Last saturday I brewed for the first time since February, I know, it's been a busy summer. We (My hopbonkle Brewing partners John and Steve and I) decided to brew a porter using the recipe we have employed to the toasts of a few parties, but with a twist.
We did a full grain single temperature infusion mash with 11lbs of two row brown, 1.5 lbs of crystal malt and 1 lb of chocolate malt. We had a 90 minute mash and a 90 minute boil with Cascade hop pellets for the bittering hops and willamette hops for the aroma. (I like to use hops from the northwest in keeping with my northwest heritage as a fifth generation Oregonian).
We use a london ale yeast from Wyeast, and here comes the twist, we added some dried sweet orange peel and a cinnamon stick to the end of the boil. We also added 1 lb of brown sugar to the last five minutes of the boil. I find the brown sugar adds to the fermentable sugars, a touch of sweetness to the finish of the beer, and a good mouth feel to the porter.
I hope the cinnamon stick and orange add a good flavor, we haven't tried much flavoring of beers yet. We dubbed this incarnation of our porter the Thanksgiving porter and hope it turns out well.
Add 5 more gallons to the tally...