Recipe: Northern Brewer's St Paul Porter
2014-10-11 Started at about 1:00 pm. Put about 2.5 gallons of bottled water in my brewpot, heated it on the stove on the highest setting to 150F. Added specialty grains, lowered to half-heat and raised temp to 175F over 20 minutes. Fluid is very dark, steam is rising. Turned heat back to high after removing grains. Bubbling started at 190F, after 8:55. Roiling boil at 195F after 9:27. Temp down to 175F after adding malts (6lbs Dark Malt syrup and 1 lb Dark dry malt extract.) Temp at 200F, foam on top, fluid starting to agitate, lowered heat from 6 to 5. There's the boil! Lowered to 4, 60 minute timer started. Lots of foam after adding hops. Boil seems too vigorous, lowered to 3. Went to Meijer to buy funnels and gloves. When I returned, I found that the timer had stopped at 45 min. Started a new timer at 35 min, hopefully it is right. After finishing boil, I put the brewpot in an icewater bath. Temp down to 140F in 7 min, 120F after 11, 95F after 17:30 and 77F after 34. I added the other 2.5 gallons of water to the 5 gallon carboy, added the hot wort, then measured specific gravity of 1.05. Thinking it should be closer to 1.04 (because I forgot to recheck the recipe), I added another 24 oz water, to make the starting specific gravity 1.046 (+0.002 to correct for 77F fluid temperature.)
4:00 pm Directly pitched dry Safale US-05 Ale yeast. The wort tasted surprisingly like beer. A little too hoppy for the style and for my taste, but nice and roasty and not too sweet.
2014-10-12 11:09am Fermentation has started! There is a thick layer (about 1") of foam, and a few bubbles leaving the airlock. Temp is at 70F. If you look closely at the carboy you can see a lot of yeast moving rapidly up and down.
2014-10-14 10:30pm Fermentation has slowed considerably; airlock moves about every 5 seconds, and I don't see as much yeast moving up and down in the vessel.
2014-10-15 8:00pm Foam cap is receding, small layer where there was once 1". Airlock is barely moving.
2014-10-27 8:45pm Specific Gravity is at 1.014 (+0.001 to correct for 68F fluid temperature.) Actually tastes decent despite the fact that it is warm and not bubbly. Anna tastes roasted peanuts; I taste "tar", that thick black flavor that I like in a porter. Hop bitterness has smoothed a bit.
2014-10-30 9:04pm Specific gravity unchanged at 1.014. Ready to bottle.
2014-11-02 Bottled today. Boiled 5 oz corn sugar in 16 oz water for 20 minutes, cooled, added to bottling bucket, then siphoned beer into bottling bucket. Boiled bottles for an hour (since they were previously used.) Got 41 12 oz bottles, 3 23 oz bottles and 6 extra bottles out of the bottom of the bucket, will investigate whether its worth doing that. Mild agitation of the beer as I filled the bottles. There was a whole lot of sediment at the bottom of the carboy. Measured specific gravity of 1.019 with the stuff at the bottom of the bottling bucket. Beer was 66F at bottling. Put bottles in coolest part of the basement, where the temp is about 63F.
2014-11-16 Opened first bottle today, which opened with a very generous "pfft" indicating that carbonation was complete. Unfortunately, the beer is not. It was still very bitter and quite light bodied (probably because I diluted it too much.) There was a thin off-white head that receded slightly over time, but a persistent stream of bubbles provided plenty of pleasant tongue-tingle. It was much better after warming up, the bitterness faded and a roasty chocolate flavor came out. Hopefully the bitterness is tamed with some more time in the bottle. If I make this recipe again, I will probably add at least 1lb extra malt (or possibly lactose) and save a little bit of the hops for the end of the boil.
2014-11-22 Tried my second bottle tonight, and after a little more time in the bottle it was significantly better than the first bottle (though this was one of the "better" bottles that was filled from above the bottom of the bucket.)
2014-11-29 Opened one of the "bottom of the bucket" bottles today, and it was over carbonated. This one was still a little more bitter than the "better" bottle that I opened last week, but significantly better than the one I opened two weeks ago. Once the heavy foam blew off, there was a small caramel head remaining.
2015-01-14 The last few bottles I've opened have been barely carbonated. They tasted fine, but there was very little head. Not sure if I'm storing them too cold.
2014-10-11 Started at about 1:00 pm. Put about 2.5 gallons of bottled water in my brewpot, heated it on the stove on the highest setting to 150F. Added specialty grains, lowered to half-heat and raised temp to 175F over 20 minutes. Fluid is very dark, steam is rising. Turned heat back to high after removing grains. Bubbling started at 190F, after 8:55. Roiling boil at 195F after 9:27. Temp down to 175F after adding malts (6lbs Dark Malt syrup and 1 lb Dark dry malt extract.) Temp at 200F, foam on top, fluid starting to agitate, lowered heat from 6 to 5. There's the boil! Lowered to 4, 60 minute timer started. Lots of foam after adding hops. Boil seems too vigorous, lowered to 3. Went to Meijer to buy funnels and gloves. When I returned, I found that the timer had stopped at 45 min. Started a new timer at 35 min, hopefully it is right. After finishing boil, I put the brewpot in an icewater bath. Temp down to 140F in 7 min, 120F after 11, 95F after 17:30 and 77F after 34. I added the other 2.5 gallons of water to the 5 gallon carboy, added the hot wort, then measured specific gravity of 1.05. Thinking it should be closer to 1.04 (because I forgot to recheck the recipe), I added another 24 oz water, to make the starting specific gravity 1.046 (+0.002 to correct for 77F fluid temperature.)
4:00 pm Directly pitched dry Safale US-05 Ale yeast. The wort tasted surprisingly like beer. A little too hoppy for the style and for my taste, but nice and roasty and not too sweet.
2014-10-12 11:09am Fermentation has started! There is a thick layer (about 1") of foam, and a few bubbles leaving the airlock. Temp is at 70F. If you look closely at the carboy you can see a lot of yeast moving rapidly up and down.
2014-10-14 10:30pm Fermentation has slowed considerably; airlock moves about every 5 seconds, and I don't see as much yeast moving up and down in the vessel.
2014-10-15 8:00pm Foam cap is receding, small layer where there was once 1". Airlock is barely moving.
2014-10-27 8:45pm Specific Gravity is at 1.014 (+0.001 to correct for 68F fluid temperature.) Actually tastes decent despite the fact that it is warm and not bubbly. Anna tastes roasted peanuts; I taste "tar", that thick black flavor that I like in a porter. Hop bitterness has smoothed a bit.
2014-10-30 9:04pm Specific gravity unchanged at 1.014. Ready to bottle.
2014-11-02 Bottled today. Boiled 5 oz corn sugar in 16 oz water for 20 minutes, cooled, added to bottling bucket, then siphoned beer into bottling bucket. Boiled bottles for an hour (since they were previously used.) Got 41 12 oz bottles, 3 23 oz bottles and 6 extra bottles out of the bottom of the bucket, will investigate whether its worth doing that. Mild agitation of the beer as I filled the bottles. There was a whole lot of sediment at the bottom of the carboy. Measured specific gravity of 1.019 with the stuff at the bottom of the bottling bucket. Beer was 66F at bottling. Put bottles in coolest part of the basement, where the temp is about 63F.
2014-11-16 Opened first bottle today, which opened with a very generous "pfft" indicating that carbonation was complete. Unfortunately, the beer is not. It was still very bitter and quite light bodied (probably because I diluted it too much.) There was a thin off-white head that receded slightly over time, but a persistent stream of bubbles provided plenty of pleasant tongue-tingle. It was much better after warming up, the bitterness faded and a roasty chocolate flavor came out. Hopefully the bitterness is tamed with some more time in the bottle. If I make this recipe again, I will probably add at least 1lb extra malt (or possibly lactose) and save a little bit of the hops for the end of the boil.
2014-11-22 Tried my second bottle tonight, and after a little more time in the bottle it was significantly better than the first bottle (though this was one of the "better" bottles that was filled from above the bottom of the bucket.)
2014-11-29 Opened one of the "bottom of the bucket" bottles today, and it was over carbonated. This one was still a little more bitter than the "better" bottle that I opened last week, but significantly better than the one I opened two weeks ago. Once the heavy foam blew off, there was a small caramel head remaining.
2015-01-14 The last few bottles I've opened have been barely carbonated. They tasted fine, but there was very little head. Not sure if I'm storing them too cold.
