'Oh Mr Porter' Munton's Dockland Porter

I like a nice drop of porter now and again, in fact any day ending with a 'Y' is fine.

Why Porter and why a kit. Porter is a full bodied strong beer with toasted over-tones and malty taste which I prefer over a 'hopped' beer.

The kit, well why not, they're popular but are they as good as the makers claim, will it match a proper pulled pint . . .
lets find out shall we

The short answer is 'not a lot'. Two large and very heavy cans, one packet of yeast and a 'other products' leaflet.

Where's the instructions I wondered, it turns out there on the back of the box, silly me.

You're sure to quickly realise that this kit claims to make 40 pints (which works out at about 50p each) but it's not a complete kit, your going to need some brewing equipment.

These kits are of course for the more experienced Home-brewer who will already have a fermenting bucket and a pressure barrel as shown here.

You only buy these once of course (unless your a professional idiot).

The fermenting bucket holds 5 gallons and this will be used first for the initial fermentation (the bubbly bit)

The barrel shaped pressure vessel is where it will sit for a month maturing.

Panic not, this is as close to cooking that you will get.

The two cans hold malt extract concentrate, that's to say that the hard work of malting, hopping and my favourite expression 'sparging the grist' has been done for you.

All you need to do is warm up the cans to make the syrup like stuff inside flow more easily.

Stand in hot water for 5 minutes (the cans, not you)
I would suggest that halfway you turn the cans over.

There she flows

From this point on there's no going back. Pour the contents of both cans in to the fermentation bucket.
Boil up a pint of water in your kettle and use this to rinse them out in to the bucket, get every last drop.

Now stir stir and thrice stir

The more astute amongst you will probably notice that we fall a little short of the promised 5 gallons.

The main ingredient of beer is of course water, disappointing I know but that's how it is. Top up the bucket with clean cold water to the five gallon mark.

Now we're starting to look like beer.

This would be a good point to decide just where this bucket is going to live for the next eight or so days, somewhere warm and safe.

You did put the bucket in position first then add the water didn't you, five gallons is heavy to lift.

I placed my bucket in front of a radiator because I could!

After a few hours your beer will start to show signs of life, lifting off the lid will reveal a frothy mass as the yeast goes to work on the sugars in the malt.

There should also be that wonderful beer smell but don't even think of trying to taste it, it will not resemble beer at all yet.

And now, a short commercial break

This is where I bought the kit. You will find most of these shops have friendly informed staff who brew themselves.

The normal layout is to display kits and equipment at the front but wondering deeper will reveal a wide selection of the basic ingredients such as barley, hops, yeasts and much more. www.brewathome.co.uk

This is a hydrometer.

You do not need this and it's not designed to go in any human orifice.

It measures how much sugar has been turned in to alcohol. In plain water it floats low (at the 1000 mark) but as alcohol is denser than water it will float higher.

Starting gravity of this brew was 1.030 remember that number, it's going to change over time.

And on the eight day . . .

About eight days later the fermentation should have slowed to  an imperceptible rate (looks dead). Now's the time to siphon in to the pressure vessel.

You'll need some rubber tubing and gravity for this, I used a proper siphon kit and a special device to start it off, it's called a Richard Vobes - seen here in operation.

The special device (Richard) inspects what's left behind.

The siphon I used has a ridged tube and hook that prevents it touching the bottom of the fermentation bucket where all the waste crap settles.

Richard just couldn't resist sticking his finger in - who couldn't.

That's it, barrelled.

You will experience a slight loss of liquid (we all get that as we get older) but that's to be expected.

Fermentation will still be happening at a much slower rate hence the pressure barrel made of thick plastic.
You did close the tap at the bottom didn't you?

The hydrometer read 1.014 which is 2.17% alcohol
so far. Just a month to go then.

I had to buy this, there is really no other way to finish off without a decent capper.

I have enough bottles to do at least half of the barrel as my impatience grows day by day. I've made a point of using bottles that had 'bottled conditioned' beer inside after all we don't want them exploding at this stage do we

I'm really pleased with my new toy, simple to operate working on a cantilever system, it even has a small magnet to hold the cap in place before crimping.

I heard it can be adapted for circumcision too!

And now . . . . a little sweetener

The first pint

First impressions are good, nice black body and a light coffee coloured thick head (knew a girl like that once)

The taste, although still immature it's defiantly a porter
not as strong as I would have liked but very drinkable . .

 . . . so I did, in the name of research of course.

Now to the crux (and what a word that is) the SG

Specific Gravity, our starting SP was 1.030
at this stage we are 0.012which equals 2.23%
a small increase since the 16th of December

I've primed a small selection of cleaned bottles, enough to bottle almost half of the barrel. priming means a drop of sugar solution in the bottle so any active yeast will cause some bottle carbonation - fizz to you and me.

These bottles will be left in a warm place to pressure up before moving to a cooler place for storage - under the bed perhaps?

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