My George! A Porter is in order!

This weekend I brewed a porter and I made a small beer from the second runnings. (I brewed alone because my brewing partner "E" had to work. (He is a, wheat beer drinking, gay porn star. He He!) and, I'm out of beer.) I came up with this idea (Actually "E" thought of it first.) because, I am a brewer and a patriot. I have been watching the John Adams series on HBO and was inspired to do this. I wanted to do as the early brewers did and take advantage of every bit of my brewing resources. I looked for the original George Washington porter receipt and, I found out that it was hardly a beer. It was more like a molasses wine. However, I wanted to stick with the colonial, small beer, theme. It is true that most colonial age brewers made small beers for their kids. They used the second runnings to make a small beer. So, I did just that. I brewed a porter called "My George Porter". After I pulled off all the good stuff, from the mash, I put the second runnings into a carboy (just for lack of a better place to put it). Then I cleaned all the grain out of my mash tun (while boiling the porter in my boiler) and poured the second runnings back in to the mash tun. The gravity, at that time, was 1.018 (intentionally a bit high). I boiled it for 30 mins. and added 1/4 oz. of Cascade hops. The OG after boil was 1.030. I cooled it, in a glass carboy, in a sink full of cold water. I pitched 1 packet of dry yeast in to it. Both the small beer and the porter have taken off very well. The cool thing is, I learned something about my brewery. In a 17 gallon batch, I throw out quite a bit of semi-good stuff. With a gravity of 1.030, I could add a bit of dry malt to my waist and gain an extra 4+ gallons of beer for little or nothing. If I had added just a few pounds of malt, I would have been able to take the gravity up to the 40, 50 or even 60 range. Next time I brew I will be sure to have some dry malt on hand. No need to waist all that good colorful wert. I will keep you all posted on how it turns out.