Continuing in my “kitchen sink” series of beers, I brewed a porter recently; it was really a session porter in the end, which has been nice for easy quaffing during the winter months.

Kitchen Sink Porter

• 7 lbs. Maris Otter malt (Crisp)
• 1 lb. Munich II malt (Weyermann)
• 0.75 lb. caramel 60°L malt (Briess)
• 0.5 lb. pale chocolate malt (Crisp)
• 5 oz. caramel 120°L malt (Briess)
• 2 oz. chocolate malt (Bairds)
• 1 oz. roasted barley (Bairds)
• 2 oz. Bobek hop pellets (4.5% alpha), first wort hop and 30 minute boil
• 1 Whirlfloc tablet, 10 minute boil
• 1 pkg. Windsor dry yeast (Lallemand)

Target Parameters

• 30 minute full volume infusion mash, 155°
• 1.044 o.g., 1.012 f.g., 4.3% abv, 26 IBU, 23 SRM
• Claremont tap water

Procedure

• I mashed in with 7.5 gallons of water at 159.5°, to hit a 154° mash temperature.
• After 30 minutes, I vorlaufed and collected 6.3 gallons of runnings with a gravity of 1.039, for 68% efficiency.
• I brought everything to a boil, boiling for 30 minutes and adding hops and finings as required.
• After a 30 minute boil, I turned off the heat and chilled down to 70°, before pitching the yeast.
• I brewed this beer on 3 January 2019. It had a starting gravity of 1.043.
• The beer was fermented at ambient temperature of around 60°. I pitched the yeast immediately after transfer into the fermentation vesel, and fermentation took off pretty quickly.
• On January 6, ambient was down to around 58°, so I moved the fermener into the fermentation chamber, where I applied some heat and set the temperature for 66°.
• I cold crashed the beer on 13 January 2020.
• I kegged the beer on 15 January 2020. Final gravity was 1.015, for 3.6% abv.

Tasting

• Appearance
  • Medium brown color, mostly clear (slight haze), with persistent tan head.
• Aroma
  • Chocolaty, clean aroma. I’m not picking up much of the bread and biscuit aroma that a good English porter should have.
• Flavor
  • Roasty, chocolate flavor, with a distinct (but not harsh) bitterness that persists on the tongue. As the beer warms up, some of the biscuity malt notes start to come through.
• Mouthfeel
  • This is a little thinner than I would like; it needs some extra body, I think. Moderate carbonation, smooth and off-dry finish.
• Would I brew this again?
  • There’s a fair bit happening in dark malt flavor, but the mouthfeel department needs some serious augmentation. I also feel like the lighter character malts (e.g., crystal malts) could be expanded a bit more, because the dark malts really take over. It’s not unpleasant, just a bit one-dimensional. This is a pretty drinkable beer–and the low abv certainly helps with that–but not a recipe I’m likely to do again. For a future iteration of this type of beer, I would definitely mash at a much higher temperature (maybe 158°?) and perhaps add in some biscuit malt and/or more crystal 120.
• Overall
  • 5.5/10