Bradinator's Molasses Porter

Bradinator's Molasses Porter
By: Brad Betts
Style: Porter
Recipe Type: Extract with Specialty grains
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons
Boil Volume: 2 gallons
IBU: 32
Est. Colour: 31 SRM
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.020


I love molasses. I love porters. I LOVE molasses porters. I have made this recipe several times now and after some tweaking each time I am finally happy with the end product. The only things I would change would be the yeast as I was actually shooting for an FG of 1.010, but S-33 failed to perform.


Ingredients:
* 7.5lbs Pilsner LME
* 0.5lbs Fancy Grade Molasses
* 0.5lbs Demerara Sugar
* 0.5lbs Chocolate Malt
* 0.5lbs Roasted Barley
* 2 oz Northern Brewer Hops @ 60 minutes (I wanted to use Chinook but they did not have any!)
* 1/2 tsp of Irish Moss @ 10 minutes
* 11g SafAle S-33 Dry Yeast (not rehydrated)



Procedure

1) Steep the specialty grains in 75c water for 30 minutes in a small pot, at the same time begin boiling your water in brew pot.

2) Add the sugars, extracts and grain tea to the brew pot and bring to a rolling boil. Add the hops and continue to boil for 60 minutes.

3) At 10 minutes until finish add the Irish yeast, finish boiling.

4) Cool in an ice bath as rapidly as possible. Move to the primary, add water until 5.5 gallons is reached. Pitch yeast (at 27c), close it up and your done.

Optional steps - Secondary after 2 weeks to clean it up for 2 weeks.
Bottle conditioning - Minimum 2 weeks, but it really improves after a month.

A picture is worth 1000 words. One of which is 'yum'

What is "fancy grade" molasses? Have you tried different kinds of molasses besides that one? I've only seen light, dark, and blackstrap

I am not sure myself... I just buy it because I assumed that the quality of the molasses is considered 'higher' than cooking or blackstrap. Here is a quote from the manufacturer:

"Crosby Molasses produces Fancy molasses also known as Gold star ), Lite Molasses, Cooking Molasses (also known as Family Brand) and Blackstrap molasses

Fancy molasses is the syrup obtained when sugar cane is crushed and the resulting liquid is clarified and evaporated. Blackstrap molasses is a by product resulting from the manufacture of refined white sugar. When no more sugar can be economically removed from the crushed sugar cane the resulting liquid is Blackstrap Molasses. Molasses is commonly used as a health food providing important vitamins and minerals. (See the nutritional information.) Cooking molasses is a blend of Fancy and Blackstrap molasses.

The use of Fancy molasses in baking results in a lighter coloured, sweeter product.

Blackstrap molasses is darker and has a slight bitter, robust flavour. You can not directly substitute cooking or blackstrap molasses for fancy molasses. The use of cooking molasses results in a darker, less sweet baked product. However, many of our customers prefer its more robust flavour and colour. (Great for ginger snaps and sauces!) Cooking molasses may be used when baking bread, however the bread may not raise as high as with fancy molasses. "

I am not sure what differences it would impart on the beer, but I have used blackstrap before and it was equally as good. I am sure if I had a glass of each you may be able to find subtle differences in the overall flavour, but I think either will work fine.

With that said I highly recommend never using more than 0.5lbs of molasses for a 5G batch. My first batch used double that and it was just too molassesy for my liking.