The Maple Porter I brewed on September 14 is still in primary fermentation and will stay there until Saturday. Usually I would keep a beer in the fermentation bucket for just a week, but because this one had such a high specific gravity after the boil I think the extra week will better for it.
Plus, Mike is away in Colorado this week and I can’t get to it since it’s locked away in his garage…so it’s not like I have a choice.
The maple porter is fermenting nicely. The air lock is clacking like a freight train.
Last night Mike and I brewed up my maple porter recipe.
Here is a photo of the half gallon maple syrup jug from Morse Farms:
I told Mike that it tasted so hearty that it would put hair on your chest…and back. When I poured in the maple syrup, I stirred the brew so it wouldn’t scorch on the bottom. Unfortunately, the ring that held the cap on the jug fell into the pot and I didn’t notice until after I shut down the flame. Oops. Mmmm Plastic-y.
Here’s a photo of the wort chiller cooling down the brew for fermentation:
After the boil was done, we took a measurement of the sugar content of the wort known as the specific or in this case the starting gravity. Mike has a refractometer so it made this measurement very easy. My starting gravity was a little higher than I thought it was going to be. I got a reading on 1.080. Water has a starting gravity of 1.000. Most beers have starting gravities in the 1.040 range. It’s gonna be a big beer in terms of alcohol content if my yeast do their thing correctly.
I did make a yeast starter the night before. I boiled 4 ounces (by weight) of dry malt extract in 48 ounces (by volume) of water for 15 minutes. I let it cool to around 70 degrees and I pitched my British Ale yeast into my large, growler sized bottle.
I pitched the whole bottle when we got the wort to 75 degrees…so I am hoping that I have a large enough yeast army to attack this maple porter.
Since I couldn’t find what I was looking for in my local megamart, I found a nice Vermont farm online that sells Grade B Maple Syrup: http://www.morsefarm.com/
When I think maple syrup, I think Vermont. I think I picked a good place.
The ordering process was very easy. I selected the cheapest shipping options they offered. I hope to get the syrup by next week so I can brewing soon.
We’ve got competitions to enter!
With Mike posting the recipes of the beers he is going to brew this weekend, here is my autumn brew for 2007. I am bringing back the extract, baby, yeah! So all you beginners can follow along with me.
Maple Porter
Ingredients:
5.5 lbs Light Dry Malt Extract
1.5 lbs Crystal Malt (60 degrees lovibond)
1/2 lbs Black Patent Malt
64 oz Grade B Maple Syrup
2.5 oz Styrian Golding Hop Pellets
Step By Step
I will crush the Crystal and Black Patent malts and put them into a steeping bag. Since I have a kettle that can handle a full 6 gallon boil, I will let them steep in that volume of water. (If you just have a big pot, let them steep in 1.5 gallons of water or whatever you can handle on your stove top). To steep, I’ll place the bag of grains into the water and heat it up to 170 degrees. Once it hits that temperature, I will take the bag out and hold it over the kettle until all the liquid has flowed out of the bag. I won’t squeeze the bag or force liquid out of it in any way because everything I have ever read has told me not to do that for fear of yucky flavors in my beer. No squeezing! No tannins!
I guess tannin flavor is bad in beer.
Once the bag is out, I’ll be turning up the heat and bringing the liquid to a boil. After the boil is reached, I will add all of my Light Dry Malt Extract and 1 ounce of my hop pellets. These additions will kill my boil (wah), so I will wait until it comes up for a boil again. When the boil comes back, I will set my stop watch. I want to get a rolling boil going for 60 minutes.
At the 30 minute mark, I will add 1 more ounce of my hop pellets.
At 15 minutes left to go, I will add the last bit of my hop pellets and all of the maple syrup.
When the hour is up, I will kill the heat and cool down the wort to fermentation temperatures…around 70 degrees.
I will transfer the wort to my fermentor and then add my yeast.
Thoughts
I like porters. I like maple syrup. I have never had a maple porter before, but something about it shouts “Autumn in New England” with the maple leaves changing colors and the crisp air blowing through them.
I chose Grade B maple syrup because:
So, I am trying to get the most maple flavor for my buck. All the beer recipe calculators were thrown off by my maple syrup addition, so I backed off the malt extract a bit. I am hoping that the maple syrup gives me enough fermentable sugars to compensate for the reduced malt amount. (I would normally have at least 6 pounds of malt extract in a recipe.)
The hops I chose used often in the Porters. They are produced in Slovenia…so a little variation on the theme of this English style ale. I am hoping the amount will balance out the sweetness of the malts and syrup.
The yeast strain I chose for this recipe I used before for a Porter I made two years ago and I was happy with the results. It made for a beer with a nice, soft finish.
Not sure how this beer is going to taste and Mike doesn’t like maple, so I might get stuck with a lot of bad beer. Here’s to being optimistic! I hope to brew this beer some time in September.
See comments (#4) for updates to this recipe.
