Mediterranean Baltic

On Sunday I brewed up a Baltic Porter (my first) in order to utilize the yeast cake I harvested from Proposition 29. Brewing was largely uneventful.

The Recipe:

13 lb 2-row pale malt
1.5 lb Carafa II malt
1 lb crystal 60°L
1 lb flaked oats

10 AAU (22g @ 13% AA) Nugget @ 60
4 AAU (35g @ 3.2% AA) Tettnanger @ 15

Wyeast 2112 - California Lager; pitched about 350mL of very thick slurry from batch 29's yeast cake

Mashed at 154° for an hour using 20 quarts of water. Batch-sparged using 170° water and collected 6.5 gallons for the boil.

O.G.: 1.072
Est. IBU: 43.7

The only problem which occurred was during sparging. There was an interruption in draining so I introduced a little too much sparge water, which diluted the wort and caused me to get a lower efficiency (since I basically had to toss perfectly good wort because it wouldn't fit in my kettle). Thus, my efficiency dropped to 68%, quite low for some of my more recent batches. Still, 1.072 is a perfectly acceptable OG for a Baltic porter, so I think I'm in good shape.

I also kegged up Proposition 29 (FG 1.007; ABV 5.6%) and have it carbonating away in the kegerator right now. I decided to leave Thanksgiving Tripel in the primary, with an eye toward getting a new keg and kegging it sans secondary. Actually, I'm thinking of eschewing secondaries altogether when they are not necessary; only beers being dry-hopped or fruited or whatever really need to go into secondaries at all.