Brew Day: Chocolate-Coffee Porter

Today was brew day for my porter. I wanted to reuse the yeast cake from the previous Brown Porter, so I figured that some sort of porter or stout would be a good idea. The yeast cake is Wyeast #1098 British Ale Yeast. It does a pretty good job, leaving a bit of sweetness behind. The decision was made to brew a chocolate stout like I've done a couple times in the past, but leaving the door open for adding coffee as well.

The decision was made this afternoon to make it a chocolate-coffee porter.

Chocolate-Coffee Porter

Ingredients:
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

Procedure:
-Filled mash tun with all grains except the roasted ones
-Used 3.5 gallons of strike water at ~170F
-Mash settled to 150F, which was a couple degrees cooler than I had intended
-Added the roasted grains with 15 minutes left in the mash to avoid astringency they can produce (based on advice from some homebrewing forums)
-Sparged with 4 gallons of 170F water
-Added the DME then brought to a boil
-Added the Northern Brewer and Fuggles hops
-Boiled for 45 minutes, then added the yeast nutrient
-With 2 minutes left in the boil, added the Mt Hood hops.
-Once the burners were off and the chiller was ready, the coffee and cocoa powder were added
-Chilled, took hydrometer sample, transferred to fermenter, aerated-pitched-aerated, slapped the airlock on

Starting gravity at 70F is 1.074 (adjusted). This is going to be solid.

UPDATE: It's only an hour after pitching the yeast cake, and the airlock is bubbling pretty steadily. This should bode well for some healthy fermentation.

Brown Porter... THE UPDATE!

Tonight I decided to check the gravity on the brown porter and give it a taste test. It's definitely done fermenting, with a final gravity of: 1.010. This puts it at an alcohol content of around 3%ABV. Yes, I know, that's not nearly as strong as most of my brews have been, but it's not really a high alcohol style. Either way, it tastes interesting. The malt flavor has a complex mix of things like toast, biscuits, and cookies as a result of the weird grain toasting I did. The hops come through pretty well but don't overpower the malt. I have a feeling it'll be pretty good once it's chilled and carbonated. That'll be sometime this weekend, I think.

I'll be using the yeast from this batch one final time in a new batch, just not sure what that batch will be. A much stronger porter could be in order considering just how many damn yeast cells I have living in the fermenter. Chocolate porter? Coffee porter? Choco-coffee porter? Something else? Maybe a basic robust porter. Not sure yet. Suggestions are always encouraged.

Update: Brown Porter

The porter I brewed Saturday was put directly onto the yeast cake of the ESB, and was bubbling like crazy through the airlock after only an hour or two. It has tailed off significantly since then, but that's probably because the original gravity was fairly low. This batch is most likely almost done fermenting. I'll check the gravity next Monday when I get back from Connecticut.

Now I'm debating whether I should reuse the same yeast again for another batch next week, or if I should look to brew with some other yeast instead. I have a bottle of the dark Belgian candi syrup that I'm looking forward to using in a dubbel sometime, but I'm thinking I want to use this British ale yeast one more time. Considering that this yeast has fermented two batches already, it might be time to brew something stronger.... ;)

New Year's Week Brewing

I couldn't actually keep myself awake yesterday, for some reason I was just thoroughly exhausted, so I didn't wind up brewing anything. The amber is still bubbling very slowly and the APA is bubbling along nice and fast. I figure I will rack these beers and brew the next two batches sometime later this week and into the weekend. The next few batches will be using the yeast cakes from these two batches, so I have to rack the same day as I brew. The London ESB yeast will be used for an ESB, while the US-56 yeast will ferment an American IPA.

I will most likely be going with the recipe I already posted for the ESB. I'm still looking around to see if my hop selection is good or not, but it most likely won't get changed. The next time I sit down to compile some code I will post my tentative recipe for the American IPA.

And yes, I do have to work New Year's week, except for the 1st. Don't know yet if I'll burn one of my vacation days immediately to get Friday off. I kinda like it around here when there's only a hundred people in the building.

Fermentation Update

The brief Christmas break I get is over so now I'm back in Rochester getting things done around the apartment. When I left for Ithaca a few days ago, the American Pale Ale I had in the fermenter had not started fermenting yet, while the English Amber was fermenting vigorously. Currently, the amber appears to be done and the pale ale is fermenting like crazy, we're talking about 4 inches of bubbly crap on top of the beer. I will probably take a gravity reading on the amber tonight to figure out what I want to do with it tomorrow. If it looks like it's done fermenting entirely, I will rack it to a keg tomorrow and begin carbonating it. If it's not finished entirely, I will rack it to a secondary tomorrow. Either way it's getting racked tomorrow so I can brew a beer with the yeast cake in that fermenter. I will be planning out a recipe for tomorrow shortly that uses the London ESB yeast in the amber's fermenter. I'm thinking of making a bitter, but I'm not entirely sure yet. I want to see if any of the new hop varieties, like Glacier, are at Beers of the World and maybe see if I can try out one or two of those to see how they work. Glacier apparently has some Fuggles-like qualities that make it sound interesting for an English beer.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a good holiday break. And screw all of you that don't have to work on New Year's Eve. Ugh.