How to Brew Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter

Chocolate and peanut butter, a match made in heaven. The only thing that would make this duo better is to add it into some home brewed beer. I’m going to load up this Porter with as much peanut butter as I can.

If you love these flavors, you’re in for a treat it’s simple to make and perfect for that peanut butter lover in your life. I’m trying Trent Musho, and this is the Bru Sho. Let’s brew this chocolate peanut butter Porter.

Peanut butter chocolate is my number one favorite dessert combination. So I had to figure out a way to get my favorite dessert and favorite beverage into one.

In my opinion, a Porter style is the perfect base. It has a deep dark flavor and color that will compliment the chocolate and peanut butter nicely. Getting the chocolate in the beer is not that difficult. Certain roasted grains can bring out chocolate nubs without having to add any actual chocolate.

But for that peanut butter, we’ll have to get a little more creative. I’ll be adding in two special ingredients during the brew day to help punch up that peanut butter flavor.

Before we get started, please take a minute to subscribe for more homebrewing tutorials like this. Now let’s brew.

For this recipe. I’m making a five gallon batch using the Brew in a bag method. As always I’ll have the recipe and products I use in the description box.

To start a heat at six gallons of water to about 161 degrees. I’m adding some water adjustments to improve the flavor.

And here’s the water profile I’m aiming for. Once the water is heated up, I had the grain bag and next I’ll add the grains.

The grainbill I have:

• 75% Maris Otter, for some good malty backbone
• 16.7% Munich for a touch of malt complexity
• 4.2% chocolate malt for added color, but also to play into the chocolate and roasty flavors of the beer
• 2.1% Kara pills for improved body and head retention
• 2% roasted barley for a more deeper Porter color and a touch of sweetness.

Also in the mash, I’m adding the first special ingredient, chocolate peanut butter cereal, AKA Reese’s puffs. This was my favorite cereal growing up. So it seemed like an obvious choice. Anyone else love this stuff?

My hope is that this will add a bit of peanut butter and chocolate flavor. And additionally, it’ll add some sugars to slightly bump up the original gravity. At first, the cereal just kind of floated, but over time it broke down into the mash.

So my plan is to mash at 154F degrees for 45 minutes to give the beer a good amount of sweetness and body. After the 45 minutes, I pull the grain bag out and squeeze as much of the wort out that I can. I also heat up one gallon of water to about 170 degrees to sparge or rinse the grains.

Then I toss the greens in the compost. I won’t be making treats for my dog out of this one since I added the chocolate peanut butter cereal. Speaking of which the cereal gave the wor a hint of peanut butter chocolate, but not enough for what I’m looking for.

So now I bring the work to a boil. I plan to boil for 30 minutes. At the start of the boil I add one ounce of Magnum for a total of 30 IBUs. I’m not trying to get too much character out of the hops, really just bitterness to balance out the sweetness and to put the focus on the chocolate PB.

Then at the 15 minute Mark, I had the whirlfloc tablet for clarity and a wort chiller. Lastly, at the end of the 30 minutes, I turn off the heat and add in our final, special ingredient, PB fit or powdered peanut butter.

I’m using this whole container about two pounds of it.

At first, I thought it might be a good idea to sift it into beer, help it distribute evenly, but I quickly found out that’s not going to work. There was PB powder everywhere, outside my kettle, but at least someone was happy about it.

So just pitch it in a little at a time. So it doesn’t all clump up. Also keep an eye out. The PB fit almost caused a boil over, even with the flame offs. I almost missed it.

One thing I didn’t consider when adding the PB fit is that it has sugar in it as well. So just keep that in mind when putting together your recipe. But for me, I didn’t mind it because it didn’t swing the original gravity too much, but just something to consider.

Speaking of original gravity, once the PB fit is mixed in, I took a reading and got 1.069. Finally, I chilled the wort down to 67 degrees and transfer it into a fermentor.

What chocolate or candy flavors where you like to add into a beer? Good ideas? Let me know in the comments,

There’s a ton of peanut butter sludge at the bottom of the kettle. So feel free to keep that behind if you want. I just let it go on to the fermentor.

For the yeast I’m using SafAle US-05, which is a clean fermenting ale yeast that won’t get in the way of the peanut butter flavors. I made a yeast starter to support yeast health since our original gravity is a bit higher than normal. It’s a good idea to consolidate a yeast calculator, to make sure you have enough little guys for a strong fermentation.

After pitching the yeast, I pop the top on, give it a shake and add an airlock. I let the fermentor sit in a cool dark place for one week. After a week activity had stopped.

So I check in on the gravity. I got a rating of 1.015, meaning this beer comes in at 7.2%. ABV.

We officially have beer. One consequence to adding all that PB sludge into my fermentor is that it all fell out to the bottom, taking up a little more than a gallon of my total volume. So in the end, I’ll have a little less than five gallons, which doesn’t bother me, but just keep that in mind. If you want to hit the full five gallons. To the purged keg, I had five milliliters of BioFine clear to aid clarity.

Then I close it up and burst carbonate the beer at 40 PSI for about 12 hours before reducing the pressure down to serving pressure. At which point it was ready to drink.

This beer is so good and absolutely delicious. The color has a dark deep Brown heel with a creamy peanut butter colored head. On the sent I get hit with roasted peanuts and peanut butter with slight chocolate and espresso notes.

When I take a sip, I get the roasted chocolate flavor up front, but the peanut butter really comes through at the back end. It’s a perfect balance of roasty, toasty, and sweetness. There’s a good amount of creamy mouthfeel, but not overly sweet at all despite having a high, final gravity.

I think the peanut butter is mostly coming from the PB fit. The Reese’s puffs added a little bit of flavor, but not much. So feel free to skip adding the cereal if you want. Honestly, adding cereal to beer is probably not the best way to add any flavor.

It’s really just adding sugar, but it sure does get people in the taproom when a brewery posts about it. I say, experiment on your own. And if you like it, then go for it. If it’s not your thing, then leave it out.

That’s the best part about home brewing. We can each do our own thing and make the beer we love.

This chocolate peanut butter Porter turned out so delicious. I highly recommend you try this recipe out. If you’re a lover of this flavor combination like myself. Maybe this Valentine’s day, instead of going with a box of chocolates, go with a glass of this tasty Homebrew. I.

f you make this recipe, I’d love to hear from you send me a pic on Instagram @thebrusho. And if you enjoy this video, give it a like, thanks for watching and I’ll see you on the next brewday.

Karl S

Lead marketer, brewer, dad, and husband. Pretty much an all-round awesome guy.