Homebrew Recipe: The Great Thanksgiving Porter

The Great Thanksgiving Porter

Thanksgiving at the Hacksaw Household. Expecting 17 people total with 10 of them likely to be consuming some beer I vowed to have 2 dedicated kegs for this grand event. It was the big unveiling of many of our projects and a time to show off my beer cave and home brewing expertise. Several family members had suggested a nice smooth porter and I tried to craft this recipe to fit that bill. As an indicator of this beer’s success – let me just share that the full 5 gallons were gone before the weekend was over. A keg kicking is sometimes sad, but other times it is satisfying to know people enjoyed the brew. This was the latter without a doubt.

Recipe

Grain Bill

11 lb 2-Row Pale Malt

1 lb Crystal 60L

1 lb Aromatic

1/2 lb Chocolate

1/2 lb Roasted Barley

½ lb Special B

¼ lb Black Patent

Hop Schedule

(60) 1 oz Centennial

(30) 1 oz EK Goldings

Yeast – SafeAle US-05

Boil Volume – 6.5 gallons

Fermentor Volume – 5.5 gallons

OG- 1.056

FG-1.008

ABV- 6.3%

Procedure: Straightforward all grain brewing with 3.75 gallons used for the mash and then batch sparged to achieve 6.5 gallons total. The sparging temp didn’t quite break 165F which hurt efficiency just a little. Followed hop schedule during the boil as normal. Had a leak in my wort chiller during the cooling process that added about a quarter of a gallon of water landing me at 5.5 fermentor volume instead of a typical 5.25 or less.

Fermentation/ Packaging – Sat in primary for about 3 weeks and then went straight to the keg. Force carbed at 30 PSI for 2 days and then backed off pressure. Had to get it ready for everyone’s arrival!

Tasting Notes – An excellent smooth yet full bodied porter. Slightly on the edge of a robust porter but lacking in the darker malt category to really achieve that. This is certainly more than a brown ale with its color yet it isn’t completely dark and opaque like some porters.

Improvement/Tweak Ideas – Obviously I’d keep the worth chiller from adding water at the end – but that’s a no-brainer. The black and chocolate malts could be upped by a ¼ or an 1/8 of a pound if a more robust and even darker beer is desired. Would be interesting to tweak those slightly or possibly add more roasted or special B to the mix. This is an excellent starting point for any porter recipe.