Brewing up a Brown Porter

Took some photos of my Saturday brewday. Thought I'd share.

Here's the bucket o' grist. Bought this batch from the LHBS rather than online. I found the crush to be finer. The guy also gave me and my bud a free dixie cup of hefe, which was awesome.


Dough-in.


The guy at the LHBS talked me into giving Freshops a shot. I got a 4oz bag of Willamette. Here, we're measuring out the leaves and bagging them.

Stirring after an hour's mash.


Here I'm ready for vorlauf. I use a 3-quart measuring cup. After about a gallon of vorlauf, I drain the runnings into that stockpot.


The Macguyver special... aluminum foil with holes punched with scissors, so as not to disturb the grain bed.

First runnings. I was surprised how dark a half pound of chocolate malt can make the wort!


Vorlauf in action.


...and into the stockpot.

A shot of the kettle and the MLT.


Second runnings as I added the first half of my sparge water. Can't fit the whole sparge into the 5 gallon cooler, so I do the sparge in two halves.


All's in the kettle, time to crank up the propane!

After 45 minutes, additions of the second hop bag, the irish moss, and the immersion chiller. I put the output of the chiller into the MLT, which has had the grains dumped, and some one-step added for cleanup.


Milking the hops bags after flameout.


Chilled the wort. Thought that it would go faster since the air got nice an nippy, but it took longer than I would have liked. Nonethewho, it's down to pitchable temp, and I'm racking into the fermenter, spiraling the stuff in the air.

Still racking...


And here comes the pitch... line drive to center field!


And to celebrate, I crack open one of my Maris Otter/Yakima Goldings SMaSHes.

Dang that's an awesome color on the Porter. Great pics, thanks!

I recently did a Brown Porter with S-04 as well and it turned out great. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I have been mine.

I love brew day photos like that

Boy I love the smell of grain and cold beer in the morning!!

harley03 said:

Boy I love the smell of grain and cold beer in the morning!!

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Smells like... Victory.

Forgot to add my recipe:

Brown Porter
8 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb Crystal 60L
8 oz Chocolate Malt
8 oz Brumalt
1.25 oz Willamette hops (60 min)
.75 oz Willamette hops (15 min)
Safale S-04 Yeast

Mashed grains in 12.5 qts at 154 degrees for 60 min.
Batch sparged 5 gallons (in two volumes) at 170 degrees.
After-boil volume was 5.5 gallons.
O.G. was 1.054 (corrected).

Per Brewsmith, this recipe was smack in the middle of the style guidelines for gravity and bitterness, but a little light on the color. I went lighter still, as the shop didn't have 90L crystal like I originally planned. I made a last-minute decision to add the 8oz of Brumalt, partially because I wanted 10 even pounds of grist, but also I felt a honey note might compliment the style.

Great pics and great looking brew! I love it when people show their brew day step by step. Thinking about gettting a bigger boil kettle? I did one AG batch before I got a bigger kettle than the one that came wth the turkey fryer. I almost had a terrible boil over. Good thing i have cat like reactions

fat x nub said:

Great pics and great looking brew! I love it when people show their brew day step by step. Thinking about gettting a bigger boil kettle? I did one AG batch before I got a bigger kettle than the one that came wth the turkey fryer. I almost had a terrible boil over. Good thing i have cat like reactions

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Yep... one of these days, I'm going to upgrade my kettle. In fact, that's probably going to be the next equipment purchase I make. I sure would like to not have to dance to avoid blazing hot scalding syrup. Though... it's the only exercise I get.

Jaysus said:

I love brew day photos like that

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absolutely! looks like a nice batch.

Just bottled this batch yesterday. Finished out at 1.012 gravity. The taste was very very nice, straight out of the bottling bucket. The first of these ought to be ready by Thanksgiving.

Brewed an oatmeal stout to go on top of its trub... ought to be ready by Xmas!

I just popped the cap on the first of these babies, to see how this recipe turned out.

To sum up the reactions in the room:

Dearsweetholylordjesusonacocktailnapkin!

I'll need to post a pic tomorrow of the final product... this one didn't last long enough to get to a camera!