Day 6: Chocolate Coffee Porter by Brian Coffin

[Scott H]

Chocolate Coffee Porter by Brian Coffin

OG: 1.06
FG: 1.019
ABV: 6.2%
IBU: 36
Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons

Recipe:
7.8 lbs English pale LME
1.0 lb Munich LME
1 lb Crystal 40
1 lb Crystal 80
0.75 lbs chocolate malt
0.5 lbs black patent malt

Boil additions
1.25 oz Kent Goldings @ 60 mins
0.8 oz Willamette @ 30 min
0.8 oz Willamette @ 15 min
0.4 oz Kent Goldings @ 0 mins
0.4 oz Willamette @ 0 min
0.5 lbs cocoa powder @ 0 min
3 oz cold brewed coffee concentrate

Yeast
White Labs California Ale yeast (WLBP001)

Used 2.5 liquid yeast packages. Pitched at a higher than recommended temperature. I wanted a smooth beer with low carbonation so I used 3/4 cup priming sugar for conditioning.

Notes from the brewer:
This is a great chocolatey dark beer that was intended to have notes of coffee. I went a little overboard with the coffee in this brew, but I think it still turned out well. I did a partial mash on this recipe for the steeping grains to really bring out their flavors and it turned out really well. I recommend lessening the coffee addition in future batches and think it would also be great with dry hopped cocoa nibs. The trick to making this beer great is to not rush the fermentation stage. Even after the fermentation had ended I let the beer sit on the chocolate sludge for 2 days longer. This recipe was modified from the book Brewing Classic Styles recipe for Chocolate Hazelnut Porter.

[carboywonder]

Brian,

Lot of chocolate coming through on this one, but I'm not getting much coffee. Love the hop character on this one. Perfect bitterness to balance out the sweetness. Only critique is that it was quite cloudy and I had a fair amount of sediment in my bottle. I'm not much of a clarity nut, especially in dark beers, but maybe next time consider racking to secondary for a week if you didn't. You could also consider dropping the cocoa powder boil addition and just racking onto cocoa nibs.

Tasty brew. Thanks.

[Renee]

Bitterness was great on this one, tasted like very dark chocolate. I very much enjoyed it.

[antonia]

I think is tasty. For me, I don't think there's too much coffee (actually, there's very little - but it may be what's giving this that roastiness).

Nicely done.

Did you add the cold brew concentrate at flameout?

[Chris Creech]

The chocolate definitely comes through in this one! I would personally dial back the hops a bit. There isn't a ton of coffee flavor, but it's there. It was an oddly cloudy, yeasty pour with tons of yeast at the bottom of the bottle. But it didn't seem to affect the flavor at all. Overall, I think it was quite good. Definitely an American porter/stout with the increased hops and bitterness, but not too overpowering. Good work!

[spidermonk]

Very chocolately, oddly my wife and I both noticed a slight metallic after taste with our first drinks, but then it went away. Maybe its the coffee coming through or just that I"m not used to chocolate in a beer. Overall very good beer that I really enjoyed.

[Scott H]

I liked this beer a lot! I could definitely taste the coffee but it wasn't overwhelming. Overall an excellent cold-weather stout (too bad it's around 70 degrees outside now).

How did you happen to choose the California Ale yeast? Is that a yeast you've used before? The only thing I might change about this beer is the high amount of black patent. It's potent stuff and that much left my mouth a little exhausted by the end. I think dialing that back to 0.25 lbs would be a nice touch.

Excellent beer, this is one that I'd buy off the shelf any day.

[klinger]

Day late on this one, but glad I could savor it today. Lots of chocolate and just a bit of coffee. Fairly dry finish -- to me right on the boarder between a stout and porter. Thanks -- I enjoyed this beer.

btw, there were huge chunks of stuff in the bottom of the bottle, but I left it there when pouring to a glass. Very, very chunky when rinsing the glass out. I appreciate the heads up on this.

[bryan]

Had a good time with this one. Like others I had a ton of sediment in my bottle, but no worries there.

I actually felt like I got a lot of coffee flavor from it, although that could easily be the combination of the coffee and Black Patent. Nothing terribly astringent, but my tongue was a little taxes at the end. It's be a fun beer for a nightcap or if the occasion calls for it, breakfast.

Not too much chocolate, but I think a everything blended together fairly well to still highlight all the pieces it seems wou want to.

Thanks for sharing this with us!

[Heiko R.]

This was the perfect beer after a run in the cold/rain. Nice and robust, good blend of coffee/chocolate, very enjoyable. Thank you for sharing!

[mavus]

Sorry for posting so late, I got behind on the calendar due to the flu. I enjoyed this beer, great roast and the chocolate came through nicely. I agree that there could have been more coffee. When I make my coffee porter I boil 4oz at 15 minutes and then I cold brew another 3 or 4 oz and rack on top of that into the keg or bottling bucket. Cold brewing is great because you don't get the bitterness of boiling it so it doesn't become overly bitter so I like that you went that route. Thanks for the beer!
--Jesse