Smoked Chili Porter

Yeah yeah, so I missed blogging a couple of more brews in here. Nothing too interesting. Last couple have come out a bit yeasty-flavoured; I think I'll try racking this one, which I've never bothered with before. I wonder if the beers really are getting yeastier, or if I'm just getting more finicky about my homebrews?

Anyways, I decided to try to mix two of my favorite things: porter, and chipotles. Now I've tasted some pretty bad attempts at chili beers, but they're usually done as lagers with too much chili added. I wanted something more subtle, so I figured why not add smoked jalapenos (which is all that chipotles are, really) to a smoked porter - they should blend in better that way. We'll see.

Started from a clone recipe for Vermont Smoked Porter, as done up for me by the folks down at Homebrewers Outpost, with some substituted hops. Added some coffee and just a bit of chipotle.

8lb 14oz 2-row pale malt.
2lb. smoked malt.
0.5 lb. black patent malt.
0.5 lb. chocolate malt.

Mashed in ~17 quarts of water at 152 F for one hour. Sparged to ~6 gallons with water at 168 F. Added:

1 level tablespoon of chipotle puree (take a can of chipotles, whack it in the blender til its paste, and put it in a jar in the fridge to use in nearly everything.) The amount was just a guess, but about a tablespoon makes a large pot of pasta sauce pleasantly spicy; I figured I had about three times that volume, and I wanted just a hint of spice. Brought to a boil and added:

1 oz Nugget hops (13.0% AA)

Boiled for 60 minutes. Added:

1 oz. Goldings hops (4.5% AA)

Boiled for 5 minutes. (Both of those hops amounts are a bit more than the recipe called for, I note.) Added:

12 shots of fresh espresso (3 lots of our little machine on full.)

Initial S.G 1.040