Brewery Trial Recipes - Breaking the Habit: Coffee Porter 3.0; Break My Fall: Brett Cacao Bourbon Porter 2.0

Fall is officially here, even though breweries have been putting out Pumpkin beers for nearly a month now.  With the dropping temps, cool nights, gentle breeze, dark evenings, and changing artists palates in the trees comes an innate hankering for something darker and rounder than the crisp and light beers for Summer.  The Good Lord gave us Porters and Stouts for a reason, and He also gave us an internal timer that almost instantaneously switches to them from Saisons as the season changes.  Like a junkie looking his next fix we yearn for that dark and roasty beverage to sooth our troubled souls.  This is part of the reason I just rebrewed my Coffee Porter recipe (the other is because I need to have my flagship beers to give to potential investors).  I swapped out the Crystal hops for Chinook on this round to avoid the herbal tea notes that Crystal can throw, and to get a little resin and pine in the mix.  The last iteration had issues with the coffee additions as the coffee from the original recipe was no longer available.  For this one I actually went with a blend of 2 different coffees from a local artisan and the complexity really makes the beer pop.  This recipe was done on my first double brewday in nearly a year.  Gotta say it was actually fairly smooth except trying to get all the beer into the fermentors in the fermentation fridge.  This was also my first time doing an entire 11+ gallons together in one vessel, which works really well and ensures that I don't have any differences from 2 different pitches into 2 different Better Bottles.  After primary fermentation was done this batch was split into 2 different beers.  The fresh keg got the Coffee blend, and the 5 gallon carboy received 2 Hungarian oak cubes soaked for 2 months in Woodford Reserve Bourbon.  It also received a pitch of Brett, and will get cacao nibs in a couple months.  The first version of this beer is drinking quite nicely right now.

NAME: Breaking the Habit / Break My Fall

STYLE: Coffee Porter / Brett Cacao Bourbon Porter

TYPE: All Grain

SIZE:  12 gallons

OG: 1.049

FG:  1.009

ABV: 5.3%

SRM: 24

IBU: 38 (Modified Tinseth)

Efficeincy: 89% (mash)

Grain Bill:

Pilsner Malt, Vienna Malt, Flaked Oats, Dark Crystal, Chocolate Malt

Hop Bill:

Chinook

Water:
Malty, full.

Yeast:
Tropical bomb

Additional:
Coffee blend added to half.  Other half aged on Bourbon Oak cubes, Brett, and cacao.