Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Robust Porter - Brewed May 29

Extract with specialty grains.

Grains:
1/2 lb chocolate malt
1/2 lb black patent malt
1 lb 60L crystal malt

Extract:
6 lb amber extract

Hops:
1 oz Chinook, bittering
1 oz Cascade, flavoring
1 oz Fuggles, aroma

Recipe:
Bring 1 to 1.5 gallons of water to 160 degrees Fahrenheit then add all specialty grains. Keep at 150 to 155 degrees for 45 minutes. Strain the grains from the pot (or just remove the grain bag) and give the wort the heat and begin to bring to a boil. Add the extract while stirring when near boiling.

Once boiling, add the first hops, in this case 1 oz of Chinook. At 45 minutes add the flavoring hops. At 55 minutes add the aroma hops. Kill the heat at 60 minutes and preferably use a wort chiller to bring wort down to less than 80 degrees. Transfer to your primary fermentation vessel.

Add yeast, I used British Ale yeast from Wyeast and made a starter, and close it all up. Primary fermentation for 1 week. Secondary fermentation + dry hopping with ~0.5 oz of Amarillo hops for 1-2 weeks.

Observations:
Had a nice hoppy, bitter flavor at transfer. Had a blow out on my 6 gallon carboy fermenter at some point in the first night. The yeast really took off on this brew, hopefully the gravity doesn't go too low where I lose body. Had an original gravity of 17 Brix (1.070 SG) and this should ferment down to a final gravity of about 1.010. Beersmith says an IBU of about 47 at bottling.

This particular brew was different than the first robust porter I did (which I also added coffee at bottling) with Chinook rather than Northern Brewer hops due to a mix-up at the brew store when I purchased this and a Stone IPA clone recipe (not a kit) from Great Fermentations. So the Stone will receive Northern Brewer instead of Chinook and I decided to try Chinook in the Robust Porter instead.