American Porter - Jan 2016

I wanted to make a true porter, but hadn't does research on a recipe yet.  The Dark Brown beer was my tinkering with a Porter. Then I came across a bottle of Ballast Point Homework Series at Costco.  It was the Robust Porter Homework #6 and I thought it was a perfect situation to make a porter and see how my process by comparing it against the maker's. The first challenge was finding Chocolate Rye.  I couldn't find it at MoreBeer and anywhere I found was out in the MidWest which charged more for the shipping than the grain.  After a more refined search string, I found a place in Santa Cruz that  had it. They charged $5 for shipping, but I figured I’d drive over and my wife wanted a road trip.  So we headed over Hwy 17 and picked it up.  Friendly folk at Brew Organic, I’ll keep them in mind for future grain purchases. Now that I had all the ingredients it was time to brew.  It was my first brew steeping or mashing below 155.  I did a little research why they mashed 148 and kept that in my when for future tasting and brewing. The mash went well, mash tun held temperature well for the hour the recipe.  But I wasn’t thinking forward enough and forgot to start heating the sparge water in time for the 1 hour mark, so it sat an extra 10 mins.  I got a few points higher in OG than the recipe called for.  So I was happy when the brew.  The kettle looked alike a big mug of hot chocolate, which was appropriate given the Chocolate Rye and Malt. Fermentation was the longest I experienced, on day 7, the air lock was still bouncing every 4 seconds. A future recipe I'd like to make some changes.  Less Chocolate Malt to lessen the burnt flavor, maybe more Rye.  Less bittering hops and maybe try to reduce the alcohol content.  Perhaps raise the mash temp to 155 to give it a sweeter taste.