First-time recipe design

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JamesHoffman

JamesHoffman

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Hi all, this is my first time designing my own recipe. I used beersmith along with some reading material and some guessing. It's meant to be a robust porter, and I plan on adding some pumpkin to it to make it more for the season. Now, I'm aware that it probably has a plethora of problems. But please, what do you think of it? Some of the values are kind of funny because i adjusted one of the bars that alters everything to match the final stats.

Boil Size: 2.82 gal
Post Boil Volume: 2.60 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 4.60 gal
Estimated OG: 1.066 SG
Estimated Color: 28.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 35.0 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 0.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type
2 lbs 2.3 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain
1 lbs 1.1 oz Smoked Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain
8.6 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain
8.0 oz Dark Dry Extract (17.5 SRM) Dry Extract
8.0 oz Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract
7 lbs 7.9 oz Dark Liquid Extract (17.5 SRM) Extract
2.00 oz First Gold [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop
1.00 oz First Gold [7.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop
1.0 pkg SafBrew Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-33) [23.66 Yeast -
 
For a 5 gal batch, 1# smoked malt seems slightly excessive, I'd limit it to 8 oz for your first batch to gauge it- strong stuff. 2# of C120... that's way too much, I'd cut it back to 8 oz as well, certainly no more than 1#.

I don't use extracts, but when I did, it was pretty common to use only pale extracts and use grains to get all of your color and roasted character. I highly recommend you consider this. Basically, replace the dark lme/dme with light then add some Chocolate malt, 10 oz or so, to your steeping grains.

Have fun!
 
I agree with Brulo on most of his points. 2 pounds of crystal is about 2X's to much. If you use a pound of crystal and change your DME/LME to pale/extra pale extract, you should still have a nice deep gold, maybe even amber color to it. I depends on what color you are going for. I've never used smoked malt, so I can't comment on that part of it. I think your Hop selection/quantity is real nice, but I might split up the second ounce to .5oz at 30min. and .5oz at 15min. - but that might just be more personal preference than anything.

Happy Brewing! Post results!
 
If you like smoke flavor, 1# is okay, provided it is not peat smoked malt. If you're planning on using peat smoked malt, I'd limit it to an ounce or two. That is probably way too much crystal as well considering that your extracts already contain crystal malt.

It's also hard to really comment on a recipe that uses colored malt extract. The composition of these extracts are not really known, so it's very difficult to tell how much roast character you'll get. You're better off using the lightest extract you can find and then steeping specialty grains to get the composition that you want.
 
Agreed with the others. WAAAAAY too much Crystal, period, but especially a Crystal as dark as 120L. A little bit of that goes a long way. Same with smoked malt.

Chalk me up as another who encourages using pale extracts and twitching with specialty grains. ;)

Robust Porter is a style which requires - absolutely requires - certain characteristics. Characteristics which your proposed recipe will not provide. There are specific ingredients which provide those characteristics. They are, simply, Crystal malt (medium Lovibond, like 60-80), Chocolate Malt, and Black Patent Malt. See Coal Porter in my recipe dropdown for a Robust Porter which has won lots of awards and used to sell like hotcakes and the brewpubs for which I worked.

It shouldn't be too difficult to bump up the numbers to get the strength you desire. I'd go with:

For the steep (30 mins):
10 oz Chocolate Malt
8 oz 60L Crystal Malt
4 oz Black Patent Malt

Add 3 # Briess Golden Light DME and bring to boil.

Bitter to ~30 IBU with whatever hops you like.

At flameout, add 3 # Briess Golden Light DME and 1 ounce of Willamette hops. Chill to 65F and ferment with S-04.

I'd avoid S-33. I don't know a single person who hasn't had a problem with horrible attenuation from it.

Above all, have fun! :mug:

Bob
 
Bob said:
Agreed with the others. WAAAAAY too much Crystal, period, but especially a Crystal as dark as 120L. A little bit of that goes a long way. Same with smoked malt.

Chalk me up as another who encourages using pale extracts and twitching with specialty grains. ;)

Robust Porter is a style which requires - absolutely requires - certain characteristics. Characteristics which your proposed recipe will not provide. There are specific ingredients which provide those characteristics. They are, simply, Crystal malt (medium Lovibond, like 60-80), Chocolate Malt, and Black Patent Malt. See Coal Porter in my recipe dropdown for a Robust Porter which has won lots of awards and used to sell like hotcakes and the brewpubs for which I worked.

It shouldn't be too difficult to bump up the numbers to get the strength you desire. I'd go with:

For the steep (30 mins):
10 oz Chocolate Malt
8 oz 60L Crystal Malt
4 oz Black Patent Malt

Add 3 # Briess Golden Light DME and bring to boil.

Bitter to ~30 IBU with whatever hops you like.

At flameout, add 3 # Briess Golden Light DME and 1 ounce of Willamette hops. Chill to 65F and ferment with S-04.

I'd avoid S-33. I don't know a single person who hasn't had a problem with horrible attenuation from it.

Above all, have fun! :mug:

Bob
Click to expand...

I just used S-33 and it stalled out on me. I chalked it up to the 1.020 curse and left it to clean up for what was supposed to be a few days. Life got busy and I just left the beer in the carboy for 2 weeks longer than planned, lo and behold it is now back alive and finishing the fermentation. Moving it to a warmer place in the house I think roused the yeast allowed them to finish the job.

I agree with the rest of the comments so far, less crystal and smoked malts
 
I would suggest avoiding the pumpkin for this style. And would avoid the smoked malt completely. Maybe the cherry wood smoked briess at 8 oz/5 gal, but if it's peat or rauch malt forget it. Nastiness.
 
Agreed. I totally forgot to address that in my previous comments. I should point out I find smoked porters completely vile in all their nefarious forms, so take my advice with however large a grain of salt you wish. ;)

Bob
 
Thanks a lot for all of your input. I've taken your suggestions and altered the recipe to this:

Boil Size: 2.82 gal
Post Boil Volume: 2.60 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 4.60 gal
Estimated OG: 1.060 SG
Estimated Color: 30.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 0.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)
1 lbs Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)
7 lbs Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM)
2.00 oz First Gold [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min
0.50 oz First Gold [7.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min
0.50 oz First Gold [7.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast
 
I love it! I think I'll toss this together next payday! We can compare the two...porter vs. porter - battle roy-al. Haha!
 
mrphillips said:
I love it! I think I'll toss this together next payday! We can compare the two...porter vs. porter - battle roy-al. Haha!
Click to expand...

Okay, but i have this overwhelming urge to throw some pumpkin and spices in it! It might take a couple tries to get it right, but I really want to do it....
 
Update for everyone still following this: I added 60 oz. of canned pumpkin (60 min. boil) and 1 tbs pumpkin pie spice (2-5 min boil). The OG ended up as 1.064, and the FG ended up as 1.016. Strong pumpkin taste (haven't bottle conditioned yet, will do so for 1 month starting today), but not overpowering of the grains. Very enjoyable to me, although my favorite part of autumn is tasting all the new pumpkin beers...I just love them. Just thought I'd let everyone know what ended up happening.
 
Thanks for the update! I never got around to brewing a stout. I decided on a Red Ale instead. I'm glad it worked out for you. Did the pumpkin pie spice add much to the final product, or was it mostly the pumpkin flavor that came through?

It'll be cool to see what happens after some bottle conditioning. Will the pumpkin fade, or become enhanced? Only time will tell. Make sure to post again at conditioning.
 
Update after bottle conditioning: conditioning mellowed everything out perfectly. Very full bodied, with pumpkin taste that definitely doesn't cover up the grains or overwhelm the senses. Good thick pale brown head with strong porter and slight pumpkin smell. I wouldn't change the amount of pumpkin or spice that I added, but the pumpkin really owns over the spices. Thanks again for the help everyone.
 
Awesome. Most of the pumpkin-type beers I've tried taste more like spice than pumpkin, and I always wish it was the other way around. Your's sounds like a winner.
 

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