Belgian Porter 4/23/11

Everyone was in the midst of intensive academic work, but we managed to take a day to brew two beers. The first was a Belgian porter. We used the same yeast blend that we had for the Ram's Head (Belgian Amber), but used a malt bill characteristic of an English brown porter. It will be interesting to see how it compares to a traditional dark Belgian (dubbel, dark strong, etc.).

Batch size: 5 gallons

Boil Volume: 3 gallons

Calculated OG: 1.070

Measured FG: 1.020

Estimated ABV: 6.5

Calculated IBUs (Tinseth): 28

Pitching Temperature: 74

Yeast: WLP575 (Belgian Ale Blend)

Fermentation vessel: Better Bottle

Malts		Amount	%	Max Pts.	Color
Extra Pale DME		7	74%	56.00	1.25
Crystal 40		0.5	5%	34.00	40.00
Chocolate		1	11%	28.00	350.00
Pale Chocolate		1	11%	28.00	225.00

Hops/Additions		Amount	Time	AA%	IBU's
Horizon		1	60	9.1%	27.74

Less attenuated than we planned. This is the second time this yeast blend has underperformed (previously Ram's Head). Nevertheless, in terms of flavor, this beer turned out almost exactly as we imagined. Both chocolate and Belgian phenolic flavors are strongly present, and the two complement each other well. It tastes a lot like a Belgian dark, but with all of the dark fruit flavors replaced by chocolate flavors. We might have to re-brew this.