American Porter Bee Cave Brewery Robust Porter

Hmmm... I must have my pressure set too low cause I don't have any head like ya'lls pics...
It does taste great though!

Brewing this up tomorrow.

My brew system is only supposed to be able to handle around 12 pounds of grain or so so i took a pound of pale off and reduced the nothern hops to .75 oz to keep the beer slightly malty as it should be.

It will be a 6% abv but i like beers around that range anyway

Brewed this up yesterday, 1st solo all grain batch on a new system but despite all that it went well! ended up with right around 5.5g in carboy of 1.062 wort so I was pleased!

But 13 hours after pitching now with no activity at all. I think I did not rehydrate the notty properly so I am off now to the LHBS to pick up another pack to re-pitch. Hope it turns out, gravity sample tasted promising!!!

Thanks for the recipe and my first real brew

i am looking to do this as my next brew... want to convert to partial... would i use light or dark malt extract?

Well re-pitched another pack of properly hydrated notty this time at 2:00, had activity within 3 hours this time! Just checked it 12 hours later and had filled the airlock! Had to play with the blow off tube a bit but I think its gonna turn out great!!

Brewed this on Saturday, ended up with a little under 5 gallons of 1.070 wort (my boiloff rate is higher than i thought i think) which after the malto dextrin comes out to 1.066.

Took a hydrometer reading yesterday and it is down to 1.020 so around 1.016, almost 7 percent

Smell has strong coffee and phenol (still young and hot so i expect that to dissipate). Taste is also hot but wow this is good!

Going to keep it in primary for another week and then transfer to secondary for 2 weeks before chiling and carbing.

I think this will be my sit by the fire at night beer.

A couple of photos from my brew day of this, thank you for the recipe!

Stirring in the grain



Mashing



Clearing up



Boiling



We dont need no stinkin hop bag!



Nice and dark

Alchemy said:

Smell has strong coffee and phenol (still young and hot so i expect that to dissipate). Taste is also hot but wow this is good!

Going to keep it in primary for another week and then transfer to secondary for 2 weeks before chiling and carbing.

I think this will be my sit by the fire at night beer.

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Nicely done. This beer is big and will age well.

Brew-ta-sauraus said:

On the Malto Dextrin thats added to this recipie is that 20 into the boil of 60 min or 20 left in the boil?

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Looking for this too

evandena said:

Looking for this too

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Same as reading the hop schedule - 20 mins left. This beer turned out damned tasty. Cheers!

letmeholleratya said:

Same as reading the hop schedule - 20 mins left. This beer turned out damned tasty. Cheers!

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Awesome, thanks!

Just brewed this, my second AG batch. 87% efficiency on both batches.
What should I adjust?

nothing but your brew software Let it know how high of an efficiency you have and you wont have to use as much grain as most.

Are you sparging?

Alchemy said:

nothing but your brew software Let it know how high of an efficiency you have and you wont have to use as much grain as most.

Are you sparging?

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Yep, batch sparging. Igloo cooler, mesh braid.

evandena said:

Yep, batch sparging. Igloo cooler, mesh braid.

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Must just be doing a very good job

Did you end up with 5.5 gallons of wort?

Alchemy said:

Must just be doing a very good job

Did you end up with 5.5 gallons of wort?

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I ended a little high after an hour, maybe 5.7. Hit preboil volume right on. Didn't want it any stronger, so I stopped at an hour.

It's fermenting like mad right now. Wife thought there was a wild animal in our basement, it's that loud.

This will be my next porter. Sounds delicious. Thanks.

I just bottled this and it is one tasty beer. Big and full bodied with a lot of chocolate and coffee flavor. Thanks for the recipe

Holy crap edwort, I brewed this yesterday and now I can't keep the lid on. I have 55 lbs of weight on this monster and it's still lifting!
Can't wait to drink this. Tasted unbelievably good going into the fermenter.
Thanks a million for this recipe!!!

Just brewed this for a second time. The first one cashed fast. Damned friends making excuses to stop by to drink it

Definitely making this a regular. So nice to brew.

Heat water to 160, pour in cooler with grains, do something for an hour.
Start heating sparge water, drain wort, sparge, bring to boil and add hops.
Do something for an hour.
Flame out, whirlpool.
Do something for twenty minutes.
No-chill siphon into fermenter, let chill overnight.
Pitch yeast in the morning.

Easy brew, not a lot of hand-holding or crazy hop schedules or special yeasts or anything. Robust, simple brew. It's a "Robust Robust Porter" because the recipe is so damned simple and the taste so prominent that it's hard to mess up or do something to really screw it up.

Is there something I could use other then Nottingham? I used this before and it seemed to have alot of yeast suspension. Or could I cold crash it and have it fall out? Any help would be great really want to do this brew Sunday!

SirElven said:

Is there something I could use other then Nottingham? I used this before and it seemed to have alot of yeast suspension. Or could I cold crash it and have it fall out? Any help would be great really want to do this brew Sunday!

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I used 1056 and it turned out fine. Brewed it again for a camping trip in a couple of weeks. Gonna be tasty

SirElven said:

Is there something I could use other then Nottingham? I used this before and it seemed to have alot of yeast suspension. Or could I cold crash it and have it fall out? Any help would be great really want to do this brew Sunday!

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My notty brews clear up, but it takes a while. After a couple 3 weeks in keg, it's crystal.

Thanks guys!!!

just wondering if anyone has tried to add a little smoked malt to this recipe? did a quick search but couldn't find any info....but then again, i didn't search ALL 55 pages! can't wait to get this one fired up...

Brewed this Sunday and can't wait, fermentation kicked off like crazy!!

I'm wondering what everyone would think of this as a base beer for a peanut butter porter recipe?

Just bottled up 3 1/2 gallons of this yesterday and the sample tasted awesome. I took the other 2 gallons and separated them into 1 gallon carboys. 1 gallon got 1/4 lb of tart cherries and the dregs from a Jolly Pumpkin Bam Noire and the other on got the dregs from a Jolly Pumpkin Biere de Mars. Super excited to taste both of those in about 6 months. I'm hoping for that tasty leathery brett character from the Bam Noire and some sourness and brett from the Biere de Mars.

Ed,

Been following another thread which lead me to this one. Your recipe is VERY close to my porter (glad to see I'm doing something right!) I'm using Crystal 80L vs. 40 but for the most part our ingredients are pretty similar. I'm a coffee junkie so I ended up adding 10oz of a specific type of coffee (iced tody) to mine. I added the coffee during kegg'ing and it tasted amazing. It was a popular brew amongst friends. The coffee was the perfect amount. I plan on brewing it again but I may add bourbon chips to it as well just to experiment.

Thanks for the great posts I'm very tempted to try your recipe & see how bourbon chips would taste.

On another note, was wondering if you're part of Austin ZEALOTS?

Very sad to say that I checked on the 3 gallons I bottled up and noticed a nice little pellicle in each bottle. This probably has something to do with cross contamination of my equipment since I have been brewing a lot of sours and funky ales. I am worried that all of the malto-dextrine will be to much food for the bugs and create bottle bombs. I opened one and as of now the taste is fine but it was a total gusher so I have moved all of these beers to a rubbermaid tub for storage. I guess I will give them a try sometime down the road and see how the taste has developed, that is if they don't start exploding first

Well last night I just finished up my robust porter. :-(
I'll need to start on another batch this weekend. I'm gonna do a ten gallon batch and put half on tap and half in bottles

Will be brewing this recipe soon and was wondering if anyone ever cold steep coffee grounds and maybe added some vanilla bean to the secondary...
I'm shooting for a Vanilla Coffee Porter.... wasnt sure if those who have tried the recipe would recommend not adding coffee or vanilla bean.
All feedback is much appreciated

I used a cold toddy for my coffee porter. I didn't use Ed's recipe but mine is very similar. I added the coffee toddy & vanilla to the 2ndary w/ mine. You can add your coffee to either the secondary or keg. Depending on how big of a batch you're brewing you will want to do a small amount of coffee; I wanted a very subtle taste of coffee so I only added about 10oz to a 5gal batch.

Hope this helps.

anybody ever tried cold steeping the dark grains in this recipe. the last two dark beers i brewed came out kinda harsh tasting, and i heard gordon strong suggest it on an old episode of the brewing network. mostly i'm just trying to avoid messing with my water chemistry.

Just cracked open my first bottle. This is probably the finest porter I have ever tasted!! Followed the recipe exactly how Ed did it, with the exception of adding 2 vanilla beans to the secondary. Amazing quality brew, very chewy with incredible aromas! Must brew this again!!

picked up the stuff for this today and going to brew it this next week. Sounds delicious.

Brewed this beer last weekend. Very happy with how the brew went. Wort was DARK and clear leaving the kettle.

Pitched Nottingham Tuesday evening, and found this on my way to work this morning.

RussH said:

Brewed this beer last weekend. Very happy with how the brew went. Wort was DARK and clear leaving the kettle.

Pitched Nottingham Tuesday evening, and found this on my way to work this morning.

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Lol,
That looks like my first one!
I also brewed this last week and will be doing another batch this weekend. One for the keg and one for the bottles.
This porter is soooooo good!

Hi Ed, what is the efficiency of your setup? And what pre and post boil gravity do you get with this recipe? I want to do this as my second all grain batch and want to try to match it to yours as close as possible.

brewing this tomorrow! Increasing hops up to 50 ibus

Brewed this yesterday. 5 hours later it is bubbling away. Glad i put on the blow off tube.