NEW MKRKIT: Sable Porter - 2021 NHC Gold Medal Winner
Christian Chandler of the Arizona Society of Homebrewers won Gold at the National Homebrewing Competition for his Sable Porter. He beat out 165 other entrants in the American Porter and Stout category, and he brewed it on his BEERMKR. We are extremely excited to release Christian's recipe as a special release Sable Porter MKRKIT.
"A full-bodied drinkable beer, designed to not be filling, thus creating a desire to drink another. Pours a silky, dark mahogany appearance with a mocha, velvety thick head. Caramel and chocolate malt forward, with a slight hint of cocoa that leads to a smooth coffee roast without exhibiting burnt grain harshness. A pleasant touch of bitterness lends to a light, dry bite and creates the proper balance of coffee with lingering bittersweet dark chocolate. The perfect dark beer that can be enjoyed year round." - Christian Chandler.
Recipe Formulation
The best porter Christian has tasted was Founders Robust Porter. He used that flavor profile as the archetype to develop his Sable Porter. Doing this can be challenging as these commercial recipes are usually treated as trade secrets, so Christian had to do a lot research on malts, hops, and water to get to a recipe he was happy with.
Water
Christian developed his own water profile to brew his Sable Porter. This is something Christian does with all of his beers. He lives in Phoenix where his water isn't great for brewing, so he builds up his water profile from scratch using his at-home reverse osmosis water filter. To brew the exact beer that Christian made, we recommend using the BEERMKR Water Chemistry Kit and the Sable Porter water profile.
Grain
Maris Otter makes up a majority of the base malt, followed by Chocolate, Munich, Carapils, Crystal 120, and Black Malt.
It's rare that you'll ideate a recipe and get it right the very first time. It most often takes a few tries to get the flavor dialed in exactly as you're envisioning. This is one of the major benefits of BEERMKR, making this recipe tweaking process easy to do.
Hops
Nugget, Crystal, and Wilamette provide a woody, slightly resinous, mildly floral and herbaceous hop presence. For the style, this profile perfectly compliments those roasty grains.
Yeast
US-05 was used for the Sable Porter, and fermented at 63º F for 10 days. As a west coast, "Chico" strain, this yeast produces very clean fermentations with a pleasant but subdued fruitiness. Importantly, Christian only used 1/2 of a pack of yeast. Pitching less yeast will give the beer slightly more yeast profile specific flavor but will increase the fermentation time. This is because more yeast cells will need to grow to finish the fermentation, and lots of the yeast flavors are produced during this growth process.
Finishing
This beer takes some time to age. All of those robust dark malts need time to meld into the velvety smooth porter that won gold at the NHC. Immediately upon carbonation, this beer will still be green, with some yeast flavor and slightly harsh dark malt flavor. Over the next two weeks the yeast flavor will subside and the dark malts will smooth out. By 2 months, this creamy sweet porter will begin to enter it's gold medal winning prime.