American Porter Black Butte Porter

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got it! Brewed this up this past weekend... ran into a couple issues. First my cooler ended up not being as big as I thought it was, forgot the 5.2, had a little boil over, then this morning found that the airlock had blown off! Still sure this will be good though, going to be a long 6 weeks.
 
Bottled last night. My FG ended up at 1.025 :( surely due to a number of things. But I tasted it and it tastes good, just not very high in alcohol.
 
I know this is an old thread, but if you like porters you should really try this recipe. Deschutes BBP is probably my favorite porter so I really wanted to see if I could brew something similar - this recipe is it. I brewed this about 5 weeks ago, let it sit in the primary for 4 weeks, kegged a week ago and it is very, very good. I am not very good at describing beer flavors, but this beer takes you on a journey. Initially you notice roasted malts (but not too roasty), slightly bitter/semi-sweet dark chocolate, and maybe a hint of coffee. As the beer warms up the chocolate becomes sweeter, more like a milk chocolate, but not too sweet. It is very well balanced, has a nice aroma and tan fluffy head, leaves a nice lacing in the glass - and me wanting another one.

I made a 6 gallon batch and used WLP001 instead of Wyeast 1968, because I had one that I needed to use. According to Deschutes' website, they use Cascade, Bravo and Tettnang hops and the IBU is 30. I substituted CTZ for the Bravo for bittering, again because I had it on hand, and my IBU was 32.4. I am definitely going to do this one again, probably 10 to 12 gallons, and bottle half. If you like porters, you will love this recipe.
 
This was my first mini-mash and it gave me the confidence to go AG. Basically followed it as described, albeit a little change in grains for mini mash. Managed to mash a little cooler than planned, but not bad for my first attempt. I was over my OG by 2 points, and it fermented down to 1.010. I split the batch between two 3 gallon corny kegs and fermented at 64 degrees. Then added some bourdon soaked HT American oak cubes in one batch for additional 12 days. The original recipe was gone before I knew it and my wife enjoyed this recipe over the original in a blind tasting. The bourdon sat in keg for about 2 months and it was pretty darn good. I got scores ranging from 32 to 40 from fellow brew club members. Now I am interested in having fun with this recipe my tweaking it some. Here's to a BBP.
 
Is there any smokiness to this beer? I know some porters are smokier than others... and I do prefer a touch of smoke flavor... if not, any suggestions? Maybe 1/4# smoked malt to the grain bill??? Thanks! :mug:
 
Danndry, there is no smokiness to this porter. I don't have any experience with smoked grains, but I have read that Peat Smoked malt is pretty strong and most recommend 1oz - 4 oz per 5 gallon patch. I have heard if your use smoke (raunch) malt you can go from 5 - 20% of the grain bill - YMMV. I have had two commercial smoke porters, Stone and Alaskan, and the smoke dominates their brew. Stone's recipe uses 4oz of peat smoke malt according to their book. You could alway make this brew to completion, then pour a pint and add drops of liquid smoke into it until you hit the desired amount of smokiness. Then calculate for entire back and give it a whirl. Keep me informed.
 
This is a great beer, had it when I was in Denver a few weeks ago. I wish the grain bill was a bit lower. I couldn't fit all of that in my mash tun.
 
Todd, that should not stop you from brewing up this tasty treat. Just go partial mash with this recipe. I'm not sure how much your can hold in your MT? So just substitute 0.75lb of LME for every pound of base malt or 0.67lb per pound of DME. How about subbing 6lbs of 2-row for 4.5lbs of LME. That would drop the total grain bill to roughly 7lbs in your MT. That is what I did for my first PM BBP recipe and it turned out great.
 
Can someone chime in with fermentation times? Did you do single or secondary? I'm at 2 weeks and wondering what to do next. With an ale I would just keep it on the yeast for 3 weeks then keg.

Any thoughts?
 
Marty... Take a couple FG reading over the next couple of days to see where it's at. If it is a points or two (+ or -) within the expected FG of 1.014, then I'd say its ready to transfer to keg. If you're patient enough, then let it sit in the primary for an additional week (3 total) before cold crashing and racking to keg. Give those yeast a little time to insure they clean up after themselves, if they haven't already done so. Like many on this forum I stopped racking to secondary, unless I intended to add post fermentation adjuncts like oak cubes or extensive dry hopping.
 
Can someone chime in with fermentation times? Did you do single or secondary? I'm at 2 weeks and wondering what to do next. With an ale I would just keep it on the yeast for 3 weeks then keg.

Any thoughts?

That would be just fine as a general rule, but you can't put any beer on a schedule. You can shoot for 3 weeks, but only hydrometer readings can tell you when it's done fermenting, then you want to give it a little more time.
 
Made this in my BIAB equip, and didnt start with enough water. Did a 90 min boil and I ended up with only about 4.5 gallons. Its gonna be pretty hot at about 7.4% if it finishes at the 1.014. My OG was 1.070. Smelled great and seems to chugging along fermentation wise. I used a smaller starter of Wye 1968, but added also about a half packet of S-05 because I didn't feel I had enough yeast for such a high gravity. Hope the flavor profile remains close to the original. I need to perfect my starting volumes and get this down better. I've been all over the place haha. Still made beer though!!
 
After 12 days I am down to 1.022. Still too high for me. But damn! That hydro sample tasted amazing. Cant wait for this thing to finish out and keg it up. I BB Porter, and just had a bottle of it last night. I think this will be a regular in our pipeline Thanks for the great recipe!
 
Well, after a week or so being on tap, this is one hell of a beer. Its pretty damn close to the real thing. Just drank mine side by side with the real thing, and the color, flavor, head, were all pretty darn close. Mine was just a little more bitter than the real thing. Not sure if its due to freshness, but its really close. Such a great beer!! Thanks for a killer recipe. Ill be brewing this again for sure!
 
I brewed my second batch (6 gal) of this on 1/25. I'm going to either keg or bottle it this week - can't decide which. I kegged my first batch and grinned every time I had one.
 
This was my first all grain. I did the mash all wrong, probably other things too. But you know what I got? Really good beer! Thank you for posting the recipe. I can't wait to brew it again.

porter.jpg
 
Brewed this tonight. Started mash about 9pm, cleaned up by 1am. Smells good, can't wait to try it.
Bumped up the grain bill just a bit by rounding up to the nearest 1/4 lb, way easier with my lhbs scale.
Mismeasured my boil volume and ended up with 7 gallons in my fermenter. Reading of 1.061.
Thanks for the recipe, I will post back with updates.
 
Black Butte Porter has been my favorite beer for years. I brew a lot of porters that have been great, but still haven't been close to BBP. I recently had the opportunity to speak with a guy who works for Deschutes and he told me, as I've long suspected, that Black Butte Porter is actually dry hopped! So I made close-to-clone version a few weeks ago which is now dry hopping on cascades. Hope to bottle soon!
 
Black Butte Porter has been my favorite beer for years. I brew a lot of porters that have been great, but still haven't been close to BBP. I recently had the opportunity to speak with a guy who works for Deschutes and he told me, as I've long suspected, that Black Butte Porter is actually dry hopped! So I made close-to-clone version a few weeks ago which is now dry hopping on cascades. Hope to bottle soon!

Is this clone your starting point? How much cascade are you dry hopping with now?
 
Decided I am going to secondary with all 7 gallons of my batch. I am planning one 5 gallon carboy rack straight over. 2 x 1 gallon jugs. One with whiskey soaked oak cubes amd 1/2 a vanilla bean (and the whiskey). The other with 1/2 vanilla bean, cocoa nibs and st. Lucian rum. So excited to try this stuff out.
 
Are going to try to brew something similar to this.

My recipe look like this


BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Black Butte Porter
Brewer: Black Butte Porter
Asst Brewer:
Style: Robust Porter
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 15.00 l
Post Boil Volume: 13.00 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 l
Bottling Volume: 10.20 l
Estimated OG: 1.062 SG
Estimated Color: 73.1 EBC
Estimated IBU: 37.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 62.70 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 71.2 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name
2.45 kg (70%) Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC)
0.35 kg (10%) Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC)
0.30 kg (8.6) Chocolatemalt(Castle Malting) (900.0 EBC)
0.20 kg (5.7%) Cara Ruby 50 (Castle Malting) (50.0 EBC)
0.10 kg (2.9%) Caramel Malt - 120L (Briess) (236.4 EBC)
0.10 kg (2.9 %) Carapils (Briess) (3.0 EBC)
15.00 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 9.9 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet kryddmått Boil 10.0 min
20.00 g East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] - Boil 10 min 7.2 IBUs
20.00 g East Kent Goldings (EKG) [5.00 %] - Boil 0 min 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) Yeast 11 -


Mash Schedule: BIAB, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 3.50 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperatur Step Time
Saccharification Add 17.14 l of water at 72.4 C 68.0 C 75 min
Mash Out Heat to 75.6 C over 7 min 75.6 C 10 min

Sparge: Remove grains, and prepare to boil wort
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - http://www.beersmith.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Black Butte Porter has been my favorite beer for years. I brew a lot of porters that have been great, but still haven't been close to BBP. I recently had the opportunity to speak with a guy who works for Deschutes and he told me, as I've long suspected, that Black Butte Porter is actually dry hopped! So I made close-to-clone version a few weeks ago which is now dry hopping on cascades. Hope to bottle soon!

It's been a while since this was posted, but any word back on dry-hopping? I love this beer and want to brew it this weekend. Have 1469 on hand, so I'll be using that in place of 1968.
 
No insights I guess on the last post regarding dry-hopping, but I just stumbled across an answer from Deschutes at byo.com. https://byo.com/stories/issue/item/570-dry-hopping-tips-from-the-pros

"...We do dry hop our porter with Tettnanger when we cask, but normally we don’t dry hop it because the porter tends to be fairly low in hops and more pronounced in malt..."
 
Can anyone help me with priming?? I made this recipe once with corn sugar and there wasn't very much carbonation. So all is good with the second batch so far and I would like to make it perfect. Any tips? Thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Can anyone help me with priming?? I made this recipe once with corn sugar and there wasn't very much carbonation. So all is good with the second batch so far and I would like to make it perfect. Any tips? Thanks


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

I primed the batch I just made with corn sugar to 2.3 volumes using the carbonation calculator at brewersfriend.com. Metric now, but I believe I used 135g for 21.5L (or there abouts). It ended up just how I like it for porters... oh, and hats off to the originator of this clone recipe. It's an awesome beer!
 
I'm planning to brew this recipe soon. I got a 10gal Igloo cooler for Christmas and I'm planning to christen it with a batch of Black Butte Porter!


mbeer - I use dry malt extract to carb my beers instead of priming sugar. I've been much happier with the results. Smaller, finer bubbles.
 
I use dry malt extract to carb my beers instead of priming sugar. I've been much happier with the results. Smaller, finer bubbles.

I've noticed bubble size is related to choice of malts in the main batch and yeast. Less fermentable seems to produce smaller slow moving bubbles. How much are you priming with to notice a difference?
 
Not to get this thread off-topic, but I always use dry-malt extract to carbonate now. The specific amount varies, but 1 cup of DME is the starting point. The amount +/- varies on the type of beer. Usually my darker beers, like when I do this porter recipe, I'll use a little less than 1 level scoop of DME. An IPA or something lighter will get closer to 1.25 cup of DME.
 
My LHBS has limited liquid yeasts available. They do have S-04 and S-05 dry yeasts. I know this recipe mentions S-04, but the past few brews I've made with S-04 end up having a similar taste. Would there be any ill-effects from using Safale-05 on this recipe? Would there really be that much difference?
 
My LHBS has limited liquid yeasts available. They do have S-04 and S-05 dry yeasts. I know this recipe mentions S-04, but the past few brews I've made with S-04 end up having a similar taste. Would there be any ill-effects from using Safale-05 on this recipe? Would there really be that much difference?

No ill effects, just a different take. West Coast beer, right?

WLP002 is a good substitute for 1968.

S-04 is an English Ale yeast and should be more comparable than US-05. Wonder why S-04 gives you the same taste? What are your ferm temps? Do you raise them toward the end? That helps in cleanup.
 
I'm planning to brew this recipe soon. I got a 10gal Igloo cooler for Christmas and I'm planning to christen it with a batch of Black Butte Porter! [...]

Sounds like a great idea. It's a wonderful Porter, and the color is a beautiful dark mahogany, not ink black.

I steep and sparge my dark grains separately on the side and add the dark liquor at 5 min. You may want to give that a thought.
 
As planned, I'm christening my new Mash Tun and home-made copper pipe manifold right now with this recipe! 45 minutes left for the mash, then I get to test out my new copper pipe manifold! Then 4-5 weeks till I get to try the brew!
 
I left the wort in my primary a few days longer than planned, not for any particular reason, just didn't have time to transfer to secondary until yesterday. My gravity was exactly at 1.014 when transferring. My OG was a little higher than intended, but I'm OK with that.

The sample I pulled tasted good. :)
 
I bottled this batch yesterday and am eagerly waiting until it's carbed. As I was racking it into my bottling bucket, the beer smelled so good. I pulled another sample and was very happy. I don't know if it's because this was my first all-grain batch, or because the recipe was that good, but both the smell and taste of this beer was much better than usual.
 
Glad to hear it all worked out. And yes, all grain can be much better than extract with steeping grains.
It's a remarkably good beer, and it only gets better. Which yeast did you end up using?
 
I used Safale - 05.

Does this porter age well? I'm looking forward to drinking it soon, but should I make an effort to drink it slowly and let most of the batch age for an extra 1-2 months?
 
If you kept your fermentation temps low and under control you can drink it right away. It will always mellow with age, but it should be good fresh. I was sad when my keg kicked after 6 weeks. Need to rebrew it soon.

I had steeped the dark grains on the side and added the black potion at the end of the boil to prevent cooked coffee flavor, I think that really helped in its smoothness and tasting good young.
 
I had steeped the dark grains on the side and added the black potion at the end of the boil to prevent cooked coffee flavor, I think that really helped in its smoothness and tasting good young.

Hey IslandLizard - I know it's been a bit, but I'm interested in giving your steeping of the dark grains a shot. Can you describe how you did this in a bit more detail? (Like temperature and amount of water as well as how long you steeped). Thanks!

@CraigKing - how did this turn out for you?
 
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