Smoked Porter
25 March 2006 @ lunch time | Comments (0)
Needing a robust beer to warm up my new South Park digs (as of May 1st), this homebrew was an attempt to brew a beer that approaches the brilliance of Stone Smoked Porter.
The recipe
- Style: Robust porter (smoked)
- Type: All grain
- Batch size: 5 gal
- Color: 38 SRM
- Bitterness: 54 IBU (63 actual)
- OG: 1.068 (1.046 actual)
- FG: 1.010
- Alcohol: 4.6%
- Mash: 80% efficiency (d’oh – 54% actual)
- Yeast: Irish Ale (WLP004)
- Grain:
- 7 lb. English pale malt
- 3 lb. Munich 10L
- 1 lb. Black patent
- 0.25 lb. Crystal malt 80L
- 0.25 lb. Peated malt
- Hops:
- 1 oz. Chinook (60 min)
- 1 oz. Willamette (15 min)
The process
As to be expected, there were a few small problems during the brew process.
First, the sparge went a bit too fast, which probably contributed to the poor extraction efficiency. Most importantly, our choice in water (OB Water & Ice) caused too high a pH. Apparently, the rumors of reverse osmosis water being stripped of 98% of its minerals are true; the results of our household mineral test revealed a mineral content below that of Pilsen, practically mineral-free. So this porter is on the low end of alcohol content for the style, as well as being a bit extra bitter because of the poor sugar extraction.
Additionally, I still haven’t figured out the trick of the mashout in a five gallon container. With 10-12 pounds of grain at a 1.5 qt/lb mash thickness, bringing the 155F mash up to 170F would take an additional 6 quarts of water... space which is beyond capacity. I might consider using a thickness of 1.25 qt/lb next batch in order to free up some water space for mashout, or I may just switch to a 10-gallon cooler.
The result
Not bad, although it’s fairly light in both body and carbonation due to poor extraction and using too little priming sugar. It seems very close to what I was aiming for as far as malt and smoke flavor; definitely a candidate for a rebrew.
Lessons learned
- Know thy water
- Sparge slowly