For the last scheduled brew before the imminent birth of our son Colin, we finished up the run of the yeast with a batch of Chocolate Hazelnut Porter. Lots of specialty malts (carapils, Munich, crystal, black, kiln amber, and chocolate malt are supplemented with a pound of cocoa powder with a couple left to go in the boil. After fermentation hazelnut extract will be added. Hops were Fuggles and Goldings, and the gravity was a stiff 1.073. The brew went well and smelled strongly of chocolate while we were chilling the wort. The English and Scottish yeasts have been used six times now, so that’ll be it, especially after having a black coloured beer fermented on the yeast, plus cocoa powder.

We also racked the Evil Twin over to secondary and kegged the Magic Hat #9 clone and the second keg of the UFO. We added apricot extract to the keg of the Magic Hat #9.

News flash - within five hours of finishing up the batch of Chocolate Hazelnut Porter, my wife’s water broke and we were off to the hospital. Our son, Colin Alexander Edwards, was born at 10:38 a.m. on Sunday, 22 October, 2006. He is cute and perfect in every way. The next brewer’s apprentice!