Proof that Dinosaurs and Humans Coexisted

If humans and dinosaurs did not coexist, then who built this train:

Q. E. D.

Strong, Mostly Grain Porter

I am a big fan of Porter.  My previous batch of The President's Porter came out well.  I decided that I would make a regular Porter.  I am interested in moving into all-grain brewing, but I also had some malt extract from an old brewing kit that I wanted to use.  So I decided to make a mostly all-grain porter with the exception that  I would use up the remainder of the extract I had.  I adjusted the amount of grains I used using the an extract to grain conversion.

Ingredients

• 19.4 oz blonde malt extract from an old brewing kit (I thought I'd use it up.)
• 7 lbs cracked American 2-row (Klages) malt
• 1 lbs cracked Munich malt
• 1 lbs cracked crystal malt 120
• 1/2 lbs cracked black patent malt
• 1/2 lbs cracked English chocolate malt
• 1/2 lbs cracked, roasted barley
• 1 oz German northern brewer hops
• 1 oz German Tettnang hops 
• 3/4 cup dextrose
• 0.388 oz. Nottingham Dry Yeast
• 2.5 tsp diammonium phosphate
• 1 tsp Crosby & Baker yeast energizer
• 2 tsp gypsum
• 5-6 gallons Reverse Osmosis purified water
• 27 lbs ice

The President's Porter

In a previous post, I described the last batch of beer I made. It's time to start a new batch. As the Whitehouse recently released their recipe for a honey porter, I thought I start there. I also changed some of my methodology to correct some of the problems I encountered in my last batch.

The recipe I used is based upon the Whitehouse recipe. My local brew store was out of Nottingham yeast; so I am used Windsor yeast. I used a local organic honey instead of Whitehouse honey. I used 9.6 HBU of bittering hops instead og 10 HBU, and 1 oz. or aromatic hops instead of 1/2 oz., because the quantities are more convenient, and a little more aromatic hops never hurt anyone. I  used diammonium phosphate as a yeast nutrient, and gypsum for flavor. Also, I will use a process that is somewhat modified from the Whitehouse process that I will describe here. 

Amateur Summer Amber

I've brewed beer a few times, but I have not done so in quite some time. In the past, I have not kept very detailed notes about the beer I've made. This time I decided to do so, and as long as I was keeping notes, I thought it would be fun to blog about it.

I am far from an expert when it comes to brewing; so I decided to keep it simple by brewing a pure extract beer. I did create my own recipe, but it is very similar to recipes in a couple of my references below.