Brew #2: Sparrow Hawk Porter

Date of Brew: 4/8/2012
Name of Brew: Sparrow Hawk Porter
Batch Size: 5 Gallons
Ingredients used (purchased from Brew Ferment Distill):
1.0 lb. Crushed Black Patent Malt
3.3 lbs. Briess CBW Sparkling Amber Extract
3.3 lbs. Briess CBW Traditional Dark Extract
1.0 lbs. Amber Dried Malt Extract
~1.5 oz German Northern Brewer Hop Pellets
1.0 oz Tettnanger Hops
1 packet (11.5 grams) Safale S-04 Ale Yeast
Boil Time: 60 minutes
Preparation:
Steeped black malt for 30 minutes in water approximately 150 degrees. Removed malts, added all extracts and 1.5 oz of northern brewer hops, brought to boil. Added tettnanger hops during final 2 minutes of brew.

Temperature when yeast is pitched: ~74 degrees
Beginning gravity: ~1.059 after adjusting measurement for temperature
Date when bottled: 4/17/2012
Amount of priming sugar: 3/4 cups
Final Gravity: ~1.017


Notes:
Made my first trip to Brew Ferment Distill to purchase an ingredient kit. Unfortunately, they do not carry kits. I had to on the fly come up with a recipe to make. I found a porter recipe from The Complete Joy of Homebrewing (page 201) that I wanted to try out. The recipe calls for a LOT of extract so it cost just over 60 for all ingredients plus sanitizer and bottle caps. This was a bit more than I had anticipated but after reviewing prices online seems to be about right (it's because of the amount of extract that it added up so high).

At the beginning of boil, it again did NOT begin to boil over. I am not sure how much of a difference this may make.

This time I waited until the wort had cooled to around 74 degrees, something that I did not know to do on my first batch. I'm hoping this leads to a stronger alcohol content than my previous attempt.

Also unlike my first batch, I better understand how to read the hydrometer and my original gravity reading fell right in the middle of the expected value based on the recipe.


UPDATE:
I came home from work on 4/9/12 to find the lid of the fermenter bulging, foam and an assortment of crud filling up the airlock and wort on the lid and floor. I quickly popped the airlock, cleaned, re-sanitized, and restored everything to its correct place. It has since continued to bubble but does not appear to be foaming over any longer. I will look into an emergency blow-out valve in the future if this should happen again. I don't think this will be much of an issue this time as I was able to google that it is a common (though maybe not frequent) problem that can arise in homebrew.

The temperature has hovered around the upper end of the ale yeast scale around 75 degrees for much of the previous 24 hours.

Update 2:
I just measured the final gravity, it was 1.018 at around 70-72 degrees, so its probably closer to 1.016 or 1.017 when adjusted for temperature. I will bottle it tonight after the kids are in bed and (not so) patiently wait through the conditioning process.