Newbie Smoked Porter

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ziggityz

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So I finally joined buddy's brew club, and I'm making a smoked porter for our brew party at the end of October. For my first brew I'm making a smoked porter...I bought a Brewer's Best smoked porter kit, and I've been looking at other smoked porter recipes online, especially the Alaskan and Stone versions. This kit has 2lb of grains, 1lb smoked and 1lb 1/2 choc and 1/2 caramel. From the other recipes I've been reading, this doesn't seem like enough grain. I wanted to add a little peat smoked grain to the recipe to add a little more complex flavor, but I don't want this to taste like a smoky scotch (which I like, but it's not for everyone). Is this enough grain and also if I wanted to add peat smoked how much is too much??? Thanks, Zack
 
Being both new to the scene and unfamiliar with BB kits, what is the size of the batch you are doing? The 1 gal kit I am working or right now had about 2-2.5 lbs of grain. I would imagine a larger batch would need more grain.
 
got ya pulse....the kit has 6.6 lbs of malt extract...so that's the difference...so what about peat smoked malt....any suggestions for ammounts?
 
I brewed Jamil's "Can You Brew It" Captain Lawrence Smoked Porter Clone and it used 19.5% Smoked Malt and they said it was just right....not overly smoky. My brew turned out quite good you might consider using that in your grain bill.
 
All smoked grains are not equal.

I have used 3 types:

Beechwood smoked where I used 3 lbs in a 7 gallon batch, turned out great, the smoke was just right for me, but may be too much for some (my wife will not touch it).

Cherrywood smoked. Repeated the same recipe as with the Beechwood, 3 lbs in 7 gallons, and would say there was quite a bit more smoke flavor - I liked it.

Peat smoked malt. I used 5 ozs (yes, only 5 ozs) in a 7 gallon batch of a Stone smoked Porter clone, and it came out perfectly. Peat smoked malt is very potent; too much and you could end up with an undrinkable beer.
 
I think for my first brew I'm not going to alter the recipe...like I said I love peat smoked anything, but I'm affraid it will be too smoky for most of the crowd....
 
Just want to share my (very noob) experiences with this kit. I ended up dry-hopping this with some leftover hops from my Double Ipa (Cascade). I figured, why waste hops when I can just dump them into my smoked porter? WRONG!!
I ended up having a harsh, spicy, almost offensive Cascade taste, and I thought the batch was ruined! I let it sit for a few months, and the dry hop addition was still taking over the taste.

A couple weeks ago, I was thinking about what to do with this mistake (I didn't want to dump them all out) so I ended up steeping 2 Jalepeno's (in a hop bag) into some leftover Gin I had in the freezer. After a day of steeping, I cracked the remaining bottles open, poured a little out of each one into a glass, and started experimenting with ratios of my Jalepeno-Gin to compensate for the Cascade hop presence. At the end of it, I put 2 tablespoons of Jalepeno-Gin into each bottle and let them re-carb a little bit. Just cracked one open, and it's great! I've now got a "Smoked Jalepeno Porter" and can finally taste the caramelly malt presence, smoked notes, and a lasting taste of true Jalepeno spice instead of inappropriate Cascade dry-hop (as you can see, I am NOT recommending a Cascade dry-hop with this beer. I'm really stupid for doing that)

All in all, I just wanted to let other homebrewers know that there are ways to fix stupid rookie mistakes. I've attached some photos in different lighting so that you can see the coloration of this delicious beer. Hats off to Brewer's Best!

photo (13).jpg


photo (12).jpg
 
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