What makes a good Porter?

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firebird400

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Hi everyone.
I have been looking at a lot of porter recipes trying to come up with a good one.

And figured to ask you who have made porters before and like the style.

What makes a good porter?

Is it the grain bill, is there something that HAS TO BE in there in your opinion.

Or does it have to do with hops and/or mash temp.

It is most likely a combination of the lot but what is is IN YOUR OPINION

:mug:
 
You're going to get answers all over the place. It all depends what you like. Personally I prefer to let the grains/roastiness speak for itself and I go very very moderate on the hops.

If you're trying to brew for a competition, BJCP says "English hop aroma moderate to none.".

M_C
Hi everyone.
I have been looking at a lot of porter recipes trying to come up with a good one.

And figured to ask you who have made porters before and like the style.

What makes a good porter?

Is it the grain bill, is there something that HAS TO BE in there in your opinion.

Or does it have to do with hops and/or mash temp.

It is most likely a combination of the lot but what is is IN YOUR OPINION

:mug:
 
A balanced grain bill is important. The difference between just enough and far too much roasted malt isn't that big. With dark beers, you may need to adjust your water if it's very soft.

Other than that, I think you can make great porters and stouts with a lot of variation in ingredients and process: black patent, chocolate malt, roasted barley, brown malt, amber malt, crystal malt are all perfectly legitimate but optional. IBUs can be anywhere between low and high, late hops are optional.
 
I tend to agree. I go easy on the hops as well, small amount of high AA to bitter, no flavor hops. I also prefer black malt (patent) to chocolate malt in porters. Though I have become a fan lately of blends of the two. I also like a nice amount of crystal to offset some of the bitterness from the roast malts. Yeast- I actually prefer a clean yeast like 1056, mash higher and let it do it's crazy attenuation to get me somewhere in the 1.016 range. English yeasts are ok to me but I like to really taste the malts.
 
You're going to get answers all over the place. It all depends what you like. Personally I prefer to let the grains/roastiness speak for itself and I go very very moderate on the hops.

If you're trying to brew for a competition, BJCP says "English hop aroma moderate to none.".

M_C

Yeah I know answers are going to all over the place, but like you say, grains/roastiness. What I am perhaps looking for is how you get that roastiness, because there are perhaps diff. ways to get it.

If in your opinion it must have roasted barley AND roasted rye or certain black malts, well then that is what I am looking to hear ;)

I like the style and I am familiar with how it should taste, this is more of a curiosity as to how others make it. :)
 
I tend to agree. I go easy on the hops as well, small amount of high AA to bitter, no flavor hops. I also prefer black malt (patent) to chocolate malt in porters. Though I have become a fan lately of blends of the two. I also like a nice amount of crystal to offset some of the bitterness from the roast malts. Yeast- I actually prefer a clean yeast like 1056, mash higher and let it do it's crazy attenuation to get me somewhere in the 1.016 range. English yeasts are ok to me but I like to really taste the malts.


Great

I have only used patent so I don´t even know what I would get from using chocolate malt.
 
Ølbart;2928171 said:
A balanced grain bill is important. The difference between just enough and far too much roasted malt isn't that big. With dark beers, you may need to adjust your water if it's very soft.

Other than that, I think you can make great porters and stouts with a lot of variation in ingredients and process: black patent, chocolate malt, roasted barley, brown malt, amber malt, crystal malt are all perfectly legitimate but optional. IBUs can be anywhere between low and high, late hops are optional.

Care to elaborate :)

Perhaps a certain percentage or combination :)
 
The difference between just enough and too much is roasty vs acrid and burnt. I don't know the exact percentages, and they will vary with water profile anyway. You should be fine as long as you don't aim for a beer much darker than black.
 
I use black patent and chocolate in my porter (2% and 6%, respectively). I think it is a good combination, but the next batch I will add some roasted barley, as mine currently isnt very roasty.

I am trying to figure out how much roast I want. If it's a lot, then it's a stout, so I need to slowly work my way up from where I am now.
 
I like a little hint of smoke in the background. No alot, just a hint, no more than 4 ounces in a 5 gallon batch.

When I did extracts with steeping grains, I also used to use a small amount of brewer's licorice in my porter.

If you're looking for a porter recipe, the Perfect Porter recipe in the database seems pretty good. I've only tried it green so far, I'm one week into the secondary. However, it was really good already, probably drinkable already.
 
Porter has a very large range. American ingredients are fine in robust porters. Brown porters are more English.

Ingredients: May contain several malts, prominently dark roasted malts and grains, which often include black patent malt (chocolate malt and/or roasted barley may also be used in some versions). Hops are used for bittering, flavor and/or aroma, and are frequently UK or US varieties. Water with moderate to high carbonate hardness is typical. Ale yeast can either be clean US versions or characterful English varieties.
 
Someone mentioned roasted barley in an earlier post... Personally I do not put it in a porter because that's the major differentiating characteristic between a stout and a porter.

My recent porter, I used this:

84.1% US 2-row
4.55% Crystal 120
2.27% Biscuit Malt
2.27% Chocolate Malt
2.27% Special B
1.14% Black Patent
1.14% Carafa I
1.14% Wheat (for head retention
1.14% Coffee Malt (4.0 oz in a 12-gal batch is just noticeable, and 8.0 oz is almost too much - it's obvious in the aroma and taste)

O.G. 1.054, 35 IBU's.

It's been in the bottle 1 week, I may bring one out tonight :D

M_C
 
I did bring one out last night, it was nicely carbonated.

I was pleased with it, but I did notice that Wyeast 1187 (Ringwood) + Special-B = a faint licorice aroma. It's not unpleasant, just that it surprised me a little. :)

M_C

My recent porter, I used this:

It's been in the bottle 1 week, I may bring one out tonight :D

M_C
 
This is great. :D

Recipes and grain preferences, just the kind of discussion I hoped for.

But since there is no such thing as brown malt available at the local brew store I must order it or find a substitute :/
 
You can toast you own brown malt. Two hundred years ago Porter could have been 100% brown malt. Today's brown malts are not the same. Back them Porter was any brown or darker ale.
 
if you can get amber malt that would be a good substitution for brown malt, it's obviously lighter in color but I think it has a similar sort of subtle roastiness.
 
Chocolate malt, Sometimes a small hint of black patent, and as mentioned before I like to sometime throw a bit of Peat in there as well. Not so much to make it a smoke porter but just enough to know its there. For hops I usually use EKG, Fuggles, and Willamettes. For yeast the standard London ale always works, but I have used Yorkshire sq and have a porter right now that uses Edinburgh.

My last porter I used some black strap molasses too. I also just kegged a porter (Bert Grants perfect porter) that used pure vanilla extract at kegging to.

Did I mention I love Porters and Stouts.

Cheers!
 
This is great. :D

Recipes and grain preferences, just the kind of discussion I hoped for.

But since there is no such thing as brown malt available at the local brew store I must order it or find a substitute :/

Amber is the best sub, but IMO victory and biscuit malts are also similar.
 
In my mind a perfect porter is a robust one, with a full body and a nice chocolately/roasty aroma. I don't know if you can brew a decent robust porter without chocolate malt - my house porter recipe uses 8% chocolate (and 2% roasted barely). To get the body right I have used carapils, but recently in my last batch I used 10% oats - its still fermenting but I think it will be a nice touch! Other than that I believe a little bit of medium to dark crystal malts (80 to 120/special B) adds a nice balancing touch to the roasty malts. I also tend to add munich in almost every beer, this usually shows up around 5-10% of my malt bill in porters for a little added malt complexity.
 
For me it is roastiness derrived from a mix of chocolate and black malt at about a 4 to one ratio, some dark crystal and some munich. I need that hint of black malt in the background and I need it to be heavily hopped with an american C hop. WLP007 is good too.....
 
See Coal Porter in my recipe dropdown. :D

I formulated that recipe ages ago using Terry Foster's excellent book on the style, which I suggest you purchase.

I suggest Crystal, Chocolate and Black Patent malts. To me, Roasted Barley is not appropriate in Porter, because it is the distinctive malt in Stout. Porter needs the phenolic, burnt, ashy character of Black Patent, as well as the nutty, coffee-like tones of Chocolate Malt. A bit of mid-range Crystal gives a nice sweet backbone to the roasted malts. I prefer British specialty malts to American.

With hops, seek balance. Balance is the true indicator that a brewer has mastered his craft; it is difficult to achieve and some never do. In Porter especially, balance is important: The drinker should experience a broad spectrum of flavors and aromas, with no one flavor or aroma dominating the experience. Bitterness from the hops (with perhaps a hint of earthy hops flavor) should enhance the flavors of the roasted grains, with body and residual sweetness from Crystal malt and perhaps a bit of crackery, bready flavors from the base malt (or maybe a touch of Munich malt). Porter should be, in the words of the immortal Michael Jackson, "more-ish". Having one sip should make you want another.

I prefer an English yeast, or at least a fruity American yeast like White Labs Cal V.

So: Don't brew it too strong, don't let any one characteristic stand out, and for heaven's sake don't serve it too cold. Cellar temperature, if you please. ;)

Good luck! :mug:

Bob
 
See Coal Porter in my recipe dropdown. :D

I formulated that recipe ages ago using Terry Foster's excellent book on the style, which I suggest you purchase.

Good luck! :mug:

Bob


Thank you :)

I went and got me the Porter book, the Stout book and the Oktoberfest book :D

I will have plenty to read when they get here in e few weeks.

And I am just about to check out your recipe :mug:
 
See Coal Porter in my recipe dropdown. :D


Bob

Why use sugar.

Does it anything other than add to the ABV.

Should the low OG not be reached with all-grain.

Maybe I am strange like that but I feel that brewing all-grain is making beer, partial mash is cheating a bit :confused:
 
You're not strange. You're wrong. You can feel however you want. That's your right. It is not, however, correct.

Sugar is used in beer. Many of the best beers on the planet use sugar as part of the grist, including many benchmark examples of styles. Sugar is just another ingredient, another weapon in a good brewer's arsenal. If you're going to dismiss sugar because you feel like it's cheating, you're deliberately denying yourself some excellent beers - like most of the Belgian styles - and displaying yourself as a less-than-knowledgeable brewer.

That's a blunt statement from a guy who's sick to death of pretentious hobbyists who poo-poo sugar. That attitude is a cultural holdover from the days when "homebrew" meant a little bit of hopped extract and a LOT of sugar. That's not what my recipe is, and it's not what a wise brewer's use of sugar means.

Now, if you really want the reasoning behind why there's sugar in the recipe and not just to take a cheap, passive-aggressive shot at people who use sugar, it's because I wanted to lighten the body slightly and maintain a given original gravity in a recipe that needs to be brewed on a system that can only handle a certain volume of grist. The original recipe was developed on a 3.5-bbl (4hl) system and was scaled down to 5 gallons. That required some tweaking.

Grumble,

Bob
 
The recipe from CYBI for Black Butte Porter is really good. I recently used the recipe with San Fran Lager yeast and took third for porters in a local comp. I entered it as a baltic porter. I have made it with ale yeast also and it's great.
 
I use around 10-15% C60, 5-10% chocolate and small amounts of biscuit and roasted barley. I like Maris Otter for the base grain over other pale malts or domestic 2 row.
 
Anyone barrel age their porter? I've got a batch of Bert Grant's Perfect Porter that's been in secondary for a couple weeks, and have the opportunity to pick up a barrel.
 
My local Brewpub bourbon barrel conditions stout, porter, IPA, india brown, maibock, and maybe some others. They are all good to me. If you like good beer and good bourbon put good beer on good bourbon wood.
 
Hopefully color is key. Here are two commercial Porters and my entry for this year's Spring Fling.

3_porters.jpg
 
You're not strange. You're wrong. You can feel however you want. That's your right. It is not, however, correct.

Sugar is used in beer. Many of the best beers on the planet use sugar as part of the grist, including many benchmark examples of styles. Sugar is just another ingredient, another weapon in a good brewer's arsenal. If you're going to dismiss sugar because you feel like it's cheating, you're deliberately denying yourself some excellent beers - like most of the Belgian styles - and displaying yourself as a less-than-knowledgeable brewer.

That's a blunt statement from a guy who's sick to death of pretentious hobbyists who poo-poo sugar. That attitude is a cultural holdover from the days when "homebrew" meant a little bit of hopped extract and a LOT of sugar. That's not what my recipe is, and it's not what a wise brewer's use of sugar means.

Now, if you really want the reasoning behind why there's sugar in the recipe and not just to take a cheap, passive-aggressive shot at people who use sugar, it's because I wanted to lighten the body slightly and maintain a given original gravity in a recipe that needs to be brewed on a system that can only handle a certain volume of grist. The original recipe was developed on a 3.5-bbl (4hl) system and was scaled down to 5 gallons. That required some tweaking.

Grumble,

Bob

Bob, that was in no way a cheap shop towards you :)

And yes I am a less-than-knowledgeable brewer, in fact a total noob and this is all very new to me so excuse me for not knowing, now however, I know ;)

I am spending as much time as I can reading about home brewing these days, my brew "rig" if I can call it that is inop so I use the time learning and hopefully setting up recipes to go by when I finish upgrading my system.

Again Bob, I appreciate the post you posted and sorry if I made you grumble, non intended.
 
Sorry, brother. You didn't know you were stepping on a short-tempered land mine. As long as you're not angry at my overly-grumpy tone, I'm happy.

Anything I can do to help, you just send me a PM. As you can tell if you read my posts, I like to blather. ;)

Cheers! :mug:

Bob
 
I use around 10-15% C60, 5-10% chocolate and small amounts of biscuit and roasted barley. I like Maris Otter for the base grain over other pale malts or domestic 2 row.

I have often wondered what the difference is between marris otter and pale.

I´ll have to google it :D
 
I have often wondered what the difference is between marris otter and pale.

I´ll have to google it :D

MO is a 2 row hybrid developed in the UK in the 60s. It has a slightly maltier flavor profile, but is otherwise very similar to 2 row, since it is a 2 row. Many brewers will use 2 row instead of MO because of the price difference, but if it's a english ale, go with the MO for authenticity.
 
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