Mein Porter
It’s been a month and a half since my last post, so I guess it’s about time to update. That porter I brewed went completely insane with the fermenting about 24 hours after I racked and pitched. I had to make an emergency trip to the homebrew supply store for a thicker bit of vinyl tubing to make the first blowback tube I’ve used since I bought the 6.5 gallon carboy. Until then, I’d been changing the air lock every three to five hours to prevent a fountain of beer all over my room and computer.
Once everything calmed down and I was able to replace the blowback tube with an airlock, we had a cold spell. Our apartment has no insulation and we use no heater, so it was getting down to 48 degrees Fahrenheit at night, and only up to the mid-50s. And of course, them durn Belgian yeasts love the heat. When I racked to secondary a couple weeks after the brew day, it’d fermented down to about 1.020, much higher than it could with all that candi sugar and 2-row, so I made me another trip out to the homebrew supply store and bought a little plastic doohicky connected to a couple wires that merge and plug into the wall to provide heat. No thermostat or timer, unfortunately, as we’ll see in a minute.
I applied the heater to the carboy, and within a few hours, the temperature was up to 68 degrees Fahrenheit (from 52 or so). Not long after, obvious signs of fermentation showed up (shit moving around in the wort - it’s either wort sharks or the yeast has rised again).
Within a couple days, I’m sure, fermentation was over, but I couldn’t do it right and bottle, and I ended up leaving the heater on when I went in to work. Eight hours later, I came back home. A couple hours after that, with a guest over, no less, walking past the lagering room/phone niche (lagering used here purely to mean “aging” - no refrigeration implied), I thought to myself “how’s thet beer doin’?” Immediately after that, I realized I had no memory of unplugging the frickin’ heater from the carboy, and sure enough, the carboy was nice and warm to the touch, and bubbles were streaming up from the bottom of the beer in a way I can only describe as desperate and frightened. I quickly sanitized a thermometer and checked the temperature. 102 degrees Fahrenheit. A google search revealed that brewing yeast dies around 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Awesome. I took a sample and let it cool down, checked the gravity - 1.010 or thereabouts. Well, at least the fermentation was over when I brutally massacred the yeast. Strangely enough, the “porter” doesn’t taste bad. More like a brown ale with Belgian yeast flavors, also a subtle smokiness imparted by the rauch malt. Hops are prevalent, but not overpowering.
It’s been sitting there, waiting for me to bottle it, now, for about two weeks. I’m a little worried about it, as there is still a stream of small bubbles coming up from the bottom, and a bit of foam at the top. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the yeast didn’t completely die off, but I’m not taking any chances - I’ll be pitching a vial when I bottle, which I’ll hopefully be doing this weekend. Should be around 5% ABV.
Next up, my first real all-grain brew (a copper) with my new 8 gallon brew kettle and immersion chiller. Multiple minor disasters, including a lag time so horrifying you’d think it was a fiction written by Lovecraft in his middle era. You’ll be stoked.