Porter Brew Day

[Zoomzu]

Well since I can't go to work and get in some O.T., I have to be here for the cable guy. I guess it's a brew day. :rockin:
I got the recipe from the preloaded ones on BeerSmith.

Grains.



Preheating the mash tun.



Mashed in. Missed target mash temp. suppose to be 154, was at 150. BeerSmith est. final gravity from 1.019 to 1.016. Should be ok.



I had my water at temp. but I had 10 min. to go. I forgot to check the temp. at time to add the water for mash out. I think the temp. dropped a bit. Mash out temp. ended up being 160 instead of 168. Anybody know what that will do, if any?

Time to sparge.






Heating up for boil. Looks like a big mocha.



In got the hops




Boil time just about up.



Cooled down the wort to 70



Since the wort is cool, I let the wort flow into the fermenter to aerate. In the fermenter and yeast pitched.



Measured gravity was 1.054. I think I may have added a bit to much water for a 60min. boil. Need to work on being more precise with water. And getting better on efficiency. The wort had good flavor. I plan to add coffee in the fermenter after the yeast does its job. I like dark roast coffee. I have some whole bean "store name Here" Sumatra I'm going to use. I think it will add some goodness to it.

Two days in the fermenter.

 

[Stillraining]

Awsome!

 

[CraigKing]

Looks great - nice frothy, smooth color. Makes me want to drink a thick porter right now.

Did you add crushed oats? I like adding crushed oats to my porters and stouts to give them a thicker mouthfeel.

In addition to the coffee addition, have you thought about adding cocoa nibs too? Chocolate coffee porter sounds great!

 

[bowman5150]

Your porter will be great not a big deal from 160 to168

 

[Zoomzu]

The recipe didn't call for crushed oats. Didn't know what they'd do for the beer. Now I do.

I did think of adding Chocolate.
I did once made a chocolate milk stout. It called for the chocolate to be added at boil. Didn't notice any chocolate notes. It all seemed to fall out. It called for chocolate powder.

Wasn't sure I wanted to try it out again.

I have had a great chocolate coffee porter once, it was amazing.

 

[Stillraining]

You can also just use some flake oatmeal cereal in your grist. I add up to 2 pounds in some of my recipes.

 

[CraigKing]

I like your homemade sparging bucket too. I might try something like that.

 

[Zoomzu]

Racked on Feb. 26


Decided to make a chocolate coffee porter out of it. Read so much on what, how, how much..my head hurts.

more to come....

 

[Zoomzu]

I like your homemade sparging bucket too. I might try something like that.

Thanks, it was a spur of the moment fix. My jet-sparge hadn't arrived when making my first all grain batch. It was a friend's idea. I had that little bucket laying around, seems to work ok.

 

[Zoomzu]

So after reading more than I cared to. I decided 4 oz. of cacao nibs and 8oz. of whole bean Sumatra coffee. The nib were raw.


Convect baked at 275 for 5min. They smelled like brownies.



Put the nibs and coffee in a sock.



Soaked in this, cut to 40% for 24 hours.





Racked back to the bucket to infuse for 6 days.





I haven't used my Grolsh bottles in years. They need some cleaning.



All cleaned up. Waiting for Friday 11th to be filled with some yummy goodness.

 

[Zoomzu]

So when bottling I sampled the beer. It definitely had a coffee flavor to it. Not sure if the cocoa flavor shows though. Still good flavor either way.




What I don't understand is why the companies went from a ceramic to a "plastic" top? the bottom bottle is ceramic. Two of the Grolsh bottles have ceramic tops, the rest are "plastic." Now the bottles are 11.2 oz. instead of 16 oz.

 

[CraigKing]

Nice modification to the recipe with adding the toasted nibs and coffee. I'm glad you were able to taste them. The next time I try something like that, I'll try toasting them and soaking them in alcohol first. When I used coffee, I cold-brewed ground coffee and added that into my bottling bucket prior to bottling.

As for the final product, it looks great. I'll be in Wenatchee, WA this summer - I expect a sample!