I have been wanting to make a porter since we started homebrewing…all of 2 brews ago. As I have said, I’m really getting into my stouts and porters, and I know that one I’d crafted myself would taste that much better. But probably only to me.
So, after having recently tried the Anchor porter, I decided to make a clone of that. But, due to me being.the only one of the three brewers who likes dark beers, and a bottle shortage, I made a half batch – about 12 litres.
The recipe I used needed converting twice – from imperial to metric, and then in half. This lead to lots of checking, re-checking and re-calculating, and no doubt I’ve messed up somewhere, but I’m sure it’ll turn out drinkable.
Whilst steeping the specially grains (chocolate malt, black malt, roasted barley and crystal malt) it smelled like coffee and walnut brownies. Lets hope some of that makes it into the final beer!
I bittered with northern brewer and cascade, with no aroma hops. Depending on how it turns out, I may add some aroma hops to the next batch.
The boil went without a hitch, cooked the wort, topped it up to 11 litres and took a gravity reading. 1075. So I topped it up with a but more water and brought the gravity to 1065. A touch more sensible. So depending on where this finished, this could be a 6-7%er. Nice and healthy.
Bottling planned for 3 weeks time, then drinking in the new year. A perfect little January warmer, I hope.
We had planned to try our first brew this weekend as it had been bottled 3 weeks ago, but it was my brother’a birthday yesterday so he wasn’t around, and my dad was a little tender. So we’ll crack the first one when we next meet in another 3 weeks. By then, after 6 weeks in total in the bottle, they should *hopefully* be clear, smooth and wonderfully carbonated. Or, at the very least, drinkable.
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