Power Pack Porter from Midwest

[WortIfied]

Has anyone brewed this? Any tips or adjuncts?

This recipe creates a deep brown porter with a robust chocolate and black malt aroma. We named this recipe after the high alcohol and hop rate. Our ingredients for this recipe include 6 lb. of Dark malt extract, 3.3 lb. Light malt extract, 4 oz. Black Patent malt, 4 oz. Chocolate malt, 8 oz. Caramel 120L. specialty grains, 1.5 oz. Tettnang hops, 1 oz. Willamette hops.

I thought about maybe adding a half pound or more of brown sugar before flameout or even some extra steeping grains, I have a half pound of chocolate malt in the fridge, what kind of result could expect from adding more chocolate malt?

In all honesty I should probably just leave it alone, but I am such a huge porter/stout fan I want to make this extra special!

Maybe some coffee beans? Vanilla!? Haha, sorry the obbsession is getting to stronger!

 

[RM-MN]

Do you have two fermenters? Buy 2 kits and brew one just as it is packed and do the other with ONE addition, be it the chocolate malt or coffee or vanilla. It's the only way to find out which one YOU like best. My experience and my differing tastes won't help you a bit.

 

[BigBezizzle]

Haha, that's funny you brought this up, as I'm currently about to brew the exact same kit from Midwest =D. I wasn't thinkin' of adding anything extra myself personally.

 

[Brew_4iT]

I just brewed a porter and it came out amazing!!!! This one goes into my top three best beers, actually debating sending it into a BJCP competition. Nice creamy head and very well balanced, at first I though it might need a little more hops next time. But if I do only a little bit of a late addition.

Brown Porter (came out more black)
Partial mash
5 gallon batch
IBU's: 26.3
OG: 1.053
SRM: 25 (Brown to Dark brown)

4# American 2 row
3.3# Briess Amber LME
.5# Chocolate malt
.5# Crystal 40L
.125 Smoked malt
.125 Black Patent malt

.5 Warrior @60
.5 Cascade @5

Wyeast American Ale 1056

I like your choices of hops, actually thinking along the same lines next time. But everytime I take a sip of this beer I'm like, "damn, this doesn't need any changes". Have to keep in mind this is a porter not a stout, keep adding more dark malts going to end up with more of a stout. Which is basically a beefed up porter with roasted barley.

 

[WortIfied]

Thanks for the replies!

After thinking about it over night I plan to just brew this kit as is first go around. I have nothing but time ahead of me and it is after all an obsession of mine now hah. So why not try it standard and then brew it again later, adjusting as needed from tasting the first batch. Learning patience on all levels of home brewing has been my biggest obstacle, I'm just so excited to try a porter!

Dundee porter that comes in the craft pack is one of my favorite!

 

[Brew_4iT]

Oh also, I'm going to brew this one again shortly since it came out so good. Instead I'm going to go with Irish Ale 1084 prior slurry I have. I'm thinking with a little more phenols this would taste more of its style. I think with the 1056 it came out really good but maybe a little too clean tasting. Also use British hops instead as well, kind of compare an americanized porter to a traditional UK.

 

[BIF]

here's mine at 19 days young

not much in the nose and a sort of Guinness Foreign Extra type vibe right now. Will probably get better/more interesting with a few more weeks

 

[Enbrewsiast]

This was our third extract kit from Midwest. We brewed this kit as-is and sampled it for the first time tonight. It looks like a porter and tastes like a port! Best of all, it is ready for drinking after only 13 days of bottle-conditioning.

We used a yeast starter for this kit - our first time making a starter. We dissolved a half cup of Light DME into 2 cups of water, cooled it to less than 80-degrees F, and then dumped our vial of WhiteLabs Burton Ale Yeast (WLP023). We made the starter 24 hours before brewing, letting it sit for the first 10 hours and then shaking once an hour or so from the morning on till pitching.

Brewing was mostly by the instructions in the kit:
-4.5 gallons to 155-degrees F
-steeped grains for 30 minutes
-remove grains and bring to a boil
-at boil, remove from heat and add all malt extract, stirring to dissolve
-return to heat
-at first signs of boil, at 2-oz German Tettnang hops (the kit called for 1.5, but Midwest sent two 1-oz bags. We used them after reading some of the reviews of the kit on Midwest's site)
-boil for 60 minutes
-add 1-oz Willamette for last two minutes of boil
-cool wort rapidly (we use an immersion wort chiller - best investment EVER)
-pitched yeast start at ~78 degrees F

We brewed on 9 June and kept it in the primary fermentor until 1 July. No hydrometer readings to share because there was so much "gunk" in the bottom that our wine thief wouldn't hold wort at all. Not that airlock bubbling is a sign of fermentation, but we observed bubbling within 24 hours. We bottled on 1 July, and although we are two weeks shy of the 3 weeks at 70-degrees rule, the porter is a good drink already! It will only get better with age, but we are happy with the results.

We would recommend this kit to beginning extract brewers who like porter.

 

[Enbrewsiast]

Oooops - I thought this thread was in the Extract Kits thread. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been so wordy! I just wanted to share our brewing experience with this kit as completely as possible. Bah. Noobs.