Category Archives: porter

Vanilla Voay Porter

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It is finally time for the first batch of the season! I’ve been wanting to do a vanilla porter for some time, because I have a bunch of vanilla beans from my last trip to Madagascar. My wife and I both like porters, too (and she loves vanilla porter), so the stars are in alignment for this attempt.

The base recipe is modified from one I found on-line; nothing too fancy, but that’s probably an OK thing. I had thought about riffing from the recipe for last year’s Schoolhouse Porter (which turned out awesome!), but the flavor for that would be just a little too big against vanilla. The hops are all whole hops from my dad’s vines in South Dakota, and I got all of the other ingredients at a new local homebrew shop (Vanguard Home Brewing Supply – much closer than the other options, and an excellent selection of malts, grains, and yeasts).

For those who are curious, “voay” (pronounced “voy”) is Malagasy for “crocodile.” The name was chosen because of the Malagasy origin of the vanilla, in honor of the various fossil crocs I’ve dug up over there, and because it has a nice ring to it!

Vanilla Voay Porter

  • 1/2 pound 40L caramel crystal malt
  • 1/2 pound chocolate malt
  • 1/2 pound cara-pils malt
  • 6 pounds light dry malt extract
  • 1 oz. Cascade hops (whole) for bittering
  • 1 oz. Sterling hops (whole) for bittering
  • 1 vial White Labs California V ale yeast (WLP051)

Steps

  • I heated 3 gallons of water to ~158°, and steeped the grains. After 30 minutes, I sparged them with 1 gallon of water, to fill the brew pot to 4 gallons.
  • I heated the water to boiling (gas stove now!), and turned off the flame. I added the dry malt extract, stirred it until it dissolved, and heated the pot to boiling.
  • Once the pot was boiling, I added the Cascade hops.
  • After 50 minutes, I added the Sterling hops.
  • After 60 minutes, I took out the hops, re-topped the kettle to ~4 gallons, and started cooling with my cooling coil.
  • Once the wort had cooled to around 70°, I put it in the fermenter, topped to 5.5 gallons, and pitched the yeast. The starting gravity is 1.056 – I had started at 5 gallons, but the gravity was just a little too high (1.070).

Schoolhouse Porter

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For the 2010-2011 brewing season, I decided to focus on porters (although I’ll certainly be brewing some other styles, too). So, it seemed appropriate to start off with a batch of just that, courtesy of a kit from Beer, Beer, and More Beer (there happens to be a store within a 45 minute drive of here). This is kit #168, which they title “Brown Porter.” I decided to jazz up the name a little.

Schoolhouse Porter

  • 7 lb. light malt liquid extract
  • 1 lb. English Brown malt
  • 1 lb. Crystal 40L malt
  • 1/2 lb. Chocolate malt
  • 1.5 oz. Vanguard hops (bittering)
  • 1 oz. Cascade hops (aroma)
  • 1 tablet Whirlfloc clarifier
  • 1 packet Safale S-04 dry yeast

Steps

  • I filled my brew pot with three gallons of water (tap temperature), added the malts, and turned on the heat. Following the directions, I left the grains in until the water reached 170 F. This took about 35 minutes. Then, I gently sparged them with about a quart of warm water.
  • I heated the water to boiling, turned off the heat (I’m using an electric stove), and stirred in the liquid malt. Then, I turned the heat back on.
  • Once the wort was boiling again, I added the 1.5 oz. of Vanguard hops.
  • After 55 minutes, I added the Whirlfloc clarifier. Apparently, this stuff is similar in function to Irish moss.
  • After another 4 minutes (59 minutes from the start of the boil), I added the Cascade hops.
  • After an additional one minute of boiling (for 60 minutes total boiling), I removed the pot from the heat and chilled it in an ice bath (my cooling coil was on loan).
  • While waiting for the wort to cool, I hydrated the yeast (as recommended in the directions) in one cup of water.
  • Once the wort had cooled sufficiently, I poured the wort into the fermenter, topped it up to five gallons, and pitched the yeast.
  • The starting gravity was 1.060 (with an estimated original gravity for the kit given as 1.046-1.052; not sure why I got such a high graviry). The wort had a wonderfully rich brown color.
  • This process was all started on 29 December 2010. Because I had to do another batch and only have one primary fermenter, I transferred it to a glass secondary fermenter on 1 January 2011. This was a little sooner than I wanted, but I had to brew while I had the opportunity. After these three days, the s.g. read as 1.026, suggesting ~4.5% alcohol by volume. The beer had maintained the nice brown hue, and also had a great chocolatey taste. I hope this is maintained after settling and bottling! The secondary fermenter continued to bubble steadily for two more days, so I suspect the gravity will drop a little more yet.

All-American Porter Brewed and Bottled

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I brewed up the All-American Porter exactly as outlined in a previous last post. I steeped the grains for around 45 minutes, and gently rinsed them with warm water. In an effort to keep the gravity up, I only filled the primary fermenter to just under 4.5 gallons. Initial gravity was 1.051–the highest of any I’ve brewed to date. I let it ferment in the primary for a week, and then transferred it to the secondary fermenter, where it’s been aging and settling for the last three weeks. The final gravity was 1.014, giving an alcohol content of approximately 5 percent. Definitely the strongest I’ve ever brewed!

This afternoon I bottled it up, with a yield of 42 12-oz. bottles. I was a little worried about the flavor initially, because the wort was pretty bitter. But, the flavor has mellowed out really, really nicely in the intervening weeks. I daresay this may be the best I’ve brewed so far–we’ll have to see how it all carbonates up!

Up Next. . .the All-American Porter

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Tomorrow, I’m thinking about brewing up a porter–on a whim, I’ve named it the “All-American Porter” (in honor of the new president, the upcoming President’s Day holiday, and the fact that I’m going to ignore the British hops in favor of the American ones in my freezer).

Here’s what I’m looking at for a preliminary ingredients list. . .it will likely be updated a bit as I shop around at the local home brew shop:

1/2 pound caramel malt (for steeping; I’ve got some on hand, and need to use it up)
1/2 pound cara-pils malt (for steeping; again, I’ve got some on hand already)
1/2 pound chocolate malt (I’ll have to pick some of this up at the store)
6.6 pounds Briess liquid malt (I’m thinking about 3.3 pounds Golden Light plus 3.3 pounds Sparkling Amber; I’ll see what the local brew store has on hand)
2 oz. Cascade hops (bittering)
1 oz. Saaz (aroma)
The usual Nottingham ale yeast