English Porter recipe idea

Hey guys, looking for a little feedback. My Dad wants me to brew him up an English Porter style beer and I think I have something put together. Can you please let me know how this looks? Trying to keep it simple.

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: WLP007 - Dry English Ale
Yeast Starter: No
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.053
Final Gravity: 1.010
IBU: 20.5
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 21.0
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 10 days @ 68F
Tasting Notes:

Grains:
8.5 lbs - Maris Otter
1.0 lbs - Crystal 60
0.5 lbs - Chocolate Malt

Hops:
1.0 oz - Fuggles (4.5%) @ 60
0.5 oz - Fuggles (4.5%) @ 15

Mash:
60 mins @ 154F

Yeast:
WLP007 - Dry English Ale

You will need more dark malt for color. Try 3/4 lb of chocolate and 1/4 lb of black patent.

I dont want it to be too strong either, so dial back on the maris otter if i add those?

Do you have beersmith? You could punch in the recipe and play with the grain amounts to get the gravity you are looking for.

Wreck99 said:

I dont want it to be too strong either, so dial back on the maris otter if i add those?

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No. An additional 1/2 lb of dark malt is not going to make the beer stronger as you aren't adding any fermetable sugars. About 10% dark malt is good for a basic porter. At the rate in your recipe the color will be more brown ale than porter, so the choice is yours.

Yes i have beersmith and thanks for the feedback. I wasnt sure what exactly went into a porter, just a hunch. So before playing with the numbers wanted to make sure i at least get the ingredients right. I was hoping the maris otter would give it that english style taste/feel.

BigEd said:

No. An additional 1/2 lb of dark malt is not going to make the beer stronger as you aren't adding any fermetable sugars. About 10% dark malt is good for a basic porter. At the rate in your recipe the color will be more brown ale than porter, so the choice is yours.

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I definately want porter not brown ale.

I feel like black patent would make it a little "robust", even at 1/4 lb. Not to say that's a bad thing, it just depends on what you want. 1 lb. of chocolate malt did it for me in about a 9 lb. grain bill. Any of these options will make a great beer!

Cool ill mess around with beersmith again and post a revised recipe for review.

Needs more brown malt. Add a lb of it and you've got a clone for Fullers London Porter. Though, they use wy1968/wlp002.

I generally find the whitbread yeasts a bit too dry and neutral in flavor for English porters, but hey use what you got. Wy1318, 1968, 1028, 1469 would be nice choices too.

Up the chocolate malt to a pound, or even 1.5 lbs, and reduce the crystal to about 0.5 lbs.

I never use black or roast in a Porter, I think it gives it a harsh taste.

BigEd said:

No. An additional 1/2 lb of dark malt is not going to make the beer stronger as you aren't adding any fermetable sugars.

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Dark malt does have fermentable sugars. Almost as much as standard 2-row. I agree it has some unfermentable sugars, but not many. Most of the sugars from dark malts are converted from starches in the same way you create sugars with 2/row. If you steep it you might get 8 to 10 points per lb, some of which is unfermentable. If you mash it you can get up to 30 points per lb if you have good efficiency, and the extra sugars are all fermentable.

Thanks for the help everyone. I fooled around with BeerSmith and came up with this. How's it look now?

Grains:
8.0 lbs - Maris Otter
1.0 lbs - Chocolate Malt
0.5 lbs - Crystal 60
0.5 lbs - Brown Malt

Hops:
1.0 oz - Fuggles (4.5%) @ 60
0.5 oz - Fuggles (4.5%) @ 15

Mash:
60 mins @ 154F

Yeast:
I have WLP007 - Dry English Ale, and WLP002 - English Ale on hand.

This puts me at: FG - 1.052, IBU - 20.7, OG - 1.011, Color - 30...according to BeerSmith.

Do I need the Brown Malt? Just looking for a pretty basic English style Porter. I'm happy with 5.5% ABV on this.

Question: Would this beer benefit from aging? It seems 2-3 weeks primary, then bottle/keg. Does it need a secondary? Not a very complex beer.

Do I need the Brown Malt? Just looking for a pretty basic English style Porter. I'm happy with 5.5% ABV on this.

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Depends on the type of porter you're looking to make. A traditional brown porter gets a lot of its characteristic flavor from brown malt.

I agree... some brown or Crystal 120 instead of Black Patent.

Your recipe put into tastybrews online calculator comes out about like this:


I would say if you mashed around 154 you would be in the range of an English Mild or a Porter... (But you would have to double check)

Your recipe looks very good, simple is usually very good. I made one very similar to this. I made 10 gallons, 5 gal kegged after 2 weeks in primary, the other 5 gal sat for 3 more weeks both tasted identical. I don't think it needs to sit for very long.

Thanks for the feedback guys. Ill probably brew this soon.

Wreck99 said:

Question: Would this beer benefit from aging? It seems 2-3 weeks primary, then bottle/keg. Does it need a secondary? Not a very complex beer.

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I would say the YES,,, it would benifit from aging... English Milds/Browns are a young beer... Porters nnot so much... I have seen 8 weeks to 6 months aging on them... your ABV would indicate to me you need at least four (4) weeks... but that is my schedule for such a beer...

I think the general rule is "The higher the Alcohol content the more time need to condition" and though there my be exceptions to this rule I know of none.

"Young Beers" can actually go bad over time:

• Hefeweisens Clear out (kegging) and become Crystals.
• Milds can go bad because of low alcohol and hop rates (sanitation, sanitation, and sanitation is really imp[ortant for these beers)

DPB

I'm trying to make a porter. I'll probably have it sit to be safe.

From my experience, depending on the yeast and the quality/health of the ferment, a porter can be ready very quickly.

Just as an example, I brewed the "Can You Brew It?" black butte porter recipe (OG ~1.058, fair amount of roasted malts), and it was ready fresh out of the fermenter. That one was with 1968/wlp002, and I used a healthy stirplated starter, oxygen, yeast nutrient, and temperature control during the ferment.

As for brown malt; all my favorite English porters have some. Try Samuel Smith's Taddy porter, or Fuller's porter. It's really an awesome grain.

Wreck99 said:

Thanks for the help everyone. I fooled around with BeerSmith and came up with this. How's it look now?

Grains:
8.0 lbs - Maris Otter
1.0 lbs - Chocolate Malt
0.5 lbs - Crystal 60
0.5 lbs - Brown Malt

Hops:
1.0 oz - Fuggles (4.5%) @ 60
0.5 oz - Fuggles (4.5%) @ 15

Mash:
60 mins @ 154F

Yeast:
I have WLP007 - Dry English Ale, and WLP002 - English Ale on hand.

This puts me at: FG - 1.052, IBU - 20.7, OG - 1.011, Color - 30...according to BeerSmith.

Do I need the Brown Malt? Just looking for a pretty basic English style Porter. I'm happy with 5.5% ABV on this.

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This recipe looks very similar to my porter. As with the others, I am not a big fan of black patent in my porters, as it can get harsh even in small doses. The bottom line is to brew what you like, and this looks like something I'd like

+1 to the brown malt. I've used Thomas Fawcett, but with only 0.5 lb any should do. It definitely mellows with age, but adds that roastiness.

jpc said:

This recipe looks very similar to my porter. As with the others, I am not a big fan of black patent in my porters, as it can get harsh even in small doses. The bottom line is to brew what you like, and this looks like something I'd like

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I agree- I like the looks of that recipe a lot! I'd probably even go with a whole pound of crystal, as I like it in brown porter.

Hey guys, I'm a little limited on the malts, so, could you help me to make this recipe?

4,5kg pilsen malt
300g Special w (or something else) - In general malts here are from Weyermann...
250g Caraaroma
250g chocolate

Nugget hop
s-04 yeast

Could i get a decent porter from that?
Thanks for the help!

If you want an authentic English Porter check out Ron Pattinson's blog, Shut Up About Barclay Perkins. You'' find classic recipes from his research into historic brewing logs. I just kegged his 1880 Whitbread Porter yesterday. Since you have Beersmith I've attached the .bsmx file. The sample suggests this will be an easy drinker. Slightly roasty/chocolaty and not overly sweet. The hops is barely there but does its job in balancing the malt.

Appcr4sh said:

Hey guys, I'm a little limited on the malts, so, could you help me to make this recipe?

4,5kg pilsen malt
300g Special w (or something else) - In general malts here are from Weyermann...
250g Caraaroma
250g chocolate

Nugget hop
s-04 yeast

Could i get a decent porter from that?
Thanks for the help!

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Perhaps, I'm not actually very familiar with caraaroma or special w. Can you make invert sugar from turbinado/demerara/raw sugar of some kind? Just some sugar, food grade acid, water, heat, and time.

http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert

I brewed this for a Zymurgy online extra last year.
3 gallons (The recipe with the article was expanded to 5 gallons per Zymurgy's standard recipe size.)
O G 1.058
F G 1.016
Mid 60s IBUs
6 lbs. Maris otter pale ale malt
1.5 lbs. British brown malt
.25 lb. black patent malt (cold steeped overnight)
mashed at 152f for 55 minutes
1.5 ozs. goldings at 5.7% for 45 minutes
1 oz. goldings at 5.7% for 30 minute
1 pack S-04
I was really happy with how this turned out.

My problem is with the access to some kind of malt. Shipping here become so much expensive in the last years, so i need to get the ingredients from local store.

I believe using "standard" malts to a porter gets the flavors of a real porter, but just want to know if I use different malts would ruin the idea of porter. We have on my town malts of Weyermann, so if you guys could suggest some malts I would appreciate it.

If you use 5% brown malt, prepare for some harsh tastes which need to be aged out.

Only chocolate malt and pale malt results in a fine porter/stout or however you want to call it.

Add a bit of crystal for taste of you like. Don't add complicated stuff which isn't necessary. Five to ten percent chocolate or roast barley, 5 to 10% medium crystal (also called caramalt), rest pale.

20to 35 ibus, og between 1.04 and 1.06,

Mashed at 65c for an hour and the result will be a tasty dark ale.

You can use carafa 2 from weyermann , it is dehusked roast barley and makes a really good stout/porter at a ten percent range.

Miraculix said:

If you use 5% brown malt, prepare for some harsh tastes which need to be aged out.

Only chocolate malt and pale malt results in a fine porter/stout or however you want to call it.

Add a bit of crystal for taste of you like. Don't add complicated stuff which isn't necessary. Five to ten percent chocolate or roast barley, 5 to 10% medium crystal (also called caramalt), rest pale.

20to 35 ibus, og between 1.04 and 1.06,

Mashed at 65c for an hour and the result will be a tasty dark ale.

You can use carafa 2 from weyermann , it is dehusked roast barley and makes a really good stout/porter at a ten percent range.

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Thanks, I'm not really familiarized with porters, but want to try it out. A last question: Can pale be substituted by Pilsen or definitely not?

Appcr4sh said:

Thanks, I'm not really familiarized with porters, but want to try it out. A last question: Can pale be substituted by Pilsen or definitely not?

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Wouldn't be a problem at all.

Personally I wouldn't go crazy on things like roast barley, which is getting away from an English porter. A classic English porter of the mid-19th century would be

82-87% Chevallier pale malt
10-15% brown malt
3% black malt
1.055-1.060 OG

and that's all for the grist. Chevallier is a historic variety that is available in small quantities from Crisp, but you could substitute it with something like Maris Otter pale with a bit of crystal.

The benchmark for modern porter is Fuller's London Porter, which is amazing on cask but which translates better than most to bottle (and has reasonable distribution which should only improve after Asahi bought them recently). Typical clone recipes are along the lines of :

76% UK pale malt
12% brown malt
10% crystal
2% chocolate
1.053 OG

Historically porters could be hopped to 50-60 IBU and left to age with some Brettanomyces and whatever else was hanging around, modern ones would typically see 35IBU added at 60 or 90 minutes, and 0.5g/l of hops at 10 or 15 minutes. Fuggles would be the classic hop to use but any British hop would do, it's not that critical - or use Willamette or Styrian/Savinjski goldings if they're what you have locally.

They're full-bodied beers, so you want to mash fairly high and use the most characterful, low-attenuation yeast you can find - this is not a beer for Nottingham.

I'm not sure how pilsner would work, other than it would end up thinner and less flavourful than using European pale malt, let along a British pale malt (which gets cooked a bit more than the Continental equivalent, and is made from a more characterful grain to start with). This thread shows you the difference between Weyermann pilsner and their pale malt, a British pale malt would be a bit darker still. It's maybe not something to worry about for your first batch, pilsner will get you pretty close, I'd just pay particular attention to the mash and attenuation as above. One option would be to add maybe 3% Weyermann Carapils, another would be to cook it a little in the oven, I'm sure someone's worked out some timings somewhere.

According to the usual (not entirely reliable) charts, Carafa (Special) II is the closest equivalent to chocolate, and Caramunich III the closest to crystal 60.

Brown is the tough one that doesn't really have an equivalent - if you're in France then the charts suggest MFB Kiln Amber is close. Durden Park suggest the following schedule for making your own from UK pale malt :

30 minutes at 250 degrees Farenheit
30 minutes at 300 degrees
30 minutes at 350 degrees, stirring every 10 minutes to prevent scorching

Do try and find a bottle of the Fuller's London Porter if you want to get a good idea of what it's about. I guess the Meantime porter is the other one you're likely to see, I've not had it in a while but memory says it's not as good.

Northern_Brewer said:

Personally I wouldn't go crazy on things like roast barley, which is getting away from an English porter. A classic English porter of the mid-19th century would be

82-87% Chevallier pale malt
10-15% brown malt
3% black malt
1.055-1.060 OG

and that's all for the grist. Chevallier is a historic variety that is available in small quantities from Crisp, but you could substitute it with something like Maris Otter pale with a bit of crystal.

The benchmark for modern porter is Fuller's London Porter, which is amazing on cask but which translates better than most to bottle (and has reasonable distribution which should only improve after Asahi bought them recently). Typical clone recipes are along the lines of :

76% UK pale malt
12% brown malt
10% crystal
2% chocolate
1.053 OG

Historically porters could be hopped to 50-60 IBU and left to age with some Brettanomyces and whatever else was hanging around, modern ones would typically see 35IBU added at 60 or 90 minutes, and 0.5g/l of hops at 10 or 15 minutes. Fuggles would be the classic hop to use but any British hop would do, it's not that critical - or use Willamette or Styrian/Savinjski goldings if they're what you have locally.

They're full-bodied beers, so you want to mash fairly high and use the most characterful, low-attenuation yeast you can find - this is not a beer for Nottingham.

I'm not sure how pilsner would work, other than it would end up thinner and less flavourful than using European pale malt, let along a British pale malt (which gets cooked a bit more than the Continental equivalent, and is made from a more characterful grain to start with). This thread shows you the difference between Weyermann pilsner and their pale malt, a British pale malt would be a bit darker still. It's maybe not something to worry about for your first batch, pilsner will get you pretty close, I'd just pay particular attention to the mash and attenuation as above. One option would be to add maybe 3% Weyermann Carapils, another would be to cook it a little in the oven, I'm sure someone's worked out some timings somewhere.

According to the usual (not entirely reliable) charts, Carafa (Special) II is the closest equivalent to chocolate, and Caramunich III the closest to crystal 60.

Brown is the tough one that doesn't really have an equivalent - if you're in France then the charts suggest MFB Kiln Amber is close. Durden Park suggest the following schedule for making your own from UK pale malt :

30 minutes at 250 degrees Farenheit
30 minutes at 300 degrees
30 minutes at 350 degrees, stirring every 10 minutes to prevent scorching

Do try and find a bottle of the Fuller's London Porter if you want to get a good idea of what it's about. I guess the Meantime porter is the other one you're likely to see, I've not had it in a while but memory says it's not as good.

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Based on my own trials, I strongly disagree regarding using brown malt. I brewed something with about 20 ibus, ten percent brown, rest pale for investigative purposes.

Brew and fermentation went as planned and the result was horribly astringent. It was undrinkable. After half a year of aging, it turned into something nice, but it really needed this long, I had one or two in between, they were bad. Better than the first, but still bad.

The historically used brown malt has not much in common with the modern one (I know that you know, just for people who don't), therefore historical porter recipes are hard to handle as there simply is no modern brown malt that equals the one from back in the days.
I suspect that the Fuller's porter has a unique "brown malt" inside, created according to their own needs, if there is something like brown malt inside at all.

If I would want to go for something "light brown" with not too much of an impact regarding licorice chocolate malt flavour but also wouldn't want the strong roast that roast barley can impart, I would go with chocolate spelt. This gives a nice porter, not dark as the night colour at ten percent and is taste wise not as strong as chocolate malt but goes a bit in the same direction.

Regarding base make, you are certainly right about the pilsener, but as you said, doesn't really matter much in a dark recipe like this

Ok, I believe that I'll try to go with a pale malt or pilsner, chocolate, cara malt and give it a try. Thanks guys. Based on the results I'll post here.

But now it comes another question: I've been watching some youtube videos and some guys use the darker malts after the white ones. Like, they put on the pale malt and later, sometimes a few minutes to the end the dark malts. That is necessary? Thanks!

I recently brewed a Porter with 14% Brown Malt (Crisp English Brown Malt, 60-70L) and the flavor turned out quite nice. I had some other issues with my mash (high temp and low pH). This is definitely going to be my core Porter recipe, but I might scale the Brown Malt back to 10% or so. I tried to come up with my own recipe for a Porter back in Dec and it was just so-so. A friend that has won some competitions with his Porter said "Brown Malt is the key".

For the most part my last recipe was from this article: https://byo.com/article/brown-malt/ It is VERY similar to the Brown/English Porter recipe that is in Brewing Classic Styles. The biggest difference is 1.5 lbs of Brown Malt vs 1.0 lbs.

Note that I think some "Brown Malt" is up in the 150L range.

CascadesBrewer said:

I recently brewed a Porter with 14% Brown Malt (Crisp English Brown Malt, 60-70L) and the flavor turned out quite nice. I had some other issues with my mash (high temp and low pH). This is definitely going to be my core Porter recipe, but I might scale the Brown Malt back to 10% or so. I tried to come up with my own recipe for a Porter back in Dec and it was just so-so. A friend that has won some competitions with his Porter said "Brown Malt is the key".

For the most part my last recipe was from this article: https://byo.com/article/brown-malt/ It is VERY similar to the Brown/English Porter recipe that is in Brewing Classic Styles. The biggest difference is 1.5 lbs of Brown Malt vs 1.0 lbs.

Note that I think some "Brown Malt" is up in the 150L range.

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My problem is that I don't have access to Brown malt, and everybody says that is no substitute to him. So I'm going to make a porter with another malts, as recommended previously.

Appcr4sh said:

But now it comes another question: I've been watching some youtube videos and some guys use the darker malts after the white ones. Like, they put on the pale malt and later, sometimes a few minutes to the end the dark malts. That is necessary? Thanks!

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I have not played with this, but some people will add dark grains either at the end of the mash, during the sparge, or will cold steep and add the liquid. The claim (which I believe to be true) is that it reduces some of the astringency/harshness. Some people like the resulting character and some people think it takes away from the character of dark malts. I have thought about playing around with this to avoid dropping my mash pH too low for dark beers...though I am not positive if this is a good idea.

Appcr4sh said:

My problem is that I don't have access to Brown malt, and everybody says that is no substitute to him. So I'm going to make a porter with another malts, as recommended previously.

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All good!

Appcr4sh said:

Ok, I believe that I'll try to go with a pale malt or pilsner, chocolate, cara malt and give it a try. Thanks guys. Based on the results I'll post here.

But now it comes another question: I've been watching some youtube videos and some guys use the darker malts after the white ones. Like, they put on the pale malt and later, sometimes a few minutes to the end the dark malts. That is necessary? Thanks!

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It might be that my brown malt was an unusual one? I think it was Thomas Facet, but I'm not entirely sure, brewed this quite some time ago.

Also keep in mind that @Northern_Brewer is certainly one of the most knowledgeable persons regarding British styles here in the forum, and I am only speaking from experience from one single batch.

But that one certainly was not nice, before aging.

For the first try I would really keep it simple, no late additions, no fancy malts, create a solid baseline from which you can judge further development easily.

I personally really like s04 in stouts and porters, just to keep it even more simple, but yeast choice certainly is very personal.

Miraculix said:

It might be that my brown malt was an unusual one? I think it was Thomas Facet, but I'm not entirely sure, brewed this quite some time ago.

Also keep in mind that @Northern_Brewer is certainly one of the most knowledgeable persons regarding British styles here in the forum, and I am only speaking from experience from one single batch.

But that one certainly was not nice, before aging.

For the first try I would really keep it simple, no late additions, no fancy malts, create a solid baseline from which you can judge further development easily.

I personally really like s04 in stouts and porters, just to keep it even more simple, but yeast choice certainly is very personal.

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So, I'm using s-04, Thinking in do with pilsen, caraaroma and chocolate. What would you suggest me to go for hop? Styrian Golding or Nugget? If you have more ideas please let me know.

Appcr4sh said:

So, I'm using s-04, Thinking in do with pilsen, caraaroma and chocolate. What would you suggest me to go for hop? Styrian Golding or Nugget? If you have more ideas please let me know.

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I never used either of them, just make sure it's not a typical American citrus bomb variety and use 60 min bittering additions only.