Belgian Porter - Anyone else make up recipes in the LHBS?

[azazel1024]

So when I was getting stuff for my Oatmeal ESB, I decided I wanted enough stuff for a second brew without having to go back to my LHBS. So I made up a recipe on the spot. This time I didn't even bother with an online recipe builder, total winging it.

I've never heard of a Belgian porter before, or at least hadn't prior to making up the recipe, but I figured, "hey, lets make something Belgian like, that is a porter".

Going to brew it up in a couple of weekends.

4 gallon Belgian Porter (BiaB)
150F mash 60 minutes
5lb Belgian pale malt
1lb special B
1lb white wheat
1lb biscuit
.25lbs black malt
.25lb chocolate malt
1lb amber candi sugar
1oz Saaz pellets 60 min
.5oz Saaz pellet 15 minutes
.5oz Saaz pellets and 1oz sweet orange peel dry hop after fermentation is complete for a week
T-58 yeast
1.067OG, 1.017FG, 6.6%, 21IBU, 36 SRM

 

[azazel1024]

In the end I switched things up a little. Grain bill was the same, but I switched the hops up and went with...

.25oz Cascade, .5oz Saaz and .5oz Tettnanger for 60 mins
.25oz sweet orange peel, .1oz crushed corriander, .25oz Saaz and .25oz Tettnanger for 10 minutes
.75oz sweet orange peel, .10z crushed corriander, .25oz Saaz and .25oz Tettnanger dry hopping for the next week

Efficiency went very high and I ended up with close to 4.75 gallons at 1.066OG (partly why I went with the bit of Cascade too, to keep the IBUs about where they should have been).

Going to bottle early as I am hoping to have a couple of bottles along for Thanksgiving. Since I brewed this past Saturday, I started dry hopping last night as Fermentation has slowed to only a bubble every 60s. I am going to bottle next Tuesday after 10 days in the fermenter and that'll give it 10 days by the day after Thanksgiving (whole family is together from Tuesday-Sunday). I figure that is the minimum time to mostly properly carb in the bottle.

I suspect though it really needs 3-4 more weeks past that to properly mature (especially because I am bottling a little young too, as I usually give batches 2-4 weeks in fermenter before bottling)...but it made well over 4 gallons, so I am willing to "sacrafice" a few bottles that might be a little young just to try it out.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

i was just thinking of doing this, splitting off half my porter for a belgian version. how did this turn out?

 

[1977Brewer]

I do it all the time, ask @BrewHound , he thinks I'm insane. He's probably right.