Porter

With cooler weather approaching, it's time to start brewing for the Fall. I really enjoyed last year's English porter, so I decided to brew it again this year. Porter is one of my favorite beers as it is a dark, malty brew that is great to sip on and savor slowly. It's a little chewier than stout and usually a little less roasty and pairs great with BBQ and all manner of chocolate deserts.

This time around we used the same exact recipe as well as water additions adding sodium chloride, (NaCl, salt), CaCl (calcium chloride), Sodium Bicarbonate (NaHCO3, baking soda), and Chalk (CaCO3). The carbonates (CO3's) are needed to raise the mash pH as the black patent (a highly kilned malt) will lower the mash pH due to it's acidity. Chlorides are also needed to push the Sulfate:Chloride (SO4:CL) ratio in favor of the chlorides to accentuate the malty flavors of this beer.

Last year I used WY1318, London Ale III and had really good results. Unfortunately, the brew store was out of that strain and I subbed WY1968. Looking back I wish I would have chosen something different, but 1968 is considered a good all-around strain, so hopefully it will perform well. It has received some bad reviews from people who say it does not attenuate very well, so I'll have to keep an eye on the fermentation and raise the temperature towards the end to make sure the yeast doesn't flocculate out too early.

Not the greatest picture above (it's early and dark outside), but you can see the mash is very dark and already has a nice mocha-colored head on it. This is not going to be a strong beer, more of a sessionable beer at ~5% alcohol.

We'll give it a couple of weeks to ferment out, by that time we should have some more space in the kegerator (the Pale and Schwarz are almost gone) so we'll be able to start carbonating it and serve as soon as there is room.

Last thought: it's hard to believe we've only brewed 6 times this year! The last few years we've been averaging over 90 gallons/year and we're only at a third of that so far and it's almost October. Most of that is due to the residency for the first half of 2013. Working 70 hours/week with only 4 days off a month really cut into our brewing time. Thankfully, we've brewed just enough recently to have a full kegerator. Now that work is normal at 40 hours/week, hopefully we'll be able to squeeze in another 4-5 brews in the remaining 3 months of the year.