Batch #3

Well many months and many miles later I have started brewing again. This time my home brew has a new home. I am now living in the Chicago land area, South Elgin to be exact. I met up with the owner and introduced myself to the local home brew shop in St Charles. They seem like good guys over there and hopefully the can lend me a hand in the upcoming months as I progress.

Now for batch three. I felt I have a firm grasp of knowledge of how to brew properly and I probably could have started making my own recipes but since it had been a while I decided to go with a kit again, just to get back in the flow. So I picked out a Robust Porter.

Here's the recipe and target numbers according to the Home Brew Shop which I brewed on September 9th.

6 lbs Dark Dry Malt Extract
1 lb American 2-row
2 oz Wheat Malt
1 lb Chocolate Malt
2 oz Black Patent
4 oz 10L Crystal Malt
4 oz 20L Crystal Malt
4 oz 60L Crystal Malt
1 oz Bitter Hops (3/4 at 60 minutes, 1/4 at 5 minutes)
1 vile White Labs California Ale Yeast

Starting Gravity 1.055 - 1.058
Final Gravity 1.012 - 1.016
Alcohol by Volume 5 - 6%
Hop IBU 25

After following the recipe I ended with a Starting Gravity of 1.052 and at bottling time, which I did on September 16, I ended with a final gravity of 1.018. It's a little higher than it should be. Hopefully there will be no exploding bottles! Two weeks and we'll see how it turned out.