Take 20 or so down, pass them around...still lots of bottles of beer in the closet

The first of the porters that I tried tasted absolutely awful. Somewhere between pennies and ash. In hopes that it was maybe just a bad bottle, I tried another the next night. Not bad. This one actually tasted like a porter, so I had no problem bringing a dozen or so to a party last night. Everyone had positive things to say about it, which is good. I think I got another dud, but it may have been the food I was eating. One guy said it smelled like burning tires but tasted pretty good. I think that's fair, although I'm pretty sure that's just what hops and black patent smell like.

In the end, I'm happy with it but might tweak the recipe some if I make it again...push it a little closer to a stout and rack to a secondary fermenter, perhaps.

Water Dog, bottled

After three weeks in the fermenter (no secondary), the porter is bottled. While sanitizing, I soaked the filter on the starter for my siphon and improvised with a paper towel instead. As with the red, I put aside the first bottle for posterity's sake. We managed just over 4 gallons this time. I attribute the lower volume to spilling some on the floor during the transfer to the fermenter, as well as leaving behind the bulk of the trub. Most of the beer found its way in to 10oz Pop Shoppe "Stubby" bottles we found at an antique store in San Juan Bautista, CA, and the rest into pint or larger bottles.

I highly recommend a bottle tree for those that don't have a lot of space.

Numbers updated in the recipe post. FG and ABV: 1.012, and ~5%, respectively.

Smells good, I'll let you know how it tastes in a couple weeks. We have big plans for the next brew. It's time to make our own recipe. No mashing yet, though.