My Oatmeal Stout had a pretty complicated grain bill which I realized sort of made it difficult to use the beer to learn more about the various malts. This Brown Porter recipe has a very simple grain bill (3 malts) and will give me the opportunity to brew with some new ingredients. In particular it has about 25% of the malt bill as Brown malt which, based on the descriptions, sounds like it will provide some very nice flavors.
It seems like the kind of grain bill I may want to return to at some point to make some minor tweaks - maybe even to use with Brett to try to duplicate the classic English aged porters.
I decided to try to improve my efficiency on this batch by slowing down the rate of draining the wort from the mash tun. I would typically drain at the highest possible rate which may be causing channeling in the grain bed which could result in sugar being left behind. It will be interesting to see if I get an efficiency bump doing to this way and if it will seem worth the extra time on the brewday.
Although it isn't a big beer the roast flavors will make for a nice beer for the cold weather as we move into Autumn.
Recipe Details:
- Grain:
- 8 lbs Marris Otter
- 3 lbs Brown Malt (Briess Carabrown)
- 10 oz Black Malt
- Hops:
- 1.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 5.3% AA) at 60 min
- 0.5 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 5.3% AA) 0 min
- Yeast:
- Wyeast 1028 London Ale
- Water:
- 12 gal Spring Water
- 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
- 1 tsp Gypsum
- 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min
Process Details:
- Batch Size:
- 6 gal
- Mash:
- 152 F for 60 min
- Boil:
- 90 min
- Fermentation Temperature:
- 64 F
- Primary Duration:
- 4 weeks
- Secondary Duration:
- NA
Results:
- OG:
- 1.048 (Target 1.048)
- Efficiency:
- 69% (Target 69%)
- FG:
- 1.012 (Target 1.012)
- Apparent Attenuation:
- 74% (Target 74%)
- ABV:
- 4.73% (Target 4.73%)
Brewing Notes:
- 10/16/14 - Built a yeast starter using 1 L of water and 3.6 oz of DME. Put onto the stir plate and had good activity a few hours later. Kept the starter in the basement at ~68 F.
- 10/18/14 - Brew day - 11:20 AM to 4:40 PM including setup and cleanup
- Brought 8 gal of spring water up to 187 F - took about 20 min
- Added brewing salts to the kettle
- Transferred 14 quarts of strike water into the mash tun using a measuring cup
- After 10 min the mash tun had settled to 177 F
- Added the grain all at once and then stirred it in - grain settled out at 160 to 165 F so I added 1 gal of cool spring water and stirred vigorously to get close to the target mash temp (the mash varied from 151 to 158 F but most samples seemed to be about 152 F)
- Gave the mash a stir at 15 min and checked the temperature which had mostly settled to 152 F
- Stirred again at 40 min to try to help conversion along
- Added 4 gal of mash out water, stirred, let settle for 5 min, vorlaufed, and then drained
- I drained at a reduced rate to try to improve efficiency - took 45 min to drain the mash tun
- I started to heat the wort after collecting about a gallon and quickly brought it to a boil. So, I ended up boiling for a majority of the mash out period
- After I had collected 5 gal I added the bittering hops (about 40 min into mash out)
- Added 3 more gal of cool spring water to the mash, stirred, let settle for 5 min, vorlaufed and then drained slowly again - took about 30 min
- Ended up with 8 gal of wort
- Chilled my sample using coffee cups I had placed in the freezer. I was able to chill the wort down to the 90s within a few minutes using this method
- Measured gravity as 1.032 at 90 F which is about 1.038. This is 73% efficiency so I did not collect another batch sparge
- Once the boil volume got down to 6.5 gal I added the Irish Moss
- Once the volume got down to 6.25 gal (to account for expansion of the hot wort) I ended the boil and added the flameout hops
- Added the wort chiller to sanitize and let sit for 10 min
- Chilled the wort down to ground water temps (66 F) which took 25 min
- Transferred to fermentor - collected 6 gal
- Poured back and forth between fermentor and bottling bucket to aerate
- Pitched the entire starter, put the fermentor in the fermentation chamber at 64 F, and setup a blowoff tube as the fermentor is very full
- Measured gravity as 1.046 at 66 F which is 1.048 per the hydrometer calibration which was the target
- 10/19/14 - I had my previous batch (Rye Pale Ale) cold crashing batch in the fermentation chamber with the new batch and it turned out that it managed to chill the Brown Porter down to 56 F over night. There wasn't any bubbling so I moved it out of the chamber to the 66 F basement to warm up a bit. 6 hours later the beer was bubbling vigorously. After I bottled the previous batch I moved the Porter back into the fermentation chamber to keep it under control.
- 10/21/14 - The basement has been in the low 60s the last couple days and it cooled the beer down to 62 F. The bubbling stopped for a bit. Basement warmed back up into the high 60s later and the beer has warmed to the target temperature of 64 F and is bubbling slowly.
- 11/1/14 - Switched out the blowoff tube for an airlock. It's pretty humid down in the basement and quite a bit of condensation has formed in the fermentation chamber. This has also allowed some more black mold to grow - not so much on the fermentor itself but quite a bit on the chamber floor. I left the chamber open to allow the beer to rise up to basement temps (65 F - 68 F).
- 11/12/14 - Cold crashed down to 35 F to drop the yeast
- 11/16/14 - Bottled this batch. Ended up at 1.012 at 58 F which was the target. I saved off 2 liters to try to culture some Brett for my next batch and ended up with ~5 gal. I primed with 3.25 oz of dextrose to get 2.1 vol of CO2. Ended up with 53 12 oz bottles. The beer has a very nice chocolate/roast flavor and a subdued bitterness that makes for a pleasant balance. This is the first batch I've hit my target OG and FG - pretty happy about that even though it was probably just dumb luck.
- 12/11/14 - Tasting Notes - Really nice dark beer. The mild level of roast really makes it an easier drinking beer than most stouts I've had. Nice combo of drinkability and flavor.
- 4/18/15 - Last one of these was consumed today.
Lessons Learned:
- The slow sparge method may have improved my efficiency and didn't really increase the length of the brewday as I was able to boil while draining the mash tun. I am going to do this again next time.
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