I just started doing this, and maybe I got a little excited out of the gates. Starting off with the bourbon barrel porter-I do love a heavy dark beer, particularly in the winter…
So I got confused with the DRY malt extract and the DARK malt extract syrup, and both of the “DME” went into the pot at the same time.
The syrup was supposed to be added with 15 minutes left instead it was in there for 60. I’m wondering if I destroyed the batch already.
What can I expect out of this mistake? Everything else went without a hitch.
Pitch the right amount of yeast for this big beer and control the fermentation temperature. You will have your Bourbon Barrel Porter.
You didn’t ruin it. By adding the full amount of extract at the beginning of the boil your porter will be a little darker than if you added half near the end of the boil. The darkening is called the Maillard Reaction. Sugar and heat equals a darker color just like toasted bread. IBUs could be about 10% lower because of the higher OG wort at the beginning of the boil. The high OG wort will reduce the isomerization of hop oils. You may not even notice the lower IBU though unless you brew this one again while you still have a few bottles of the first brew left.
Yeah @flars makes good points here and is right on. Just means your cooking your “sugar” longer, so it will carmelize. The only way you could have ruined it is if you scortched your wort during the boil and left some burned sugar flavors in the beer. If you did then you would have noticed some black marks on the bottom of your boil kettle when you cleaned it up.
I love the burbon barrel porter, you will be happy with it. Be sure to soak your cubes in your bourbon before you add to secondary. I heard of some people who sterlized them with steam, but this will reduce the amount of oak flavoring you’ll get in the secondary.
No scorching for sure. I stayed on top of it for the duration. I’m of the opinion that frequent motion keeps the consistency throughout the process. Bottom of the pot looked nice at the end too.
I didn’t do any gravity testing. Just following directions best I could for first go round. I’m sure I’ll get more into the science of it once Im comfortable making a palatable batch of… Anything!
At 24 hr mark now and took a peek into the closet. Yeast seems to be doing its thing, and air is bubbling through the tube into the adjacent bucket of sterilizing solution. Looking good so far.
The Original Gravity will be the OG of the recipe if you used all the fermentables and the volume in the fermentor was correct.
Now one of the ways to kill al brew is to let the fermentation get to hot. The fermenting beer will always be at a higher temperature than the ambient temperature. The higher the ambient, the more active the fermentation, the greater the temperature increase. Having the fermentor in a tub of water can reduce the temperature increase.
Which yeast did you use? What is the temperature range of the yeast? Most American ale yeasts produce the best beer near the bottom of the yeasts temperature range.
I think I just emailed you back directly. Sorry bout that. The yeast was Danstar Windsor Ale, with a temp range of 64-70F, and the room its in is on the low end of that scale, if its even that warm in there. Its a cold kitchen at the moment.
You could have a long lag time if the temperature of the beer is at 60°F. Do you have a stick on thermometer strip to track the temperature of the fermentation? With an OG of 1.065 the fermentation may rise 3° to 4° with an ambient of 60°. I would move it to a warmer area after the first two days of active fermentation. Windsor ferments quickly and may finish with a high FG if too cool.
The beer will have a sweet taste if the FG is abnormally high for the recipe. I just had a Caribou Slobber finish at 1.019 with Windsor Ale yeast. It tasted way to sweet to even be saved by carbonation and aging. I pitched some WY 1056 at high krausen to restart a fermentation. It is now has a FG of 1.011. This is where CS usually finishes for me with WY 1332…
Your fermentation temperature is good. Keep the temp constant. The fermentor in a tub or high tray of water will help buffer temperature swings.
