Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Chocolate Oatmeal Porter

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FATC1TY

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 19, 2012
Messages
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Location
Atlanta Area
Recipe Type
All Grain
This beer is a GREAT base Porter. Has a very, very balanced profile to it. Very drinkable, even among people who are afraid of dark beers!


Recipe: ALL GRAIN

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.68 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.98 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.061 SG
Estimated Color: 42.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 33.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 67.6 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 3 11.3 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 4 5.6 %
11.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 5 5.2 %
8.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt Grain 6 3.8 %
6.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 7 2.8 %
0.75 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 21.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 9 11.4 IBUs
2.00 oz Dutch Cocoa Powder- Boil 10.0 min
1.10 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 10 -
1.0 pkg London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) [124. Yeast 11 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 13 lbs 5.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 18.64 qt of water at 163.5 F 153.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (1.02gal, 4.09gal) of 168.0 F water




I fermented mine out, and added 2 vanilla beans to secondary. Added a great finish to the beer. If you want more chocolate flavor, up the addition, but I think 2 oz is enough to give a hint to it, but not overpower it.

This is a great beer, not extremely chewy, but has plenty of smoothness to it that it slide down easy.. Very easy drinker.


I get compliments on this all the time, and have converted plenty of people who aren't craft drinkers and who think dark beers are scary.. They tell me that are indeed scary.. but scary good!!

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This looks great. I've been looking for a nice simple porter recipe to play around with. I think I'm gonna take yours, add a little more base and chocolate malts, add a bit of honey malt and take a crack at a chocolate cherry porter! (obviously will be adding cocoa and cherries too)

I like the vanilla idea too. Hope you dont mind the molestation of your recipe too much! I'll report back, looks like it'll be on deck this weekend along with my 10gal cream ale.

Gonna shoot for OG of about 1.075 and planning on using S-04 for the first time.
 
Anyone have a good partial extract version of something like this? I too would like to try a chocolate, cherry, oatmeal porter.
 
Anyone have a good partial extract version of something like this? I too would like to try a chocolate, cherry, oatmeal porter.

If you have Beersmith, it should be pretty easy to have it convert. You could use a light DME or LME if you want, and steep the specialty grains, and add the extract for the base grain I have there.

It says on BS that it's 7 lb 11oz of Liquid Malt Extract for the base grain.

Since this has oatmeal in it, you could add it to your special grains, which will give you a smooth body and great head retention, or you could sub in some Carafoam/CaraPils to do the same thing in the extract version.

I think the easiest way, will be 5# of DME for the base grain, and then steep the rest of the grains in a bag, for 30 minutes in 155* water.
 
I fermented for 2 weeks I think it was, and racked to secondary on the vanilla beans. I did it for roughly a week or two I think. I tasted it every couple of days and let it get to where I wanted.

Ferment until it's done and then let it clean up a bit. Rack it, and it'll finish up in secondary if you were in a hurry.

This beer gets smoother with age too, but it's silky right out of the gate. I'm still drinking on a keg of it now.
 
Gonna pick up the stuff for this tonight to brew this weekend and I'm gonna serve this for Christmas do you think that's enough time for this beer. I keg by the way. Thanks.
 
Oh yeah.. it'll be ready by Christmas easy.

When I get home, I'll toss up my timeline on what I did.. I'd say from grain to glass in 5 weeks for kegging would be easy to do.

On the base malts, MO would probably work really nice too in here. I might try that next time I brew it. My keg is getting low, it's a damn good beer. So smooth and easy to drink, but around 4-5 big pints and I'm ready to sleep on the couch!

Also- I'd advise on trying vanilla beans secondary( or primary if thats your thing ).. It really leaves a nice finish to the beer.
 
One more question does this have a nice sweet finish or a little hop bite? I will secondary this on the vanilla bean. There will be a few of the I don't like dark beer because its bitter people there and I'd love for this to make them change there minds. If not more for me lol.
 
It's got a sweeter finish to it. There is the bouquet of the willamette in there, but the hops are all low AA, and really do enough to bitter it to make it not cloying, but balanced.

It's got the great smooth coffee, bittersweet chocolate flavor going on with it. Those impart a bit of 'bitter' which isn't really calculated in the IBU's.

But as a stock answer to the question, I'd say it's on the sweeter side of finish, without the super roasted, acrid bitter flavor, but it's far from being a sugar bomb.
 
Awesome just picked up the ingredients thanks. The acrid bitter flavor was what I was looking to avoid. Thanks again
 
This smells amazing. And yes I know I am at my limit with this batch just had to be careful for boil over but it's rolling along nicely :)

image-3877829561.jpg
 
Og ended up at 1.053 ended up with a little over 5 gallon so I'm not gonna complain.
 
Nice!! Yeah it smells great.

That OG is fine!

If you noticed when you transferred how much foam you get, the head on this beer sticks around for a LONG time.
 
So I just brewed this earlier today. I accidently forgot about the cocoa addition. Is their any suggestions to adding it into primary or secondary, once fermentation has begun? I was thinking about boiling for 15 minutes just enough water for the powder, dissolving the powder, then adding it to primary tomorrow morning. Any suggestions or advice?
 
I don't see why not. I have seen people add coco nibs in secondary. I for got to add orange peel to a wit I boiled it and added to fermenter beer came out great.
 
If you didn't add the cocoa powder it's not a huge deal honestly. It's got a chocolately roast to it anyways.

If you want it there, I think you could add it to some boiled water, stir it up really well, and add to the primary now. Give it a good swirl, if it's already krausening, I wouldn't shake it.

Or, you could get some cocoa nibs, soak in vodka for a day, and add to primary. It'll make it REALLY chocolate flavored. I think I would go the nib route if you forgot it, I don't know how the powder would taste if it wasn't boiled in there for atleast a bit.
 
Thanks...I'll take the nibs route!

This is my first attempt at a porter. Have never really enjoyed them before but as the years of homebrewing passes my palette has most certainly changed. And that is really exciting.

The wort tasted amazing. I could certainly pick up the chocolate even without the cocoa.

While trying a new style I also tried a new technique. After collecting my pre-boil volume I added another gallon of wate to the mash and held there for about 20-30 minutes, collected the second runnings and simultaneously brewed another batch using different hops. I had wanted to try this technique for some time and since I had left over hops that I needed to get rid of I decide it would be a good time to try it. I used centennial and saaz hops. Im not really sure how the hop combination will play out, especially with a porter, but I figured what do I have to loose? I also pitched us-04 yeast. If it doesn't turn out well I at least still have the original recipe that I'm sure to enjoy.

Thanks again!
 
this will be my first attempt at an AG porter aswell. Won't be able to brew until a week from saturday, but will update thread with my results. might swap the vanilla beans for extract because well... im a lazy man.

id love to hear about that cherry addition though from one of the early posters
 
Try the vanilla beans. If you want to source some cheaper ones, try some online sites. I bought some beans for $25 shipped for 25 of them. I paid almost $4 bucks each.

Extract would work though, so I'm not completely talking you out of it, I just like the natural route.

It's a good first AG recipe I think. It's dark, so you don't have to worry about super clarity, it's got a silky smooth taste to it, and it's not overly hopped and bitter, but it's balanced. I'm partial to it, so brew it and let me know. I'm excited to see what people change or experiment with, so I can try it as well.

US-04 would work great in here if you like dry yeast as well. I think the slight fruity esters will work nicely, even a nice Irish Ale yeast would be good I think.

You want to leave some residual sugars in there, it needs to slight sweetness to it, to balance the roast.
 
Thanks...I'll take the nibs route!

This is my first attempt at a porter. Have never really enjoyed them before but as the years of homebrewing passes my palette has most certainly changed. And that is really exciting.

The wort tasted amazing. I could certainly pick up the chocolate even without the cocoa.

While trying a new style I also tried a new technique. After collecting my pre-boil volume I added another gallon of wate to the mash and held there for about 20-30 minutes, collected the second runnings and simultaneously brewed another batch using different hops. I had wanted to try this technique for some time and since I had left over hops that I needed to get rid of I decide it would be a good time to try it. I used centennial and saaz hops. Im not really sure how the hop combination will play out, especially with a porter, but I figured what do I have to loose? I also pitched us-04 yeast. If it doesn't turn out well I at least still have the original recipe that I'm sure to enjoy.

Thanks again!

Sounds fun!

Let me know how the nibs turn out. I use them in some of my large stouts to add more chocolate aroma and bittersweet taste to them. I think it would be really nice in this recipe, but haven't actually done it!

It's a very neutral smooth porter that I think works well to add extra adjuncts and flavor to.. Fruits even, perhaps!
 
Making this tomorrow! Pretty stoked. Going to modify a few small things, but looks like a great recipe. Sticking to about 95% of the ingredients and grabbed some fresh vanilla beans today. Hoping to hand it out on Christmas to my friends & family. Growlers for all!
 
Awesome, be sure to let us know how it turned out.

I'm planning on brewing another batch of this in the next week or two myself.
 
Just put together some stuff to re brew this in the next 2 weeks.

Subbed out some German Pale, for some Maris Otter to get a bit more biscuity flavor in there. Raised the oats up a half pound, added another .25 lb of crystal, and added a .5lb of pale chocolate malt to it.

Plan to add the same 2oz of dutch cocoa powder to it still, going for more chocolate, with the belgian chocolate and the pale chocolate malt in there. Kept the black patent the same, thought about dropping it back, but figured the sweetness I added, I'd need the roast.

Plan to toast the oats before I add them to see what that adds as well.

Kept the London ESB yeast as I like the way it attenuated and left some residual sweet malty flavor to it.
 
Hey FATC1TY, I just put this to bottles today. I too used .5lb of chocolate chocolate malt. if this is half as good as I expect it to be, its gonna be great. My final gravity was spot on as well. I have high hopes for this beer. Thanks for posting the recipe!!!
 
Hey FATC1TY, I just put this to bottles today. I too used .5lb of chocolate chocolate malt. if this is half as good as I expect it to be, its gonna be great. My final gravity was spot on as well. I have high hopes for this beer. Thanks for posting the recipe!!!

Awesome!

When it carbs up, pour one and let us know what you think.

I'm thinking about brewing this next weekend, and will get my starter going on Wednesday I think.

Decided to play with it and try and make it even better.

I started splitting my chocolate malt in the darker beers with two different kinds. Pale and Belgian. Seems to give it that more milky chocolate flavor in the malt bill. The powder just takes it slightly over the edge and bring it into the aroma dept!
 
Just tasted my hydro sample all I can say is wow i can't wait till this one is done :)
 
Just tasted my hydro sample all I can say is wow i can't wait till this one is done :)

Should finish pretty quick.. I found that this one didn't need a ton of time to sit around, and no reason to secondary.

Glad you like it so far.
 
Get a better efficiency if your efficiency is low, or, add some fermentable sugars to your wort such as sugar or honey - anything those yasties can eat to produce more alcohol.
 
Beersmith is giving me 4.8% abv. Any idea how to boost this up a bit? still new to brewing

Are you doing AG or extract? Something isn't right in the input for the BS stuff.. Check it and make sure your efficiencies and whatnot are right.

Should be around 6 or so.
 
Yeah, my sample from the hyrdo was off the charts sweet/coffee/portery goodness. Can't wait to Get this in a bottle.

How many Vanilla beans in the 2ndary? and did you split them open to expose the vanilla? I was just going to split open 1 and try that for the 1st batch.
 
I Also subbed Simpsons Black for the Black Patent, since that was not available at my LHBS. Also used 6 oz of Chocolate rye in there. If it turns out well, I'll post the final recipe.
This is only my 4t5h batch of AG, but all have gone well except my 1st.

I did toast half of my oats in the toaster oven for 30 mins at 350. Seemed to bring a nice toasty aroma to the house and the MT.
 
Yeah, my sample from the hyrdo was off the charts sweet/coffee/portery goodness. Can't wait to Get this in a bottle.

How many Vanilla beans in the 2ndary? and did you split them open to expose the vanilla? I was just going to split open 1 and try that for the 1st batch.


I used 2 beans.. not very large ones.. I split them down the middle, scrapped the insides a bit, cut them into smaller pieces and soaked them in vodka/bourbon.. whichever you like. An ounce, ounce and a half at most.

Dumped the whole thing into the secondary, or primary if you don't wish to secondary.

I'm brewing it again this weekend, and I will be using 3 beans, as I like vanilla, and only leave them in there for a week or week and a half at most.
 
I Also subbed Simpsons Black for the Black Patent, since that was not available at my LHBS. Also used 6 oz of Chocolate rye in there. If it turns out well, I'll post the final recipe.
This is only my 4t5h batch of AG, but all have gone well except my 1st.

I did toast half of my oats in the toaster oven for 30 mins at 350. Seemed to bring a nice toasty aroma to the house and the MT.

No idea on the simpsons black, might be the same thing. It's mainly for color, and a bit of roughness to the roasty flavor.

The Rye might be nice, but that amount might be lost, but let us know!

I thought about toasting the oats myself, but said leave it be. I made a few small changes from last time and I will post them up if I feel it's a better recipe than what I posted last time!
 
I'm doing all grain and I've checked and rechecked all the settings and its stuck at 4.9 abv. Recipe is identical in beer smith without cocoa powder but I don't think that'd be the difference?
 
I'm doing all grain and I've checked and rechecked all the settings and its stuck at 4.9 abv. Recipe is identical in beer smith without cocoa powder but I don't think that'd be the difference?

The cocoa powder doesn't add any fermentables. This recipe should be on the low side, 5.5%, and up to 6.5% roughly, depending on efficiency, and how your fermentation went.

Whats the starting gravity that BS is spitting out? Which ABV calculator are you looking at? One will estimate it based on the FG you put in there as you follow it along. Check and make sure it's not high. Mine normally calls it higher than it finishes, so I have to put it to where I know, or expect it to finish at, to get an idea of the ABV.

Something is wrong with perhaps the way you put the ingredients in, or the way it's calculating something for you based on your setup.
 
Got me thinking..

What are you volumes you have in for mash in, and sparge?

It's a 90 minute boil... Did you change that too? You'll boil off more, raising the gravity.. My suggestion, to get 7.5g at the start was just a rough estimate, that I've found from using 2 different pots, and outside on a burner. You'll want to sparge with whatever YOU need to end up with 5.5 gallons after you've cooled it.

So if you boil only .5 gallon an hour, you need .75 gallons in addition for the 90 minute boil. That would be 6.25 gallons you need to collect when you run off. You'll obviously have to account to loss in the tun, the kettle, and the fermenter, so that would change those numbers again. You might have those set differently.
 
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