17 September Brew - Black Pearl Porter

Did a batch of Black Pearl Porter yesterday in my clean, but messy, garage. All went well, and it is bubbling away in the warmer computer room.

My note book:







My garden, which is dying due to spring, loves spent grain

I just racked this one to secondary a few days ago. The hydro samples tasted fantastic and I have high hopes for this brew. The recipe didn't specify much for aging, but I was planning on leaving it in secondary for a couple months as I want this one bottled up and ready for this winter, but I'm just curious if you plan to bulk age in secondary or not for this brew.

I will probably do 10 - 14 days in the primary, and then two weeks secondary. Besides, my bulk aging table is full :rockin:

6 gallons each of: Merlot, Cabernet, Blueberry Mead, Blueberry Wine, Strawberry/Rhubarb Wine; 3 gallons of Jalapeno Wine.

Very nice, I brewed this a week to the day before you did, and I'm really excited to see how it turns out.

brokenanchor - How did the ferment go? Mine took 40 hours to start, went nuts for a day and a half, and is now barely going. Going to check gravity after work today to see what is happening, but whatever it is doing, it smells great.

I had an old vile of London ESB that I made a starter out of, but it didn't take off like I had wanted, which was probably due to the low number of viable yeasties. It took 48 hours before I saw any action, so I picked up a pack of US-04 as back up, and ended up pitching it the next day. THEN it took off like hell. I had the carboy in my swamp cooler and was adding frozen water bottles like mad to keep the ferment temp around 65. Anyway it started at 1.060 and ended at 1.015. I actually pulled a sample last night and this bad boy is taaasty even after 2 weeks. I'll probably bottle it up at the end of next week.

Mine started at 1.064 and is at 1.020 now. It did get a bit warm when it first started, but a taste tonight makes me think that it will be a good beer. I am going to transfer it to a secondary this weekend and let it sit for a few weeks and see what happens.