Friday, June 5, 2009

Recipe Modification: Mocha Porter

A few months ago I brewed my mocha porter. This beer came out really well, now I'm planning on brewing this beer again. I'd like to brew a new batch of the porter soon, with some tweaks in the recipe, and let it age in a keg in the cellar until this coming winter. I want to tweak the recipe before brewing it again because I want it bigger and feel that it could be improved. I have been asking advice from people and doing a lot of reading to try and figure out the best way to modify this beer. The original recipe is below.

Malt
-2.00 lbs X-Light DME
-7.00 lbs British 2-row
-2.00 lbs Flaked Oats
-0.50 lbs Crystal 60L
-0.50 lbs Crystal 120L
-0.50 lbs Chocolate Malt
-0.50 lbs Roasted Barley

Hops
-1.00 oz Northern Brewer (7.7% AA, 60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Fuggles (4% AA, 60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Mt Hood (3.8% AA, 2 minutes)

Misc
-10 oz Ghirardelli Unsweetened Baker's Cocoa
-12 cup pot of Kona Blend coffee from Wegmans
-1 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrients (with Wyeast #1098)
-Mashed at 150F (was supposed to be 154, but it came out a bit low)

The question of how to modify it now comes up. The beer currently has a nice smooth flavor. The coffee and chocolate flavors are present, but a bit on the subtle side. I would also like to boost the alcohol without adding much sweetness. I have a few ideas, see below, and am looking for feedback and any other ideas anyone has.

-Changing some (maybe 5%) of the base pale malt to Munich malt would add some maltiness to the backbone without adding much/any sweetness. The idea would be to have a stronger malt backbone to accentuate the chocolate and coffee flavors.

-Replacing some/all of the chocolate malt with roasted barley would give the beer a slightly richer dark flavor that would play well with the toasted grains and the chocolate/coffee flavors.

-I would like to add some base malt to boost the alcohol, and I will likely need to mash a little lower to make sure I don't add any sweetness. The beer is in a pretty good place with its current level of sweetness.

Let me know if there are any suggestions out there. Any comments on my ideas above would be appreciated, too. I have never tried tweaking a beer recipe before, I typically don't brew the same recipe twice.

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