Robust Porter Sept 12, 2018
Adapted from Tasty’s clone of Black Butte Porter on Can You Brew It
10 gallons, 1.053 OG, 36 IBU, 33 SRM
Actual brew notes:
Grain:
15 lbs. 0.5 oz US Pale Malt
1 lb. Wheat Malt
15.9 oz. Crystal 80L
15.9 oz. Cara Pils Dextrin Malt
1 lb. US Chocolate Malt (Briess) 350L
1 lb. 0.2 oz. UK Chocolate Malt (Pauls Malt) 415-490L
Hops:
1 oz. Galena 13.3% 60 minutes
1 oz. Cascade 8.6% 15 minutes
1 oz. Mt. Hood 5.6% 5 minutes
Yeast: WLP002, English Ale
Dialing in equipment, adjustments had to be made while brewing. All specific gravity readings are temperature corrected.
I doughed in with 6.5 gallons of 166° water. The target mash temp was 153°, I was actually at 155°. I just rolled with it.
Since I wasn’t fully prepared, I let the mash rest for 90 minutes while I got equipment ready. The mash was at 153° at the end.
I fly sparged with about 8 gallons of water that had an initial temp of 175°. During the sparge, the HLT was not on and the water temp dropped a bit.
I stopped the sparge when I had 12 gallons in the boil kettle. There was still wort remaining in the mash tun.
I gently stirred the wort to minimize stratification before taking a gravity & temp reading. I had collected 12 gallons of 1.052 wort. This gives 624 points, or a mash efficiency of 84%.
This would produce a beer well outside my target, so I drew off 1.5 gallons of wort and topped the kettle off with an equal amount of water. Now I had 12 gallons of 1.044, or 528 points. This would put me on track for a 1.053 OG.
The boil was uneventful with no boil overs. After the 60 minute boil ended, I cooled the wort with an immersion chiller to 84°, as low as my water temps would get it.
At this time, I had 10 gallons of 1.053 wort, which I drained into two buckets. One got 5 gallons, while the other got 4.5 due to losing the siphon and hop debris. The buckets were sealed and brought to the basement to cool a bit more before pitching the yeast.