3 replies to this topic

[Dave McG]

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.

[Dave McG]

I tapped the first keg over the weekend. This came out fantastic, although not as close to Black Butte as I originally planned. I had upped the hops to full ounces from Tasty's small decimal amounts. It certainly is hoppier than Black Butte, but it's very good. I ended up giving it 10 days at 72° fermentation temp before kegging and force carbing. I might gel it, I had forgotten the Whirlfloc and it's not as clear as I'd like. Aside from that, I'm very pleased with the result. I need to see if there are any local comps to see how impartial taste buds view it.

[HVB]

I drank a couple of local porters over the weekend and it reminded me I have not brewed one in a long time.  I have always toyed with brewing the Black Butte recipe. I may just have to pull the trigger, tweak it for a 30 minute boil and have at it.

[Dave McG]

The top recipe is a scaled version of Tasty's clone, with the following alterations:

I brain farted while measuring grain, the Carapils and both chocolate malts were to be 0.6 lbs each. I measured out a pound of each, dumped them into the hopper of my mill and realized the error. Oh well. Also, I rounded the fractional hop quantities to the full ounce because
A) I had already altered the recipe
I didn't feel like throwing out perfectly good hops.

The resulting beer is not Black Butte, but it is damn good.