the brew day took 7 hours in total. The brewhouse efficiency ended up being about 67%, which is really low, however this has a lot to do with not being able to get the last 1/2 gallon of water/wort back into the tun. Next time I will have to make sure to use more water in the first infusion. Hopefully, we will get a batch of 55 twelve ounce beers with a profile as such (assuming a FG around 1.017).
ABV 6.9%
Bitterness 30 IBU's
Color 41.0 SRM (real dark)
IBU/GU .43 (slightly malty)
January 17
Logan came over today to help bottle the porter. And it tastes incredible. It's really, a very impressive beer. It has so many chocolate and vanilla flavors. It also tastes like it was meant to be barrel aged, which is exactly what we are going to do.
He's pretty happy with his beer, and for good reason. I am excited to barrel age the porter in a one liter oak barrel that has had Central Standard white whiskey sitting in it for a couple weeks. Yea, I can't find the whiskey bottle so the whiskey is going into the vodka bottle.
In two very short weeks we will be carbonating the liter of beer to then it will be lagered for two months. The beer will come in at 6.7%,
No comments:
Post a Comment