Peanut Butter Porter Try 2

This was an excellent beer - the nose and aftertaste were full of peanut butter, while the taste and feel was all porter. There were some odd flavors which I attribute to my having to use an Oktoberfest lager yeast instead of an ale yeast (not something I recommend), but overall I'd say this recipe is a good basis for making your own peanut butter porter.

Ingredients:
8lbs 2-row malt
1lb Crystal 60L
8oz Black Malt
10oz Chocolate Malt
4oz Roast Barley
(To make an extract version, replace the 2-row with 4-5lbs of pale liquid malt)

2oz Fuggle Hop Pellets AA 4.4% (about 9 HBUs)
6oz de-oiled peanut butter (see the bottom)

Do an infusion mash at 154 for 60 minutes, raise to 170 to end enzyme conversion and sparge the grain.

Boil for 60 minutes.
Add 1oz Fuggle and 4oz de-oiled peanut butter at the start of the boil.

Add 1/2oz Fuggle and 2oz peanut butter at 30 minutes

Add 1/2oz Fuggle and Irish Moss after 45 minutes

Cool and transfer to a fermenter for a week.

My ale yeast died on me so I ended up using Oktoberfest lager at ale temperatures - this worked surprisingly well, but I wouldn't recommend it. Any regular ale yeast should work fine for this.

Rack to a secondary; be careful not to rack any oil that may have floated to the top of the beer. Leave in the secondary 5-7 days, re-rack ever 2 days after that until you no longer have oil on the surface (you shouldn't have an oil after the first rack, but it depends on how good a job you did de-oiling the peanut butter).

Prime and bottle or keg. Let condition at least 2 weeks before serving.

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De-oiling peanut butter

Buy a jar of natural peanut butter (the kind without stabilizers that has an inch of oil floating on top).

Poor out the oil and leave the jar on its side on a counter. Every day or 2 open the jar and poor out the oil that has collected, and stir the peanut butter together.

After 5-6 weeks the peanut butter should be very crumbly and oil will no longer be rising out. That's when it's ready to use.

Improved Spiced Cider

I tweaked my spiced cider recipe from last year and it's even better now. It's got a wonderful apple flavor with a good balance of spices and some residual sweetness. It only takes about 2 hours from start to finish and there’s just enough time to make this for the holiday season, so get brewing.

Women will flock to your house to drink this - it is the perfect beverage to serve the beer hating women in your life.

5 Gallons of Sweet Cider
10 Stick of Cinnamon
1 tps cloves whole
1 tps nutmeg powder
1 tbs all spice whole
8oz light brown sugar
8oz honey

Throw everything into a big pot and heat to 170 degrees. It is important not to go over 175 or your cider will end up cloudy.

Hold the cider at 170 for about 10 minutes, turn off the heat, and bring the temperature down to 75 for pitching.

Strain out the Cinnamon and other undissolved spices and put into a fermenter.

Pitch with White Labs Cider Yeast.

Wait a week, rack to a secondary. Wait 2-3 more weeks, bottle or keg with table sugar as a primer (to keep the cider gluten free). I recommend a high carbonation level with this one, the residual sweetness and high carbonation will give the cider something of a champaign feel. Let it condition for 2-3 weeks and serve.

Peanut Butter Porter was a hit

My peanut butter porter was a hit at brewtopia. Despite some connoisseurs noting the presence of sulfer (a side affect of lager yeast fermenting at a very warm 68-70), the whole batch was gone in 2 hours. We had to disappoint dozens of people who came over to us specifically looking for the peanut butter porter.

While I'm certain the popularity was due entirely to the rarity of a genuine Sleezy Sherm product being offered to the public, there might also be some lessons there for the other brewtopia participants.

Brewtopia is a general beer festival, and as I wandered around I realized that I have had over 2/3rds of the 300 beers being served. Blue moon is a nice wit, and Chimey is always excellent, but I didn't stop at their booths because I've had them before and their products are easily available in New York when I want them again. Even breweries like Rouge and Dogfish Head didn't bring anything that wasn't available in my supermarket.

So, some small part of the success of the porter, and the other homebrewer's beers might have been because we were unique. There were no other peanut butter beers, no other lemongrass beers, and no other spruce beers (even though I know Rouge makes one). The beer festival circuit in Boston is theme based - Belgian Beer Fest, Extreme Beer Fest, and American Beer Fest which provides more focus. As Brewtopia grows and expands I suspect the New York festivals will also become more focused.

Anyway, a good time - if you missed it, you should make sure to go to the next one in April and support New York beer festivals.

I'll post the improved peanut butter porter recipe in a bit.

Thank you Brooklyn Brewery!

Last week Brooklyn Brewery held a launch party of sorts for their new beer trivia game. I went because 3 hours of all I can drink Brooklyn Monster (barely wine), Black Chocolate Stout (Russian Imperial Stout), and Christmas Ale for $25 was a research opportunity I couldn't pass up.

Really, I was doing research - I wanted to learn...uhm...stuff...about...things...

Anyway, the important thing is that I was not going just to drink cheap!

So, given that they were launching a trivia game, they had a beer trivia contest. I won 4 cases of beer (and won a case, 2 glasses, a hat and a t-shirt for my friend).

The moral of this story? I think it's that Brooklyn Brewery makes some good beer, they have good events, and when the greatest non-existent brewery in the city suckers the biggest brewery in the city out of beer, they pay up.