Porter Deux Brew

What a great day. Spring fever hit hard as temps were in the 70's after shoveling 4 inches on Monday. What better way to celebrate than to get my brew on with the porter. 8am found me at Cabelas becoming the proud new owner of a stainless steel 30qt pot, and the cabelas fish cooker base. More than I wanted to spend, but oh well. I look at it as an "hey, it wasn't cancer" present. Used 70$ in cabelas points so it evened out.

Brew went well, up until boil almost started and I realized I was 1 oz short of fuggles. Keystone was open and hazed me appropriately. I could no be happier with the outcome so far. Pitched at 63 degrees!

Burner only used about 2 lbs of propane??? Is that possible?

2:25 2.5 gals in steep pot with grain bill of .5 Crystal 60, .5 Chocolate, .5 black patent and .75 Carapils
2:56 152 degrees
3:10 cranked up stove to Med High
3:13 158 degrees. Fired burner outside with water level up to 2 inches below "min fill mark"
3:30 Moved hot liquor to brew pot. Sparge 1.5 gals @ 172
3:42 Pot level up to bottom rivets.
3:50 Emergency shut off and race to Keystone for 1 oz of fuggles because I am a dumbass
4:26 Pot fired up. Added 6 lbs of dme which took to within 1 inch of the top. Took time with heat to avoid boilover
5:05 Tossed 1 oz bramling cross pellets in a bag and stated count down
5:50 1 oz fuggles and whirlfloc. Whirlfloc damn near caused boilover.
5:58 .5 oz fuggles
6:02 .5 oz fuggles
6:05 flameout and chiller in
6:55 Started transfer, wort at 64
7:20 Pitched pretty weak bag of 1028 London Ale at 63 degrees dated Jan 20 that smacked at 1pm. This yeast better not screw me by being old.

OG 1.055

Tasted a shot of the liqor at 152, post 152, 158 and sparge. Pretty interesting profiles. Could definately tell it was thicker at 158, but that may just have been due to time.



March 28, 2009- Bottling day. I have to say, it is good as it is. I think the carapils did the job. I will be interesting to see how the carbonation and rest change things, but at the moment, I couldn't be happier with a flat warm porter and I am drinking the schwag as I speak. FG 1.013

Original Extract 13.55
Apparent Extract 3.32
Real Extract 5.25
Specific Gravity 1.021
Apparent Attenuation 75.5
Real Attenuation 61.3
ABW 4.4
ABV 5.7
Cals/12oz 188

Shopping

Today is shopping day for what I hope to be a brewing day tomorrow. Tonight a turkey fryer is the objective. Went to Keystone for the ingredients of Programmer Porter Deux.

1/2lb Crystal 60
1/2lb Chocolate
1/2lb Black Patent
3/4lb Carapils

1oz Bramling Cross Pellets 7%
1oz Fuggles plugs 4.5%
[edit] 1oz Fuggles plugs 4.5%
6lbs Muntons Light DME 8 ebc/3.5 L

1028 London Ale Jan 20 2009.

ESB Bottleing

Little brother J came down from Rochester last night and we had a great time with some BBQ and broke open the first Malbec. BBQ was outstanding, and the Malbec hit the spot, though I must admit it is lacking a little something, it is a really easy drinking wine. I will enjoy the next dozen, but I think another couple months of aging is in order.

ESB cleared significanly, so it was time to bottle. FG was 1.010. Drinking one now flat and warm and it's pretty good. No hop aroma to speak of, I think it may be a dry hop candidate if I do it again.
ABV 5.5, abw 4.3 Apparent attenuation 78.1%, real attenuation 63.4%, calories 177/12oz.

Surgery is on wed am. This should be ready by the time I am off anti-biotics.

ESB Transfer

Transferred the ESB to secondary. It has been a week, it should have stayed in primary longer, but I have to admit, I would like to see a little fermentation in secondary for purely visual purposes. A LOT of trub came through in the end as evidenced by the picture. I wasn't going for "every last drop" either. There was basically no solid cake on the bottom. We will see, live and learn. Hopefully it compacts down and clears. Gravity is 1.018 It taste's pretty good, a bit light, but seems balanced? I think I would like the color a little more red, but it is hard to tell at this point.

Maybe Jason can help me bottle in 2 weeks when he is here.

Bought the porter book Dean recommended and read it cover to cover last night. What great insights. I think next bacth will be Porter redux. Up crystal from .5 to 1lb, chocolate from .5 to .75 and maybe back the patent down to 5oz. I may also put 1 lb of british 2 row in. Also up the partial mash temp to 157ish.

Cioppino Vino

Very exciting wine day with Bob and Kat. We bottled what should prove to be our best attempt yet with the cab. It is clear, but so dark you can barely see through it. Very strange. Taste is really good, though obviously young. I have a feeling it should go 6 months or so, though 1 test bottle will have to be broken out early i am sure.

Went with a new style kit and started off a merlot. This one included grape skins (and branches and other sordid items) and 3 different kinds of oak. Grape skins when reconstituted smelled exactly like raisins obviously, but it took a minute to register. OG was ridiculous at 1.110. (Cab was 1.086 and malbec was 1.082 I believe).

Tasted the malbec finally as part of a fruits of the labor tasting with some of Kat's outstanding Cioppino. I have had a lot of the Shiraz obviously so that was nothing new, The cab was really interesting so green. But the malbec, I have to say it turned out pretty well. Massive differences between out of the bottle, vs through aerator, vs 30-45 minutes to breathe. Not sure if this will change over time, or it just happens to be a function of the wine. I think I will let my bin sit another 3 months before cracking one open.

ESB Bubble report

1-24-09 10:00 35 secs (12hrs after pitch)
1-24-09 13:00 5 secs
1-25-09 8:00 Holy Krausen! Had a blowout so switched to a blowoff
1-25-09 17:00 5 secs through blowoff
1-26-09 7:00 5 secs through blowoff
1-26-09 21:00 5 secs through blowoff
1-26-09 7:00 5 secs through blowoff
1-27-09 18:30 7 secs through blowoff
1-28-09 9:30 6 secs through blowoff
1-29-09 8:00 6 secs through blowoff. This is getting ridiculous
1-29-09 22:00 8 secs through blowoff.
1-30-09 8:00 6 secs through blowoff.
1-30-09 23:00 7 secs through blowoff.
1-31-09 8:00 8 secs through blowoff.
-Transferred to Secondary-
1-31-09 21:30 8 secs bubbler
2-1-09 9:30 13 secs
2-1-09 20:30 18 secs
2-2-09 21:30 24 secs First signs of clearing, but still heavy yeast with a lot of movement
2-3-09 20:00 23 secs
2-4-09 7:00 17 secs
2-5-09 8:00 22 secs
2-5-09 21:00 27 secs Still a LOT of yeast in suspension and carbonation is very evident
2-6-09 17:00 33 secs
2-6-09 21:00 36 secs
2-8-09 9:00 60 secs. For the first time yeast at the bottom is moving down and not up. Significant clearing, but not enough to bottle.
2-8-09 22:00 79 secs

I'm special

Spur of the moment decision to get my brew on this weekend with an ESB. All went well. Steeped for 30 mins at 153. Took a long time to get up to temp.

6lbs Muntons extra light dme
1/2lb Crystal 60
1/2lb Breiss Victory 20
1oz UK Challenger pellets 60mins
1oz Kent Golding 2 mins
Wyeast Thames Vly 1275 pitched at 76
Whirlfloc 15mins

OG 1.050

Spoke with Dean on facebook, he is up to 200 gals a year with an amazing setup. He is prodding for a full boil burner. Maybe when the weather warms.