Brew 14 - Alice Porter Revisited

Brew 14 - Alice Porter Revisited 


Brew day: 28/11/2020

Bottle day: 21/12/2020









Brew day beckons again and this time I'm revisiting my first ever all grain brew - Alice Porter. A superb Brewdog recipe that I tried in Edinburgh last year. I love a porter at this time of year so a good chance to brew a slightly bigger batch before Christmas. 

Slight variations to the recipe - no Magnum hops so Northern Brewer go in as a bittering hop and then East Kent Goldings before a dash of Soraci Ace at the end. Nice!


New mash method working well and first batch pre boil gravity is 1.038 (potentially 80% efficiency... watch this space). Temperature control is so much better with the hob and stirring the mash regularly to distribute the heat. The first batch seems to have most of the darker malts and the wort is seriously dark. Need to think about how I can distribute the malts from the bag between batches. 


2nd batch is looking good - perhaps a little lighter, the balance of malts seems to be ok. Mixing the batches into 2 kettles to achieve a consistent wort - now for the boil. 


Original gravity comes out at 1.044 post boil. 


Not quite at target FG on 12/12/20 - stuck at 1.014 so a drastic decision to add more fermentables is made... 165g of brown sugar (all I had) into 500ml of water. Bringing the Gravity up to 1.020 so adding 0.006 to my OG and now to wait for the yeast to work. Hopefully ready to bottle at the weekend. 

Having real difficulties with 2 batches at the moment, I think the cold weather really had a lot to play in the stuck fermentations so going to look into some temperature control in the new year. Every brew is a learning curve. 

Finally got the gravity to a decent level on 21/12/20. The brew is a little thing but strong roasty, coffee flavours pushing through and definite vanilla. The beer is now bottled and now to wait for a little conditioning before a real taste. 

Taste update: The brew is conditioning very nicely. Lacking fizz but overall the choco-coffee flavour is strong and there is a definite vanilla aftertaste from the Sorachi Ace hop. Very happy with the outcome of this despite the stuck fermentation. Needs a little while longer to fully condition but this is another great result. 






Notes
Malts: Extra Pale, Munich Type I, Carafa I, Crystal Light, Special W, Torrified Wheat, Flaked Torrified Oats
Hops: Northern Brewer, East Kent Goldings, Sorachi Ace.
OG: 1.044
Gravity on 07/12/2020: 1.018
Gravity on 09/12/2020: 1.014
Revisied OG (after late addition on 12/12/20): 1.050
Gravity on 16/12/20: 1.016
Gravity on 17/12/20: 1.016
Final Gravity: 1.014
ABV: 4.7%
Batch size: 4 gallons
Final batch size: 32 x 500ml bottles

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