Vendrixfly
Well-Known Member
Hello fellow brewers!
I'm brewing a Brewer's Best Smoked Porter kit tomorrow and I wanted to turn it into an Baltic Molasses Smoked Porter with some additions. I've never added to a BB kit, so wanted to come to the community to see if everything I'm planning to do makes sense. I've made a yeast starter with the included Safale-04 that came with the kit, and will be boiling 3 gallons instead of 2.5 because of the extra additions of 2lbs light DME, .5lbs of smoked malt, and a questionable amount of cocoa powder. I also picked up an additional 1oz of Mt. Hood hops for flavoring, because the recipe only came with bittering (1.5oz Cascade) and aroma (.5oz Mt. Hood)
This is what I'm planning to do:
Steep 1.5lbs Smoked, .5lbs Carmel, and .5lbs Chocolate malt in 150-165 degree water for 30 mins
Bring wort to a boil and mix in 2lbs Golden light DME
Bring back to boil and add 1.5oz Cascade bittering
@15 mins add 6.6lbs Porter LME and bring back to boil
Add 1oz Mt. Hood Flavor hops, 5tbsp Cocoa Powder (maybe 10tbsp, dunno), and 1tsp Irish Moss
@10 Mins add 1/2c. Blackstrap Molasses
@5 mins add .5oz Mt. Hood Aroma
Cool and pitch yeast starter @ 65-70 degrees
I saw somewhere that 10tbsp cocoa powder is a regular addition to the boil, but I'm not hasty to add too much chocolate. Do you think 5tbsp in addition to the .5lbs Chocolate Malt will provide a decent chocolate taste without overpowering the smoked character? I added flavor hops and more Smoked Malt due to the fact that I'm upping the base malt with DME and wanted those flavors pronounced still. I like the idea of Blackstrap molasses in porters but have never experimented with it, how does the amount look?
The BB kit says that without these adds the ABV would be around 5.75-6.25% (OG of 1.058-1.062), I wanted to up that to around 7.5-8% with the additional DME. I also don't want to over-hop this porter or mask the malty-chocolatey-carmely base. Planning on doing a single stage fermentation on this one, possibly a month in primary.
Thanks for any feedback!
I'm brewing a Brewer's Best Smoked Porter kit tomorrow and I wanted to turn it into an Baltic Molasses Smoked Porter with some additions. I've never added to a BB kit, so wanted to come to the community to see if everything I'm planning to do makes sense. I've made a yeast starter with the included Safale-04 that came with the kit, and will be boiling 3 gallons instead of 2.5 because of the extra additions of 2lbs light DME, .5lbs of smoked malt, and a questionable amount of cocoa powder. I also picked up an additional 1oz of Mt. Hood hops for flavoring, because the recipe only came with bittering (1.5oz Cascade) and aroma (.5oz Mt. Hood)
This is what I'm planning to do:
Steep 1.5lbs Smoked, .5lbs Carmel, and .5lbs Chocolate malt in 150-165 degree water for 30 mins
Bring wort to a boil and mix in 2lbs Golden light DME
Bring back to boil and add 1.5oz Cascade bittering
@15 mins add 6.6lbs Porter LME and bring back to boil
Add 1oz Mt. Hood Flavor hops, 5tbsp Cocoa Powder (maybe 10tbsp, dunno), and 1tsp Irish Moss
@10 Mins add 1/2c. Blackstrap Molasses
@5 mins add .5oz Mt. Hood Aroma
Cool and pitch yeast starter @ 65-70 degrees
I saw somewhere that 10tbsp cocoa powder is a regular addition to the boil, but I'm not hasty to add too much chocolate. Do you think 5tbsp in addition to the .5lbs Chocolate Malt will provide a decent chocolate taste without overpowering the smoked character? I added flavor hops and more Smoked Malt due to the fact that I'm upping the base malt with DME and wanted those flavors pronounced still. I like the idea of Blackstrap molasses in porters but have never experimented with it, how does the amount look?
The BB kit says that without these adds the ABV would be around 5.75-6.25% (OG of 1.058-1.062), I wanted to up that to around 7.5-8% with the additional DME. I also don't want to over-hop this porter or mask the malty-chocolatey-carmely base. Planning on doing a single stage fermentation on this one, possibly a month in primary.
Thanks for any feedback!