Monthly Archive for February, 2009

Vanilla Bean Porter – tasting

Tasting time and well, my porter had about 15% of the carbonization I was looking for. I was dissapointed. It didn’t have the heavy, chewy texture I was hoping for and I was expecting more vanilla or chocolate taste, although Kelly tasted it. It had a watery consistency and not strong at all. I did a specific gravity reading and it was about 1.5-2% ABV, which is a little lame. I like the subtle warmness of alcohol in higher alcohol beers, although this beer doesn’t and shouldn’t really fall into this category. I’ve discussed the matter with a couple home brewers and they recommend leaving it sit 1-2 more weeks and let the yeast keep working. My bottles are sitting in mid to low 50s in our basement, which I’ve read is good for this type of beer.