Brew Day: Behind Enemy Lines Porter

Buying a home is an interesting thing. It is the largest expense we will ever incur, but your decision is largely based off walking around for 20 minutes at an open house. In the end there are always surprises. I had my first surprise when I wanted to brew and couldn't find anywhere outside to attach a hose. With beer being primarily water, this is a bit of an issue. To say nothing of cleaning or running water through my wort chiller.

Until this situation is rectified, all grain brewing was out of the question. I figured I could brew an extract batch and use my top off water to cool my wort down.

After my summer brewing hiatus I had a fair bit of ingredients I bought for beers I never got around to brewing. I had several cans of domestic malt extract I purchased for a planned Belgian Quad. I also had a ton of miscellaneous specialty malt. With winter approaching I decided to brew a porter.

I pulled a sample when a friend came to visit. Both him, Jennie, and I really liked it. If the beer tastes as good in the glass, I have already developed an all-grain equivalent featuring Muntons malts.

What was intended to be a bit of a throwaway batch of porter is a perfect beer to play with my new keezer. This was a six gallon batch that I racked into two separate three gallon kegs.I added priming sugar to both. I gave one keg a normal amount of priming sugar, while I gave the other keg half that amount. The low carbonated keg will be served on nitro.

Can't wait!

See full recipe here

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