Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Bourbon Barrel Porter

Brew Day: 6/10/15

1 gal kit from Northern Brewer.

1 1/4 gal in the kettle

0.2 lb of Chocolate Malt

0.1 lb of Crystal 80L
0.1 lb of Black Patent

Let grains steep while I heated the water. Put them in at 132, took off the heat at 158 (about 10 minutes to heat up). Then disaster almost struck. Realized I didn't have any ice made to cool it down, so before I brought it to a boil, I put the lid on it and went to the store to get a few bags of ice. So the "grain-tea" sat with the lid on for 24 minutes before I got home and returned the kettle to the heat. Down to 149. Turned heat back on. 50 min boil. (Recipe calls for 45 min boil, but waited to add hops until past the hot break, about 5 mins) After adding the DME, but before hops, the pre-boil gravity was 1.047 (11.8 brix).

1.0 lb Dark DME - 50 mins
0.5 lb Wheat DME - 50 mins
3.5 gram Chinook hops 11.8% AA - 45 mins
3.5 gram Willamette hops 4.7% AA - 10 mins




Killed the heat. Whirlpooled and set kettle in sink for ice bath. Poured wort through the double-mesh strainer into a 2 gal bucket. Pitched half a packet of Danstar Windsor yeast at 72. Hoping to keep the fermentation temp between 65-74 using ambient temps in the apartment. Ended up with just under 1 gal in the fermenter. Had the range hood on during the boil, so I must've boiled off a bit more volume than expected.





The recipe calls for 2 weeks in primary. Once fermentation is done, I'll soak 0.5 oz of American Oak Cubes in bourbon for 24 hrs then add them into the fermentor. About 2-3 weeks to bottle condition. 




Target OG: 1.068
Actual OG: 1.072 (17.6 brix) 
est IBU: 28.23
est FG: 1.019
est SRM: 50
est ABV: 6.4%

Update: 7/01/15

Put the 0.5 oz of oak cubes and 2 oz of Bulleit Bourbon into a mason jar. Will let it sit for 2-3 days then add to the fermenter. 






Bottling: 08/26/15

Bottling is my least favorite part of homebrewing. (making the switch to kegs soon) Got a 6 pack out of this brew. Smelled good, but the taster wasn't very good. This had a lot of excitement around it, but I hope it doesn't turn out to be a dud because of all my procrastination.