English Porter Black Pearl Porter (AG)

I brewed this recipe back on 10/27 (used same ingredients and quantities as recipe). I hit both the pre-boil and post-boil gravity numbers, cooled to 62 degrees, aerated, pitched a 2 liter starter and fermented at 60 degrees in a temp controlled chest freezer.

The gravity as of yesterday was only 1.026. It is a great tasting porter but I am hoping to get the gravity down a little lower.

How long did your beers take to ferment lower? Should I pull it out of the chest freezer and let it warm up to room temp which is about 68-70?

thoughts?

Yeah warm it up.

OK BM, this is the 7th beer of yours I have brewed and it is terrific just like the others. I had a few friends over this weekend for a brew day and this keg went in a hurry. It's obvious that you post tried and true recipes. I'm going to continue going down the list of your recipes until I have brewed them all. I wanted to tell you I appreciate you taking the time to post them. Cheers!

I've been reading this thread from page one and now on page 24. So inspired by what I've read I picked up the ingredients today. Looking like I'll be brewing this next Monday!

Could i sub in cara-pils for malto and lactose? And how much would you think?

adriedel said:

Could i sub in cara-pils for malto and lactose? And how much would you think?

Click to expand...

Carapils will lend body/mouthfeel to the beer but not much sweetness. You could mash a little higher too, but BM already calls for 158 on this one. 160 would give you even more unfermentables which equals more body/mouthfeel. Also notice that BM calls for a 45 minute mash. To get the most mouthfeel you will want to mash for only the amount of time it takes to get full conversion. If your starch test is negative at 30 minutes I would start running off. The longer you mash the more the beta amylase is going to break down the sugars and you will end up with a more fermentable wort with less body/mouthfeel. The key is to find the balance for each recipe ON YOUR SYSTEM. It helps a lot to take good notes. It really is true that if you give 10 different brewers the same recipe you are going to end up with 10 different beers....there are just so many variables.

Thanks for the tips. Im gonna try to mash the 45 and see what happends. Worse comes to worse it will still be beer and tasty.

I ended up adding 6 lbs of liquid barley extract to make a 10 gallon batch. And added some roasted barley, midnight wheat and cara special 3. I dont think its a porter anymore.

I just put 2.5 gal of this in my fermenter. Smelled and tasted beautiful. Everything went great except for my mash temps. This was only my 2nd AG batch so im still working my process and equipment. Mashed in low at 156.5 and mashed out at 171. I hit all my gravity and volume numbers, but what is the lower mash temps going to do to me?

nztkdt said:

I just put 2.5 gal of this in my fermenter. Smelled and tasted beautiful. Everything went great except for my mash temps. This was only my 2nd AG batch so im still working my process and equipment. Mashed in low at 156.5 and mashed out at 171. I hit all my gravity and volume numbers, but what is the lower mash temps going to do to me?

Click to expand...

You'll be fine. You won't notice a 1.5 degree difference.

Well I bought the five gallon grain bill, but I think I'm going to do a three gallon batch. Not that I wouldn't like to have five gallons on this brew, but I am going to do a biab brew on my stove top and the kettle that fits the bag is 7.5 gallons. Now I have to do a little reading so I can get the right amount of water in the kettle.

The only deviation from the original recipe is the yeast, I'm using S-04. I love this yeast and think it will work perfect, especially since the basement is about 60 beg. right now.

Robar said:

Well I bought the five gallon grain bill, but I think I'm going to do a three gallon batch. Not that I wouldn't like to have five gallons on this brew, but I am going to do a biab brew on my stove top and the kettle that fits the bag is 7.5 gallons. Now I have to do a little reading so I can get the right amount of water in the kettle.

The only deviation from the original recipe is the yeast, I'm using S-04. I love this yeast and think it will work perfect, especially since the basement is about 60 beg. right now.

Click to expand...

You could do this as a 5 gallon BIAB in your 7.5 gallon pot no problem. I do it all the time. Just mash at the 1.25 ratio like a normal mash. Then add the rest of your water after you pull the bag out. I like to have the extra water sitting in another pot and do a quick dunk sparge in it before I add it to the boil kettle. This is assuming your stove can bring that much water to a boil. But if the limiting factor is the size of your kettle and not the power of your stove then you're fine.

Well it's 5:13 am. The water and coffee have been on for ten minutes. IT"S BREW DAY!!

Pre66 I did give that idea more than a casual though last night. This a bit of a trial run for me as well to see if baib is for me. I have a couple kegs to make keggles with and was going to set up a three vessel system, but was curious about ebiab so I thought maybe I'd give it a try on the stove to see how I liked it.

Back on topic... I've been salivating over the thought of this beer all weekend. I have everything ready to go so it's off to the brew pot.

Just thought I'd post a picture of this wonderful recipe...best Porter I've ever made.

This kinda went south on me a bit. I scaled it down to 3 gallons and even though I used an online calculator I ended up with 3.75 gals of 1.050 wort. I took the rest of the ingredients from the five gallon batch and went through the process again. Boiled it down a bit and ended up with 1.25 gals of 1.112 wort. I was just starting to get some activity in the carboy when I topped it up with the high grav wort. Unless this doesn't follow the normal laws of math it averages out to 1.065

This was my 2nd all grain and it came out great. A simple question since i am still learning on each brew.... aging in bottles, would 12 or 22 oz bottles age differently? And fridging them would stop the aging? I assume. 3 weeks in bottle as of today.

Size of bottle makes no difference.

Carbonation is done almost certainly after 3 weeks. Aging might continue at fridge temps, but would probably be slow enough that you wouldn't notice it. I'd let it stay out at a warmer temp, maybe in the 50s, a good 'cellar' temp. Whatever you can keep consistent though, because swings in temp are not good. If you can keep it at 70, probably better than having it at 50, then 75, then 50.

My beer is in a closet after bottling, around 70. I'd love to have another chamber to keep it at 55, but I don't, so room temp is where it stays.

This is the recipe I am trying for my first porter.
I am making a few changes partly because i am not set up to do more than an extract yet. Still somewhat new.

Other than the extract as opposed to the pale malt the only other change was that I added half a pound of smoked malt, smoked with cherry wood. We shall see!

I'm making this tomorrow for the first time. Looking forward to this being my holiday ale. I will only change the yeast. I'll be using my West Yorkshire ale yeast that I use for lots of English styles. This will be the darkest and heaviest I go with my brews. I tend to brew lighter stuff most of the year. Come fall/winter, I venture into a few browns but this will be my first porter.

Cider123 said:

I'm making this tomorrow for the first time. Looking forward to this being my holiday ale. I will only change the yeast. I'll be using my West Yorkshire ale yeast that I use for lots of English styles. This will be the darkest and heaviest I go with my brews. I tend to brew lighter stuff most of the year. Come fall/winter, I venture into a few browns but this will be my first porter.

Click to expand...

Nothing wrong with using a favored "House" yeast. It makes your beer have that familiar "Something" about it. I like S-04 and use it for lots of different beers because I like it. Being cheap is just a bonus!

I made a 2.5 gallon batch of this 10 days ago with an OG of 1.066. Pitched S-04 @ 64*F and held it there for several days before letting it self rise to 68*F. Made my first SG check this morning and its only 1.030. Thats only about 55% attenuation. Is it stuck, or is this just whete this beer finishes? Im gonna let it ride another week or two, but im worried about bottle bombs. Any thoughts or experiences with this beer?

Hello, that FG seems high, however, it would be helpful to know more about the exact recipe you followed. For instance, if you used a lot of maltodextrins, I don't think those are very fermentable and will increase your FG.

cosmatics said:

Hello, that FG seems high, however, it would be helpful to know more about the exact recipe you followed. For instance, if you used a lot of maltodextrins, I don't think those are very fermentable and will increase your FG.

Click to expand...

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 3.35 gal
Post Boil Volume: 2.60 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 2.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 2.25 gal
Estimated OG: 1.066 SG
Estimated Color: 31.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 9.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 60.4 %
1 lbs Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 2 15.1 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 3 7.5 %
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4 7.5 %
8.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 5 7.5 %
0.25 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 8.6 IBUs
0.50 Cup Malto-Dextrine (Boil 20.0 mins) Other 7 -
0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 8 -
2.0 oz Milk Sugar (Lactose) [Boil for 15 min](0 Sugar 9 1.9 %
0.25 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 2.0 min Hop 10 0.7 IBUs
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) Yeast 11 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 6 lbs 10.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Mash In Add 10.00 qt of water at 168.2 F 158.0 F 45 min
Mash Out Add 6.53 qt of water at 204.1 F 175.0 F 15 min

Hit all my volumes and OG numbers pre/post boil. Was withing +/- 1.5 degrees on mash temps. I saw a previous post someone was stuck on 1.030as well but didn't see how that turned out.

Never mind. I've re-read through the whole thread and a high finish seems very common.

After 9 days in fermentation I have a grav reading of 1.022 this seems quite normal. I have some a silky roasty beer with a hint of smokiness. Plan is to give it another week in primary the rack it to secondary for a couple weeks then crash and keg. I'll force carb and bottle this one as I only have 5 kegs and I can tie one up that long. It'll be interesting to see where this is at come Superbowl Sunday.

Robar said:

After 9 days in fermentation I have a grav reading of 1.022 this seems quite normal. I have some a silky roasty beer with a hint of smokiness. Plan is to give it another week in primary the rack it to secondary for a couple weeks then crash and keg. I'll force carb and bottle this one as I only have 5 kegs and I can tie one up that long. It'll be interesting to see where this is at come Superbowl Sunday.

Click to expand...

If you feel adventurous, coarsely grind up 3/4 cup of Eight O'Clock Vanilla Coffee beans and dump in the primary for a 5 day soak. This is my go-to coffee proter recipe.

That sounds like a good idea Biermuncher. I might just split the batch and do half. I still am real interested in seeing what the original recipe ends up like. Then I'll be able to do some side by side comparisons.

So far everyone talking about fermenting this beer mentions the secondary stage. I know it's part of the recipe, but I have read some other threads on primary and secondary and remember reading the secondary is not necessary and they never secondary their beers, just finish it out in the primary.
Just curious why I haven't seen that mentioned here. Maybe it's mandatory with this one?

Nope, no need for secondary. This beer is not different than any other for needing to transfer.

Thanks bzwyatt,
If you were going to bottle this beer would 4 oz. of corn sugar be about right?
I want to make sure I get enough carbonation.
Thanks

You have five gallons? Do you want it carb'd to style, which is on the low side, compared to most beers? Do you have Palmer's book?

Page 113 has a nomograph that helps you calculate how much sugar to use for priming 5 gallons. If you are using corn sugar and the beer is around 70 degrees, I wouldn't use more than 3 oz. 3oz would give you about 2.1 volumes, and the range for porter is 1.7-2.3.

Thanks again bz,
I do have John's book. I'll take a look.
Looking forward to this one.

I've had this one sitting in primary for a week with Wyeast 1469 in my basement. I thought it was in the low 60's down there. I took a sample and it went from 1.064 to 1.026. Still not low enough, but then I realized it was at 58F down there. I brought it upstairs to where it's around 64F. Today it's bubbling away again. Can't wait to see where it ends up. I hope I don't get off flavors from fermenting too cold for a while.

I got 2 vanilla beans soaking in bourbon. When primary finally stops I'm going to toss in that vanilla and let it sit another 2 weeks. I have to kick a keg before I free one up to store this beer anyway.

Brewed mine back on 11/11 so today it's 19 days old. I have it in the keg and carbed so I gave it a little taste. This some GOOoooDD Stuff!! Can't wait until christmas and New Years.

Just wanted to add, I just kegged this porter today. Followed the recipe for the most part. Just used a different yeast and also 2 vanilla beans late in the primary. Started at 1.064 and wyeast 1469 took it all the way down to 1.017.

Last week, it was a 1.020 and tasted appley/winey. Today it dropped a few more points and tastes awesome. Can't wait for this to carb. It is amazing what time can do for beer.

And thanks to Biermuncher!

Just finished bottling up 6 gallons of this a couple hours ago . The final hydro check before priming and getting to bottling was awesome ! Going to get another batch working real soon !

This has been on tap for a few weeks now and it is awesome One of the best beers I've made yet. This is my Christmas ale and I have been very scrooge-like in giving it out to others because it is like black gold/Texas tea!

I should have made a 10 gallon batch. This beer definitely needs a few weeks in the keg to mature, but when it does....

Made this a 2 months ago but could only BIAB it came out awesome so this weekend with a cooler cube mashtun and too much excitement and a couple of beers everything went great till I realized I forgot dextrine and lacto. NEWBEE. What might I have made?

You're fine. Dextrine just helps with head retention and a little mouthfeel.

Just add the lacto in the secondary will have the same affect.

I brewed this yesterday (New Years Day) in the cold as a consequence missed my mash temp - went from 152-144 over the first 45 minutes. Fermenting in my basement now at 62 degrees. Since I was low on mash temp and the basement is cold, should I expect to at least double fermentation time?
Charlie

on tap - Kona Firerock Pale Ale Clone
in bottles - American pale ale