Brew #4

After the last attempt at a lighter, refreshing beer for the summer (see Wallen's Wit and our good looks), I'm turning towards the dark side tomorrow. I'll be whipping up an oatmeal wheat porter with the aid of my friend and old roommate Tim and beer guy Sean. The recipe is from the book, "Radical Brewing", which I highly recommend. It's about a 50/50 mix of wheat malt and 6-row, with smaller amounts of some crystal, black and oatmeal. only about 2 oz of hops in this one, with a 90 minute boil, and i decided to go with white labs irish ale yeast. In honor of both Sean and my spouses, who are big porter fans, this will be called the "Ball and Chain Porter".

Cheers,
Andy

*UPDATE*
Brew day was great. a little hot in the sun at times, but we were able to hide in the shade or inside whenever we needed to. Tim showed up at 11 and after I gave him a quick rundown of what we would be doing, we fired up the burner and started heating water for the mash-in. Sean and ryan showed up just as we were getting ready to start dumping in the grains, so they all pitched in there and we were off... the brewing process went pretty well and sean cooked up his famous kielbasa and Riss got some corn on the cob ready and we all had an excellent lunch. Then we got ready to drain off the wort and pitch the yeast. That's where adventure began... First, we missed the OG by more than I'd like. So instead of the targeted 6.5% abv, it'll probably be more like 5-5.5%. Oh well. I think I know why. During the vorlaf (sp?) we got a really nice, clean flow of wort. Good thing. Then we drained it into the kettle. Sean noted that it was going faster than usual. Good thing. Not. I should have remembered that the faster you flow, the less sugar you get with the wort. I think I rushed this step, and that's why I missed the OG. Good eye, beer guy Sean. Then, we went to pitch the yeast and disaster struck! I had left my bottle of White Labs in the kitchen for about 4 hrs (it says 3-6) and after giving it a good shaking, as soon as I cracked the seal, yeast started foaming out all over the place. Not good. It was almost 4:30. I was sure Woburn's Beer-Wine store closed at noon on saturdays. I was wrong! We checked online and found that they were open til 5pm. We all lept into the Beer Guy Jetta and Sean flew us to Woburn, arriving at 10 of 5. I grabbed a pack of Wyeast this time, we went home and pitched it. It is now happily bubbling away in the basement... During the day, we also got to share a few beers, I opened a couple bottles of the Wit, an Angry Ogre, we shared a Maharaja IPA and we tried Founders Devil Dancer. I was really happy with the Wit. That turned out the best so far! The Ogre was good and Maharaja was fantastic! Devil Dancer was wretched, but that's a story for another post...