The Smoking Moon Under Water

Alaskan Smoked Porter + Stephen Kirby talking about the cask program at Hogshead ... that's what did me in. 

I've never tried the Alaskan product but hearing such high praise as "timeless" and "quintessential" drove me into recipe development. Luckily, I caught a podcast by Stephen, in which his London porter was being consumed all-too-quickly. He was kind enough to share recipe tidbits, which I mostly incorporated here.

Ideal... what is my ideal porter? Chocolate, comforting, soft, chuggable. Add a touch of smoke, because I'm tired of paying $18 for Schlenkerla 4 packs. 

The Moon Under Water is George Orwell's conception of an ideal pub. The Smoking Moon Under Water is my conception of an ideal smoked porter.

Here's the recipe:

Recipe

Grain

4.25 lbs. Colonial Pilsner - Deer Creek

2.5 lbs. Pecan Smoked Pilsner Malt - Sugar Creek

2 lbs. Barke Munich - Weyermann

3/4 lbs. Flaked Oats

1/2 lbs. British Chocolate malt (450L)

1/2 lbs. Dehusked Carafa I

3/10 lbs. Roasted Barley

Water

6.5 gallons of water: 4 spring, 2.5 Buffalo filtered water

113 ppm Calcium, 18 ppm Na, 88 ppm sulfates, 158 ppm chlorides, 9 ppm bicarbonates

Mash

157 degrees for 60 minutes

pH: 5.3

Boil (90 minutes)

0.35 oz. Willamettte (5.8% AA) at 70 minutes

0.5 oz. Willamette (5.8% AA) at 40 minutes

0.5 oz. Willamette (5.8% AA) at 15 minutes

Fermentation

Cooled in a cold shower

1 packet of US-05 at 68 degrees

Cold crashed in 35 degree outdoor climate for 30 hours

Transferred to purged secondary after 7 days

Added two drops of biofine clear

Force carbonated to taste

OG: 1.050

FG: 1.012

5% ABV

Taste

dark chocolate, marshmallows gently caramelized over a campfire, milk chocolate, subtle raisin

sooooo sooooo sooooooft! round and inviting and pillowy mouthfeel, uber sessionable

not ashy/charred/acrid/acidic which is always a concern with this style. 

smoke is much more prominent on nose (in a lovely way) than it is on the tongue.

Next Batch

Water profile worked really well. Keep that in tact.

The Pecan smoked malt gives an aromatic presence without overpowering the flavor component. I wonder how the recipe would taste with a caramel addition. Next go around, I'll make the tiniest C60 addition.

Mash temperature worked really well, but dropping it two degrees on the next brew might be interesting to see how the perceived sweetness changes in relation to the roasty-toasty dynamic.