Brew #28, Bourbon Barrel Porter 2, September 5, 2015

Here's another repeat where I brewed the all grain version of a beer I had previously brewed an extract kit.  I planned this one in conjunction with brew #30 to make good use of some bourbon-soaked oak chips.  I'll get into that in the secondary section.  This is once again based on the recipe posted from Northern Brewer, with ingredients purchased from Bailee's.  There is a tweak here and there based on ingredient availability.

Recipe
Batch Size Target (Actual): 5 gal (5 gal)
OG Target (Actual): 1.064 (1.066)
FG Target (Actual) : 1.016 (1.018)
Brew House Efficiency Target (Actual) : 69% (72%)
IBUs: 55
Color: 47.3 SRM
Style: Robust Porter
Recipe Type: All Grain
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Water:
Carbon filtered York water

Grains:
9.5 lb Maris Otter
1 lb Chocolate Malt
1 lb White Wheat Malt
0.50 lb Black (patent) Malt
0.50 lb Caramel 80L

Hops:
1 oz Chinook (pellets) @ 60 min.
1/2 oz East Kent Goldings (pellets) @ 15 min.
1/2 oz East Kent Goldings (pellets) @ 5 min.

Other:
2oz oak chips (medium toast)
2 cups bourbon (I used Maker's Mark)

Yeast:
WLP028 Edinburgh Ale Yeast

Brewing Notes

9/2/15 - Yeast Starter:
1.5L starter.  With the ambient temperature in my house on the warm side, I had been having some troubles with my 2L starters spilling over the top of my 2 L flask, so with this one I threw the kitchen sink at it.  I used 6 cups of water, 6oz extra light DME, 1/2tsp yeast nutrient, boiled 10 minutes and chilled. Then I added 2 drops of fermcap and I used a foam stopper. I set this on my stir plate on low until brew day.

9/5/15 - Brew Day:

• Sanitized (star san) my cold side equipment in the big mouth bubbler primary.
• Heated 17.62 quarts of water with pH 5.2 to 165 F in 8 gallon stainless HLT on outdoor propane burner.
• Mashed in in 10 gal Igloo cooler, paddled until everything was well mixed and there were no dough balls.  Mash in temp was 154F
• 60 minute mash rest
• 0 minutes: temperature was 154F
• 15 minutes: paddled, temperature was 152-153F
• 30 minutes: paddled, temperature was 152F
• 60 minutes, began vorlauf
• Manual Vorlauf: I run a 2 cup measuring cup full of wort out of the valve and gently pour this on top of the mash.  Then I repeat until I'm satisfied with the clarity.  This takes about 10-15 minutes.
• Ran off and fly sparged with 15.25 quarts of 200F water.
• Ran until the mash tun was dry, about 30 minutes.  Took a pre-boil Refractometer reading of 12% Brix>1.047 - about 5 points below target per beersmith.
• Brought to boil - 60 minute boil time
• Added:
  1 oz Chinook (pellets) @ 60 min.
  1/2 oz East Kent Goldings (pellets) @ 15 min.
  1/2 oz East Kent Goldings (pellets) @ 5 min.
• Chilled to 76F - Immersion wort chiller to 120, then ice bath the rest of the way.
• Siphoned to BMB
• Took an OG reading of 1.064, corrected to 1.066 (above target, so I know my boil-off rate in beersmith was too low - adjusted for future brews)
• Took a Brix reading of 16.4%>1.066, so I'm happy with my calibration so far.
• Pitched entire yeast starter

9/5 - 9/22/15 - Primary Fermentation:

Siphoned to Secondary on 9/22.  Gravity was 1.018 by the hydrometer, and 9.2% brix by the refractometer, which calculated to 1.018.  Still happy with my calibration.  Because of the addition of bourbon in the secondary, I need to use this as my FG reading.

9/22 - 11/3/15 - Secondary Fermentation:
On 10/14, I started soaking 4 oz of medium toast oak chips in about 2.5 cups of makers mark. on 10/18 I added all of the bourbon to this beer and half of the chips (which weighed significantly more now).  I like cubes much better, the chips stick to each other and are tough to get into the carboy without making a mess.  I put the other half of the chips in the bottom of a second glass carboy, which I racked #30 on top of that day.

11/3/2015 - Bottling:
Bottled 51 12 oz bottles with with 4.6 oz corn sugar, boiled in 2c water.  Final Gravity was not measured because of the addition of the bourbon.  I took the 6.3% from when I racked to the secondary and added 0.5% for the bourbon to get 6.8%.

11/25/2015 - First Taste:
Fully carbonated, but at this time the bourbon and oak flavors are overpowering.  This beer truly benefits from at least a couple of months of aging.  Next time I drink one, I'll post a better description of taste.