Coco Loco Moco Porter (Coconut Porter)

The delicious result!

For my first porter, I wanted to brew something that had a nice balance of chocolate, coffee, and cream. Also, I wanted a beer that wasn't too thick and was easily drinkable, regardless of the weather. On homebrewtalk.com, I had been reading about adding toasted coconut during secondary fermentation, so I decided to give it a try. For this recipe, I toasted one pound of flaked coconut until it was golden brown and then added it to the secondary fermenter for 14 days. This recipe turned out to be absolutely delicious! The resulting beer has a plethora of aromas and flavors: dark roasted coffee beans, vanilla cream, and dark chocolate on the nose; vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and espresso on the front end; coconut cream and mild hops on the back end. I'll definitely be brewing this one again!


Coco Loco Moco Porter 

A beautiful boil

Style: Robust Porter
Type: All Grain
OG: 1.059
FG: 1.018
ABV: 5.37 %
IBU's: 43.44
Batch Size: 5.00 Gal
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Primary: 14 days @ 68.0°F
Secondary: 14 days @ 68.0°F
Bottle/Keg: 14 days @ 72.0°F

My buddy Jeremy helping out

Grains & Adjuncts
8.50 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter
2.00 lbs Chocolate Malt
0.75 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L

Hops
1.30 ozs Northern Brewer - 60 mins
0.75 ozs Goldings, East Kent - 10 mins

Yeasts
London Ale III Wyeast Labs 1318

Additions
1.00 tsp Irish Moss - last 15 minutes of boil

Racked off the coconut

1.00 lb Flaked Coconut (toasted) - 14 days in secondary
0.50 oz Vanilla at bottling

Carbonation
4.1 oz Corn Sugar

Mash Profile
Medium Body Infusion 60 min @ 154.0°F
Add 16.88 qt (1.50 qt/lb) water @ 169.7°F

Notes
Toast flaked coconut in oven @ 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.
Put coconut into muslin bag, weigh it down with marbles, add to secondary.

White Hippo Witbier IPA

Thanks +Brian Scotland for this pic!

One of my "holy grails" of beer brewing is to find the perfect beer for each season. One of the candidates for "best summer brew" is a witbier (white ale), however not just any witbier. Although witbiers are good, they are a little bit bland for my taste. Deschutes Brewery in Bend, OR does a fantastic witbier IPA called "Chainbreaker." This summer, I had a pint of Chainbreaker on tap before going river rafting. It had me at first sip. I knew I had to try to brew one, so I spent quite some time examining the grain and hop profile on Deschutes' website and comparing it to traditional witbiers. After a while, I had formulated the recipe below. This recipe uses cracked coriander, which is traditional in a witbier, but it also employes sweet orange peel. From what I have found, witbiers typically have bitter orange peel in them, but the substitution of sweet orange peel really compliments the hoppy character. The hop profile is rather complex, and I've also dry hopped the batch with a solid amount of East Kent Goldings. The resulting beer was incredibly delicious. The flavor profile has citrus and guava on the nose; lemon, apple, and rose on the front end; tangerine on the back end. The color was quite close to Chainbreaker, but just a tad darker (see picture below). This recipe turned out to not be an exact clone of Chainbreaker, but when sampled side-by-side, I actually prefer my beer over Dechutes Brewery's. The White Hippo is a tad more malty and the nose is much more aromatic and hoppy than Chainbreaker's. If you are interested in brewing a recipe that is closer to Dechutes Brewery's, I'd recommend stepping both the Pilsner and Wheat malts (but not the flaked wheat) down by 1 lb. This would bring the malty character down a bit and lighten the beer to about 4.0 SRM.

This recipe was last updated on 4/20/2014.

White Hippo IPA

Chainbreaker on the left, my beer on the right

Style: Witbier IPA
Type: All Grain
OG: 1.051
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.26 %
IBU's: 43.41
Boil Size: 5.88 Gal
Batch Size: 5.25 Gal
Boil Time: 90 minutes

Dry hopping!

Primary: 14 days @ 68.0°F
Secondary: 14 days @ 68.0°F
Bottle/Keg: 14 days

Grains & Adjuncts
4.00 lbs Belgian Pilsner (2 Row)
4.00 lbs Wheat Malt, US
3.00 lbs Wheat, Flaked
1.00 lbs Flaked Oats
0.50 lbs Rice Hulls

Hops
0.30 oz Bravo - 60 mins
0.50 oz Bravo - 30 mins
0.25 oz Bravo - 15 min
0.50 oz Citra - 10 mins
0.25 oz Centennial - 10 mins
0.75 oz Centennial - 1 mins
0.50 oz Citra - 1 mins
1.00 oz Centennial - 14 days dry hopped
1.00 oz Citra - 14 days dry hopped

Yeasts
White Labs 0400 - Belgian Wit Ale
Please note that if you use this yeast, it can really help to give your fermenter a gentle swirl every 3 days or so to rouse the yeast and help with attenuation.

Additions
0.75 oz Cracked Coriander Seed - 5 mins Boil
0.75 oz Sweet Orange Peel - 5 mins Boil

Mash Profile
Medium Body Infusion - 60 min @ 154.0°F
Add 18.00 qt ( 1.50 qt/lb ) water @ 174.0°F

Carbonation
4.59 oz Corn Sugar or 12 psi @ 40°F kegged

How to build your own beer line cleaning system! It's inexpensive and easy!

I have a hard time with the idea of having an extra keg around just to clean my kegerator beer lines;  I knew there had to be a better way. After some research, I came across this awesome DIY beer line cleaning system at the Homebrewers Association's "Pimp My Rig" page (original link here), so I decided to build it. I have detailed the process below with pictures. This system only cost me about $21, which is a lot less than the $45-60 pre-made systems that you can purchase at your local brew store. I purchased everything at Home Depot, except for the Firestone ball-lock liquid post, which I got from my local brew store. To build this system, you will need:

• Flo-Master 56HD Hand Pump Sprayer ($6.97)
• Watts A-176 3/8 Flare to 3/8 FIP coupling ($2.80)
• Teflon pipe tape ($1.18) - for a great video on how to use teflon tape, click here
• Firestone ball-lock liquid post ($10.00). It is very important you get a Firestone post, or else the threading wont be the right size.

1) First, you need to unscrew the green nozzle on the end of the sprayer:

2) Next, you need to wrap the male threaded end of the sprayer with around 8-10 layers of teflon tape. Be sure to wrap the tape in the same direction that you'd screw something onto it! Otherwise, the tape will loosen when you screw on the next fitting.

3) Screw the coupling onto the newly taped nozzle:

4) Now, tape the end of the coupling with 8-10 layers of teflon tape as well (we want to be sure that the unit will be completely water-tight):

5) Screw on the Firestone quick disconnect:

6) Viola! You now have your beer line cleaning pump!

7) Simply fill the Flo-Master with warm water, cleaning solution, or sanitizer, and then connect the cleaning pump to your beer line:

8) Pump the Flo-Master up to pressurize the container

9) Open the tap and let the cleaning solution run through the system!

10) Repeat as necessary with other lines!