It just so happened that we brewed yesterday on the 30th anniversary of the AHA. Isn’t that fitting?

For my first stab at recipe writing, I wanted to tackle a style I readily enjoy as well as a style we haven’t brewed yet. I chose a robust porter base, and gussied it up with chocolate and raspberries. This baby is going to be a dessert beer!

I checked out some different sources and pulled together this recipe with the help of Beer Alchemy and Ray’s opinions. A great article that I read in the November/December 2008 issue of Zymurgy magazine by Bryan Selders, lead brewer at Dogfish Head, discussed the use of real fruit versus fruit extract in brewing. Selders made a great argument for the use of fruit, but we had already ordered the raspberry extract and part of me just wanted to have the experience of using a fruit extract for flavoring. If the beer comes out good, then we can try it again with the real deal.

Enough with my yamming; on to the recipe!

7 December 2008
Chocolate Raspberry Porter
5 gallons, 30 minute steep, 60 minute boil

8.0 lbs Ultralight Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)

Specialty Grains:
0.75 lbs Flaked Oats
0.5 lbs CaraPils Malt
0.5 lbs Chocolate Malt
0.5 lbs Crystal 75L Malt
0.5 lbs CaraVienne Malt
0.25 lbs Black Patent Malt

8 oz Blackstrap Molasses (15 min)
8 oz Hershey’s 100% Cacao Special Dark Cocoa (15 min)

4.0 oz Willamette Hops [3.9% AA] (60 min)

1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min — clarifier)

White Labs British Ale Yeast WLP005

2-4 oz of Raspberry Extract (Secondary fermenter)

4 oz corn sugar (bottling)

———

Create a yeast starter two days in advance.

Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Heat to 155°F.

Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.

Remove grains, turn off heat, add malt extract while stirring.

Bring to a boil. Add hops.

At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.

At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add molasses while stirring. Slowly add cocoa, which should have been whisked beforehand to remove lumps (or use a flour sifter).

Return to boil for remaining 15 minutes.

Chill wort to below 80°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast starter and aerate thoroughly. Allow to ferment to completion at 65 – 70°F.

Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Add raspberry extract — begin with 2 oz, sample and taste, and add more extract if needed. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.

Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.

Bottle. Age for two weeks.

The 3 lbs of malt and oats made for an intensely dark wort, and the addition of the molasses and cocoa made it even more opaque. I began to get a little concerned that I might be brewing a giant batch of cocoa, but Ray squashed my worries — like he does. However, one concern I have is that when we took our hydrometer reading, it was at 1.057 for the original gravity. According to BeerAlchemy, this should have been at 1.079. We had Steph and Tim weigh in, and they reported that software that they use — BeerSmith — gave an O.G. of 1.064. A little better, but still leaving a bit of a mystery as to why we did not hit the original gravity nail on the head. Oh well. In the immortal words of Charlie Papazian, “Don’t worry. Have a homebrew.”

My hopes is that the beer will come out thick, chewy, and full of flavor and aroma. I even wore my Dogfish Head shirt, in the hopes of channeling some of Sam Calagione’s wild brewing creativity.

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