Chocolate Thunder Porter

Hope everyone had a happy new year!

I'm back in North Carolina, and I bottled my Chocolate Thunder Porter the other day. I'm pretty excited about it, as you could tell if you've been reading. I tasted some that was left after I bottled, and chocolate and coffee were both highly apparent. In my first (failed) coffee-chocolate stout, I added coffee to the secondary, but I got plenty of a coffee flavor from the chocolate malt I used, so I'm satisfied. I was originally afraid that I had used maybe too much cocoa powder (16 oz), but it doesn't seem overpowering. I wanted a chocolate porter, so obviously I wanted a strong chocolate flavor. I can't wait to try it...it's gonna be tough to wait a week or so while it bottle conditions.

I still really want to make the raspberry chocolate stout, but I might put it off for now. I'd really like to have it ready by Valentines Day, and I just don't know if I'd have enough time to do it properly. Rather than rush the fermentation and not have the final product up to par, I'd rather save it for another time and do it right. And besides, I think the chocolate porter is just as appropriate for Valentines Day.

So, that leaves me to what my next batch is going to be. As ya'll know, I've tossed around a bunch of ideas - in addition to the raspberry chocolate stout, I've also thought about an IPA, a blackberry-blueberry ale, a cranberry ale, a biere de garde style beer...lots of things. Ideally I'd be brewing two batches at once, and if I get that set up soon then I'll definitely do the raspberry-chocolate stout, and just have it going anyway. So we'll see.

I'm gonna try to make it out and get stuff for another batch in the next week or so...moneys tight until my loan check comes in, so I'm waiting for that. I'll let ya'll know when I start brewing again.