Prancer’s Porter

My wife and I throw an annual holiday party where we make some special drinks, play games, and eventually take the party to Lincoln Park Zoo to see the Zoo Lights. This year, I wanted to brew something for the party that helped everyone get in the holiday spirit. Seeing as I had recently brewed a spiced ale (see my pumpkin ale and pumpkin brown posts) I wanted to do something a little different. After some brainstorming and research, I settled on a porter brewed with chocolate and peppermint. I’ll go through a bit of the process and have included the ingredients and directions at the bottom.

**Note – credit for artwork above goes to Ian Whiting of Sunnyside Mall Brewers Guild.

Ingredients

Grain Bill

• 10 lbs. American 2-row
• 1 lb. Munich Malt
• 1/2 lb. Chocolate Malt
• 1/2 lb. Caramel Malt 120L
• ½ lb. Flaked Barley
• ½ lb. Toasted Flaked Oats (10 Min @ 300 in oven)

Hops

• 2 oz. Northern brewer (60 Min)

Yeast

• Omega Kveik

Other

• 10 Packets of Traditional Medicinals Peppermint Tea
• 1 boxes of crushed peppermint candy canes (rack to keg)
• 4oz Dark chocolate baking cocoa powder (add to boil @10 min)

Directions

1. Heat 6 gallons of water to 155° F
2. Mash in all grains
3. Turn on pump and hold at 150° F for 60 minutes
4. With 20 minutes left in the boil start heating 2 gallons of water to 170° F
5. Drain grain and increase temp to boil
6. Sparge enough water to bring total back to 5.5 gallons
7. Bring to a boil and add northern brewer hops
8. Boil for 60 minutes
9. Take tea bags out of packaging. Cut string and put all teabags in a muslin bag.
10. Add cocoa powder and steep tea, dunking the muslin bag up and down for 5-10 minutes
11. Put counterflow chiller on and run for 5 minutes
12. Chill to 75° F
13. Pitch yeast
14. Ferment 2 weeks or until FG reading is consistent
15. When fermentation is complete, crush 1 box of candy canes and dissolve in boiling water. Add resulting syrup to keg when racking.
16. Chill overnight then force carbonate – 2.5 minutes at 40psi

Notes/Lessons Learned

• At kegging time , I made the candy cane simple syrup by crushing a box of 12 (organic) candy canes and adding to 1 cup of water. It took a little longer than expected for the candy canes to melt down, so after bringing to a boil, I reduced heat and stirred constantly until the candy canes dissolved completely.
• I added about 3/4 of the syrup to the keg and tasted – the flavor was about right so I did not add the remaining syrup.
• I’m still getting used to my setup with the Grainfather – I ended up with about 4 gallons of wort after cooling. Most of the leftover liquid was left at the bottom of the Grainfather that didn’t reach the pump, so in the future I’m going to add a bit more water during the sparge to hit my 5 gallons.
• The flavor hit exactly what I was looking for – the cocoa powder added some extra bitterness, which was balanced out by the sweetness of the candy cane syrup. It’s still a little on the sweet side, but that was the goal. It’s more of a dessert beer than an all day drinker.
• When I first kegged and carbonated, the beer was a little hazy. After a couple weeks aging in the kegerator, the flavors melded really well together and the beer clarified a bit too.
• I had read that other people used as much as 8oz of cocoa powder. I decided on 4oz and I’m glad I did – it was enough to get some chocolate flavor without being overpowering.

The Numbers

• OG = 1.070
• FG = 1.020
• ABV = 6.56%