Batch 6: Papa Bear Porter: Ingredients/Brewing Day

Here is the program:

1. Boil 1.5 gallons of water, and set aside to cool.
2. Steep 1/2 lb. crystal 60L malt, 1/2 lb. chocolate malt, and 1/4 lb. black malt in 2 gallons of water at 160º ±10º for 30 minutes.
3. Bring tea to boil until break (approx. 20 minutes).
4. Chill tea in ice bath in sink to 80º. (I like to add salt to the bath to lower the temperature.)
5. Put tea in sanitized brew pail, and set aside.
6. Add 3.3 lb. of pale LME to 3 gallons of warm water, and stir till dissolved.
7. Bring to boil until break (approx. 20 minutes).
8. Hop.
1. 0.5 oz. Magnum hops T-60 minutes.
2. 0.8 oz. Willamette hops T-40 minutes.
3. 0.5 oz. Willamette hops T-20 minutes.
9. Add 6.6 lb. of pale LME at knockout, and let stand for 10 minutes. (Whereas I would usually try to rinse all of the LME from the plastic containers, I was sure to leave plenty of LME behind since I didn't really want an entire 9.9 lb. of fermentables in the wort.)
10. Chill wort in ice bath to 80º.
11. Add wort to tea in brew pail, and add cooled boiled water to just over 5 gallon-mark (or approx. 3 inches from top of pail).
12. Measure original gravity.
13. Let wort cool to 70º.
14. Aerate the wort by pouring back and forth between sanitized pails.
15. Pitch two packets of Wyeast American Ale Yeast (#1056).

I forgot to measure the original gravity, but the previous batch ended up being 1.067 so I'm going to go with that. I'm using a "swamp cooler" this time to keep the temperature of the beer between 60º and 72º during fermentation. I'm simply immersing the brew pail in ice water in a storage container. As the ice melts, I'll keep an eye on the temperature and swap 2L bottles of frozen water as needed. I plan to let this ferment for about two weeks before racking for secondary fermentation in a glass carboy. I'm going to try adding a vanilla bean or two to the secondary.

total cost of ingredients  = $68.41
estimated cost per bottle = $ 1.37